Week 105

I'M FLYING FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm way excited about the flight plans coming in and stuff, but I am NOT looking forward to how long it's gonna take -.-'

I don't think I ever sent these pictures, but it's me and Mcmullin reuniting at the Christmas party, and then me and all the Latinos in the Praia and Assomada zones haha.

Week 65

Psh, I don't know what this whole "adult" thing is you are talking about, but if it doesn't include Dragon Ball Z, then I'm not doing it.
Anyways, Hi! This past week was great, I even walked around with my camera and took a bunch of pictures to send you, but then I got here to the internet cyber, and the owner apparently downloaded some sort of other internet program and DOESN'T allow you to send pics.
But back to my great week; the work is going a lot better now, we had been struggling for a few weeks. We are teaching a few families that are super cool, and we had 10 investigators at church yesterday.
Also, the Chapel is almost done! So we have had the chance to do activities every Saturday again, but this time us missionaries are in charge, at least for the next few weeks. This past Saturday we had like 30 people there and it was super fun, everyone loved it. I definitely feel loved here, I love the members and it honestly makes me not miss home.

Oh Yessss! I figured it out! lol turns out I CAN send pictures from here.

This was this past Saturday, this is the Sacrament room.

Also, we visited a zone a 20 minute car ride away called "Palha Verde" and we took some members with us. We have an inactive family there that nobody visited for a while, they were happy to talk to us. 

It's in the middle of nowhere though, and there is NOTHING out there lol. 

And I'm not sure if I ever told you, but our Branch President is in a wheelchair. He had an accident a few years ago and can't walk, but he always stands up for a couple of hours a day because he's been able to take a few steps and believes he can walk again someday. I hope he gets there!

So these are the April Fool's pictures of the Saran-wrapped toilet.

Week 62

Man, you have no idea how much your email cheered me up. I had a really rough week, we taught less than half the number of lessons we usually teach. Yesterday we only had one investigator at church again, AND for some stupid reason, soccer (and sports) are now against the rules in the mission.
Also, our water heater blew up last Monday, so it was gushing out water while we were out working. We came back to the house to find a solid inch of standing water everywhere. We mopped up water for 2 straight hours.
This is kind of a bad picture of it, but I didn't think of photographing anything until after half the water was gone.

Also, here is a random selfie of Me, Chevy, and McMullin. We are wearing the 3 ties mom sent me a long time ago. 

Week 61

I can finally send pics, but the week was pretty normal, nothing too crazy. We had a ton of success this week, we have been struggling to get investigators to church for the past month, but we had 5 yesterday, which was a huge improvement from the 1 we had last week. I also gave a talk on missionary work along with Chevy and Sampson. All 4 of us also put together a fireside about temples and missionary work, it went pretty good.
It was also my son's birthday! We didn't celebrate it with anything big though, just shawarma! Sorry it was a really bad pic of it but it was darn good. Chevy and I wrestled him down and gave him his birthday spankings though, haha it was fun. I also somehow talked him into buying this shirt that says "we own the night" lol it fits him extremely small.

 

Btw, PLANNER NUMBER 10!!!! I hit double digits!!!! I was very happy that morning. My stack actually looks like a stack! Haha McMullin is all mad cuz he only has 2 lol. Which does feel horrible, Olsen had 10 and I only had 1 when I was being trained and I wanted to cry, lol not really. 

So here is the picture I tired to send last week of McMullin's broken bed. It happened in the middle of the night too, I heard a loud sound at like 4 in the morning, so I turned my head and saw his legs up int he air and he was all like "shut up" half asleep and it was HILAROUS. I lost 30 minutes of sleep due to nonstop laughing. So he basically just balanced it until 6:30 when it was time to wake up and rolled out of bed and the bed just fell apart again. 

Also, the senior missionaries went home!! The Demkes are awesome, I'm gonna miss them a lot. They took us out to eat one last time before they left, they were super nice. 

Oh and before I forget, McMullin's mom is super nice and she sent him a care package with a tie for me. It's like a pastel purple for Easter. Tell her I said thank you on my blog!

Week 59

So nothing really interesting happened this week, just same old work. But hey! funny story about my son. So I was having stomach problems one day and I needed to make a mad dash for the bathroom. Luckily, there is ONE public bathroom in this city (and the only one I have seen in this country) and it was closer than our house, so I went there. It's also a fish, fruit, and vegetable market so that's where everyone buys those things. Before going into the restroom, I gave McMullin a pass along card and told him "Here, contact someone by yourself. Get the name and number and where they live, good luck!" and I went into the restroom. I swear I only took like 5 minutes and when I came out, I saw McMullin with a huge bag of fruit and he's like "Don't even ask about it!". It turns out he tried contacting a fruit lady and told her he wanted one pear. He ended up getting haggled by the lady and she sold him like 7 pears and a huge papaya haha. He spent almost 10 bucks on it, that's enough for like 4 lunches for us. Yeah... we need to work on his Portuguese ;p

Week 58: Baptism & A Huge Tub of Ice Cream

So exciting thing that happened this week, we had our 3rd miracle baptism of the month! His name is Lessio, he's 16 and Keven's younger brother (the one who got baptized 4 weeks ago). Man, this kid did some MAJOR changes in his life. He hated talking to us and wanted nothing to do with the church. He was always hanging out in the streets with his gang of little thugs and even dropped out of school when he was 13. But after Keven was baptized he started wanting to talk to us again, even showed up to church 4 Sundays ago all on his own. He has changed so much, he's keeping the law of chastity, studying the scriptures and praying every day, and hasn't missed a Sunday so far. He just seems way happier.
And thankfully, nothing crazy happened to my son during this baptism, haha. But the water was FREEZING cold, the coldest baptism I've had so far.

I do make sure something happens every day to Elder McMullin, just to keep him happy and his mission interesting. I don't pick on him, I just make his life interesting. He seems like he's a lot more at home now, and the more stuff that happens, the less he things of home. That's something I SUCKED at when I was a greenie. I would think of home ever spare second I had. 

Two days ago we were wrestling in the house with Chevy (Elder Chevalier) and we broke his bed haha. The frame fell apart but we put it back together, we didn't take a picture of it but it looked hilarious. I also volunteered him to give a talk next Sunday, he's excited (not really) but it'll be good practice for him. 

And we bought a huge tub of ice cream! It's totally worth eating just beans and rice at the end of the month for this, haha. It's "Ceu" flavored, which means heaven. The name fits cuz it really tastes heavenly. The white stuff are bits of white chocolate.

Also, have I mentioned that people here just pee and poop everywhere in the middle of the day, especially kids. McMullin isn't a fan of that, so he made a goal to not see any naked people during the day. Naturally, I now always point out when a kid is peeing or something. So far, he hasn't made it past lunchtime without  breaking his goal, haha it's hilarious. 

Week 55, First Son!

My week was great!! It felt super short and way long at the same time. First of all, I took a 2 day vacation to Praia to pick up Elder McMullin! My first son!! Elder Olsen is excited to get a grandson haha. Anyway, McMullin is a boss, we get along great. He's kind of a shy, timid guy, but I'm already working on that haha, I'm getting him to smile and talk a lot more. He is in a culture shock but not too bad, Santa Maria is a comfortable area to serve in, it's nice. Once he gets transferred though it will be a second culture shock for him.
This past Saturday he had his first baptism!!! We baptized Keven, with whom I've been working with for the past month. This kid is a boss, he is 18 years old and during our first lesson with him we actually kicked him out of the room haha. We were teaching a group of teenagers and he kept laughing and just making a bunch of dumb jokes, so we told him to leave. He did a complete 180 and has been changing a lot in the past few weeks.

So interesting thing about my son's baptism, while we were in the water, he accidentally cut his foot open on a sharp rock, it was bleeding like crazy and wouldn't stop. I rushed him to a clinic and they were getting ready to stitch it closed. The medic was off the clock so he didn't have any helpers so he told me "You want to me my helper?". So I got all excited getting all the needles out and the sewing kit thing, but then he looked at the cut and it turns out it didn't need stitches after all (bummer) haha. 

Here are some pictures, I had to take a picture with him haha. He was a good sport about it too. 

#bestdadever

He ended up getting adhesive stitches, so he can't get his foot wet for 5 days. This morning he was like "how do I shower without getting my foot wet???" This is what I came up with, he didn't like it much haha, but it was funny.