Letter #6

Hello, my beautiful wonderful glorious family and friends,

Why, you may be wondering am I this excited? Because stuff happened. Stuff went down in Brazil this week.

The most recent first

1- Baptizing in a bathtub
It´s no secret that Brazilians are rather small people. I am a rather large person. Went to baptize a fellow elder in the temple this week, Elder Johnson hi, who is 6´6´´. How´d it go down? Rough. We walk in. The water is literally scraping our knee caps. Instead of the normal dunking, it ended up being something along the lines of, he lays down horizontal, I push his body down under the water, and then have to drag him out. The font was also stainless steel which led to some slipping around. The font in the Sao Paulo temple is probably the prettiest I've seen.

2- Pineapples
Everyone who I have any sort of inside joke with, somehow it ends up being about a pineapple. The district thought they would be funny this week, and stole the pineapple that I took from lunch. Why am I so angry, it´s just pineapple? Don´t say that until you´ve had Brazilian pineapple. I´m now on a one on one loving revenge game with the instigator. Love you Elder Clifford.

3- Lula Molusca
Another well known fact, I don´t have cartalage in my nose. This coupled with the natives love for Spongebob, or Bob Sponja as he´s known here, led to my teacher giving my the nickname Lula Malusca, which means squidward. Now, that´s all he calls me. He thinks it´s hilarious, the district laughs, I´m too busy learning to care.

4- Jehovah´s Witness
Little gross but it happened. Apparently the Jehovah´s Witness peoples hate us. Elder Webster and I passed some on the street, some angry Portuguese words we didn't understand were thrown at us so we just smiled and kept walking. Felt something hit my shirt, didn't look back, didn't acknowledge it. What t'was it? I´ll tell you what it t'was. T'was a massive, thick, slimy, very, very, very yellow luuuuugggie. Smile and wave boys.

5-Proselyting
This was probably the best experience I've in Brazil so far. I loved it. The second time proselyting went so much better (also a little worse, see #6). We met and talked to, in Portuguese yuh, with quite a handful of natives who understood what we were saying and we got most of what they said as well.

6- The weekly crazy experience that somehow only seems to happen to Elder Webster and I
This is a good one. Most people go their whole missions without an experience like this. We were proselyting and this man, clearly homeless grabbed Elder Webster by the shoulder and started talking. He was so nice, and honestly such a great person to talk to, if not a little scary to talk to. We probably spent a good half hour talking to him and he told us he´d met missionaries earlier in his life but never went to church with them. He´s going on Sunday by the way, we hope. This is where the real crazy begins though.

WARNING: CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF 16 SHOULD ONLY READ THE FOLLOWING SECTION IF APPROVED BY AN ADULT
I don´t actually know how bad this is just reading it, but we lived it so enjoy. While we´re talking to this man, there is another homeless man, this one a little crazy about ten feet away. At random points, he would run up, slander us up a little, and the take off, so we were not paying him tooo much attention. The man would wave him off and then we´d go back to talking. Anyways, after a pause in the insults, he stood about ten feet behind the man, so only we could see him. And he ripped off his shirt. And then his pants. Leaving us with a pair of grey briefs with what I can only hope was a lincoln log sticking out of the back.
And then those came off too.
And then he did a little dance for us.
Front and back.
And front again.
Welcome to Brazil

BBBUUUTTT, I would like to say, that though all this, while we´re teaching a man who´s appearance had prevented other missionaries from stopping, with a fully naked man dancing in the background,
the spirit was there. In a language that we don´t speak very well, watching what can only be described as horrifying, Elder Webster and I were able to talk with a man who very clearly needed the gospel, and very clearly wanted it. The Holy Ghost was standing there, I can say without a doubt, looking over us and helping us help this man.

That about wraps it up, I love yous guys and am excited for next week. By the way, we go into the field on Tuesday so I´ll be able to send pictures next time I think.

Love,

Elder Lula