October 4, 2011

Oi Família, As you all know i got tranfered. I am now in a city called Passo Fundo (Deep Step) my area is called Bosque (Grove) because there are 4 areas in the city of Passo Fundo. It is a great area that has mostly just houses and small markets and no banks. We have to go to the main city (out of our area) to use the bank and send e-mails. Luckily the small markets are usually cheaper than the big markets so it is not too bad to have small markets. Our are is small and our apartment is way small. My companion is Elder Nagliati (Na-glee-ah-chee). He is from São Paulo and only has 2 months on the mission, and since this is only his 2nd transfer i am technically his 2nd trainer. Our area is great and we have alot of people to teach. Right now we have 5 people with a marked baptismal date (Terezinha Valdir and their 2 kids and also Vanda). The only problems with the family is marriage which they need money for and Vanda just needs to stop smoking. We have many more people to teach we usually don´t have time to think of what to do next which is great. The lunches here so far have been really good. We have already had a couple family nights which are alot of fun. Not way too much happened this week other than getting to know the area and the people we are teaching. I have a felling it will be a great transfer. I am already loving this area and it has only been a week here. I hope i am still in the area for Christmas which is only three transfers away including this transfer. It is crazy how fast the time passes here on the mission. On saturday and sunday we got to watch Genral Conference all except Preishtood session. We got to watch a little bit of priesthood session on Sunday morning. Some weird/crazy things that have happened here in our area: Yesterday while we were walking to an appointment there was a random pig´s head laying on the sidewalk, that is also an idea of how clean this city is outside of the city part. It is not a dirty city but it is not clean like my last area.On Sunday when we were at the stake center before conference we turned on the piano to play it and it just started smoking and smelt like coffee in the church. Another crazy thing is i didn´t get to see our church (where our ward goes) until yesterday because we had to go and write down where all our lunches are. It is older than the one in Lajeado but alot bigger with a soccer/basketball court. On Saturday between the two sessions we were trying to visit a bunch of people and get back to the church. During that time we were able to visit 4 people and do a couple other things and get back to the church but we were basically running and doing quick visits the entire time. Also on Saturday a bunch of drunk people kept stopping us and having us do prayers with them it was kinda weird. I can barely understand what the drunk people are saying other than that i understand about 90% of what people say. I am starting to learn alot more Portuguese again since i have a Brazilian companion. He speaks pretty well in English and he understands alot of it. Oh another thing is the first day i was here our shower was broken so i had to take a cold shower and it was not fun at all. It is really hot here and our area has alot of hills so i am dying when i am climbing up all the hills. It is really hot already and it is only spring here. I will probably die during the summer. I hear that the South of Brasil is the hottest during the summer but also the coldest during the winter because of the humidity. Well i am loving my area and my companion and my mission. It is crazy it has almost been a year. I love you all very much and hope all is well back at home. Love Elder Cefalo