Week 25

Hey Everyone!

This week was a pretty normal one here in Julio de Mesquita. Last Thursday marked 6 months here in Brazil, which is the supposed "point" at which missionaries are fluent in the mission language. At this point I understand basically everything that's said and I can say what I want without thinking to much about the words themselves. Consistantly conjugating verbs correctly and adjusting to the fact that inanimate objects can be referred to as "him" or "her" ("it" doesn't really exist in portuguese) still prove to be the hardest parts of speaking. As far as fluency I'm either not fluent yet or I was already fluent when I left Itapetininga.

This week was great in that we have 7 people we are teaching who are preparing to be baptized on March 1st! We'll be working with them a bunch this week and the next to help them arrive at the waters of baptism that day. 6 of them live in the CDHU, the government funded houses, which means that they come from humbler living circumstances, but the people there are some of the people that would benefit the most from the gospel. The only problem is that it's kind of far from the chapel and getting to church is hard.

As far as the weather report: after weeks of record setting heat and drought (from what we heard, its been 70 years since it got this bad) we finally got some rain and cloud cover this week so its cooled down a lot.

After 8 weeks we finally got the beds and desks and furniture that we needed! It's been nice to sleep in a bed and study at a desk. My back hasn't been giving me too many problems. After a long day it's sore, but then again, so is the rest of my body! So I don't notice it too much.

And I hope that whoever stole my Valentine's package reads this and knows that I really do forgive them and I hope that they liked the candy :)

That's all I've got for now, I love you guys and I'm praying for you always!

Love, Elder Carr