March 3, 2010

Hey Family,

How’s it going. That’s so nuts about Zach. (Zach Nalder broke his ankle playing soccer on his mission in Argentina and came home for surgery. He will be going back out in a couple of months or so.) Do you guys know if he is still a missionary or what will happen? That happened to a Brazilian here in our mission and he ended up having to make up those months. They said it’s a new thing the First Presidency is doing. Do you guys know if he will have to? Actually I don’t think he can cause a visa only last 2 years... at least here anyways. Man I’m sure his emotions were just going nuts.

Anyway that’s really sad to hear about Grandpa Lowe (Gerald Lowe passed away this week. He was Tim's Bishop, neighbor and close friend) ... send hugs to everyone from me. I’ve been thinking about him and their family a lot this week. What a great man! What a great family! He can be proud of the life he led here on this earth and he can be proud of his family.

So my companion and I are way, way different but it’s good to have a little contrast huh. He is really, really fast and talks way fast. He wanted to get a marker to mark a scripture and took the corner to fast and fell. I couldn’t help but laugh. I’m trying to help him to chill out a little about things. Here in Bahia everything’s so calm. But he is really good – really, really excited to teach and help the branch here so that’s good. It’s funny to see a new elder. We taught a lesson to a guy who was pretty wishy washy about everything but said we could come again. We left and my companion was already planning the guy's baptism and said “man what if he is called as a mission president some day? Did you think about that?” Ha, it’s funny. I’m just doing everything I can to keep that young, hopeful spirit in him. It’s funny though. He doesn’t speak a word of english so that’s good. And he talks really fast so I’m learning a lot just from communicating with him, but in the mornings he just wakes up and starts spouting Portuguese at me and I just look at him with a blank stare because I don’t catch any of it, haha. But he is a really good missionary. I’m actually learning lots from him. I think President got our callings backwards.

That’s so cool the Hillmans are still doing so well. Tell them I think about them a lot and miss them.

Elder Palmer was from Sandy, Utah and yeah, I do miss Elder Morris. I miss english and Americans - just have more in common most of the time so that was fun but my new companion is cool too. This week I did have to speak in church for the first time in my whole mission. It’s been a miracle because I haven’t been capable until now. And it wasn’t even in my own branch. It was in Coroa Vermelha, but it went good I think. I hope they understood some of what I said.

It’s still pretty hot here, but its been raining a lot this week and I just left the old umbrella in my last casa so I’ve just been manning up and dealing with it. But it’s good. So yeah my shoe laces broke and I had bought this one for my Vans in my last area and I put it on my dress shoe. (We saw a picture with Tim in it and he had a green shoe lace in one of his shoes, so we asked him about it.) It’s actually helped a lot because people just laugh when they see it and just realize were goofy normal people too. It’s funny. But yeah things are good here. I miss you guys a lot though. I thought that would go away, but no. But holy smokes I have more then 9 months now. I get to call you in a month and a half and I’ll have like 11 months behind me. It’s crazy huh. But anyways I love you all. Weenie man needs to write more and someone bark at Monty for me. (We told Tim that Monty is starting to tell us what dogs say.)

Oh man and I got my first kiss on the mission! This little girl - she is 1 and 6 and the cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my life - crawled up on the couch next to me and kissed me on the cheek. We reactivated their family and they’re going so strong now. I love them so much. I’ll send a picture of her. She never, never, never is not smiling from ear to ear. She makes me miss Monty though. But I’ll take a picture of her. Anyways, love you all. Take care. Peace.