Letter #79

Dear Family, 

The amazing race is over. We're back home, safe and sound after twelve days spent visiting all ten zones for some amount of time or another. To give you the cliff notes version it went like this the last week: 

Monday: Foz

Tuesday: Foz then bus to Cascavel

Wednesday: Bus to Maringá, then with President to Londrina

Thursday: Bus to Presidente Prudente, then to Adamantina

Friday: Bus to Tupã then to Bauru

Saturday: Bus to Agudos then to Lençois Paulista then back to Bauru

Sunday: Bus to Marília then to Londrina, arriving 8:30 at night!

That's the bus schedule since I last wrote. I estimate conservatively that we traveled in all 1,300 miles or approximately 108 miles a day. Not bad. It was an amazing race to get from one place to another all in our short time. Some highlights:

The waterfalls I will leave to the photos to explain but it was worth every cent and all the hype it has been given. Put it on your "when I am in Brasil" list because they're AMAZING. It was a show! Each viewpoint succeeded in taking your breath away again and again and again. Really, it was that good. 

Then that night we had our dual zone meeting with the zone leaders over a rhodizia de Pizza, which translated is all you can eat pizza that comes to your table, and all you can eat ice cream etc, for the low missionary price of $7 : )

Tuesday we attended Elder Moeller's district meeting which was excellent and then spent the day with Elders Poore and Fletcher in Porta Meira. What an amazing area! We were ten feet from Paraguay and I've never seen a people more receptive in my whole mission. We found multiple families to teach and baptize within blocks of the church, many which had already gone to church or had family members baptized in other wards. Excellent stuff.

Then we caught two city buses to get to the bus station and headed out to Cascavel. We slept the night there, ate more pizza there (hey, I lost weight over all on the trip so it's alright ; ).

Wednesday we were almost stranded in Cascavel but managed to get the last two seats on the last bus out of there to Maringá, where, after five hours on the bus we met up with President and Sister Genaro who were doing interviews, and made the drive back to Londrina with them, an enjoyable experience with lots of laughs.

We slept in the secretaries' house, and early the next morning we grabbed the first bus to Presidente Prudente, 3.5 hours to get there. I slept, where after meeting with Elders Pereira and Firmino we lunched with the very first member I met in the mission, the man who got me from that very rodoviária my first day on my way to Tupã. Cool.

Then we set off at breakneck speed to Adamantina, where I reunioned with Elder Ancocnetani and we set off to teach and to interview and to baptize. We slept six missionaries on four mattresses.

 

In the morning set off for Tupã where, I had some down time in between busses and so chanced a visit to my first baptism, who is doing well, though in failing health and spends her time reading the new Joseph Fielding Smith manual. We prayed together and it was an eternally sweet reunion. I admit to being teary eyed.

We bade farewell to Tupã but only after I met up with my filho Elder Alves and friend Elder Carneiro, who brought us a little lunch, then we caught a bus for three hours to Bauru.

In Bauru we slept in the house of Elders Hendrix and de los Santos from Uruguay. In the morning I set off with him to Agudos where I lunched with the much beloved couple who always took good care of me and cooked up a very fancy feijoada just for our visit. Then we went to Lençois to help firm up a baptism there. We went back to Bauru and arriving at the stake center had another unexpected reunion with a young man and his family who are firm in the faith! What joy that brought! Moreover, I heard that a couple and their family that I reactivated are also strong and going to church. 

Then we headed to Geisel with Elders Haws and Morgan where we caught the end of one baptism and I, talking with a young man in the hallway, found out he wasn't a member of the church, and had been going to church for two months, so I pulled him in to interview and he will be baptized tomorrow : ) Super kid and future missionary. 

We had to run to get home on time after catching a tardy bus, so that meant more pizza to replace to calories. . . : ) 

Sunday morning another bus brought us to Marília to watch sacrament meeting in the Parati ward, lunch was bbq, then back to Londrina on the bus for four hours. 

Observations. I had a wonderful time, enjoyed greenery in Maringá.

And the different chapels which we opened up to investigators (which will be done on a mission wide scale tomorrow).

  

 Foz is very, very hot but not hotter than Texas. It is a crazy city to be sure. Cascavel, I can't say much but it has excellent pizza. Prudente seems cleaner than it was a year ago. Tupã is still blindingly scalding full of sunbeams. I have little to no desire to ever ride a bus again nor to eat in the restaurants that the bus stations furnish. I've been greatly swindled by their monopolistic prices and small portions. 

My letter is a little disjointed because I've been working in the office today off and on trying to also have a p-day. I couldn't find any new shoes this afternoon because it appears Brasilians have little feet. The President is going to bring me to another store that he said has larger sizes so we'll see.

We are on the verge of very important transfers and so we spent much of today discussing with the President the changes that need to be made, etc. Always the greatest of pleasures to work by his side.

I love you and hope this week is splendid.

Love,

Tanner

p.s. If you could, would you send me some fly weight exercises in pdf? I got little 2 kilo dumbbells to exercise with in the morning : )