Monday, Feb 13th 2012

Oi Família!!!

What a week it was! I had a lot of fun this week to tell you all the truth. My companion and I work in a ward here in the middle of the big city of São Paulo, and here in São Paulo the public transportation is amazing! There are buses that go to every corner of the city and you can get to where you want, when you want, for just three reals (the money here is called "real"). So we are able to do a lot of exchanges with the mission leaders really easily here in the city, but when it comes to the missionaries in the upperstate of São Paulo, it gets a little more complicated. It´s really expensive and really far away. But we needed to do some training out there so my companion and I went together for a tour of the mission.

On Tuesday we went to a city called São José dos Campos. This is one of the bigger cities outside of the huge metropolis of São Paulo. Usually the cities outside of São Paulo are known to be really underdeveloped and slow. Not necessarily poor, but the style of the people is really outdated and there is much less movement throughout the city. But this city was really nice actually. It had the feel of a big city, but it wasn´t nearly as crazy as São Paulo. I looked around and saw a lot of parks and GRASS and I thought to myself that this would be a great place to live. We worked well there with the zone leaders and then grabbed the next bus to Lorena! I don´t know if anyone has been keeping track of the areas that I´ve worked in, but Lorena was my third area on the mission. It´s an extremely tiny city out in the middle of nowhere! Well, I went back to help the district leader out there and I saw all the members and I even saw this guy whom I helped build a house. This guy isn´t a member, but the rest of his family is. I looked at him and told him, "I bet you never thought I would be back, but I am back to call you to baptism my friend!" He looked at me and actually said, "You know, I was actually thinking about this already." I marked his baptism for the end of this month and he told me that he´d call me to come back out there to watch the baptism. I hope it all goes well! This guy is one of my best friends from the mission and I would be so happy if he were to be baptized right now. Then the next day was even better. Until last Thursday, I had never seen the beaches here in Brazil... no more!!! I went to a city called Caraguatatuba and worked with the zone leader there. The air was hot and humid, but I LOVED it!!! It really was a great thing for me to be there and breathe that ocean air. The best part was that to get there, you have to go through this big ol´ canyon that kind of reminded me of the roads to get to Payson Canyon. When you come out at the top, you just look right out into the ocean! It´s soooo beautiful! I will try to find a picture to send to you all.

The work is still going extremely well out here. Our ward is extremely happy with all the recent-converts and the way that they are all working in the organizations. I am really happy because the majority of our recent-converts are going on the youth camp-out this weekend! I know that once they go, they will remain in the Church forever! The youth conferences that they have are perfect because they are like EFY. All the youth go and come back with a stronger testimony.

This Sunday was pretty funny. Our ward is great, but sometimes they forget to plan our lunches, so we have to always keep track of what´s going on with lunch or else we go without eating for the day. Sunday morning, the sister that was going to give us lunch did not remember and told us that we had to find another place to eat. Well, we couldn´t necessarily BUY anything to eat that day, so we went hunting for another sister in the ward. I remembered that we baptized a single mom and her kids on Christmas and she now calls me her son :) I went up to her and asked if she would be willing to feed her sons, and just so happens that she is a professional cook!!! Score! I love the Gospel because it unites us all in the love of Christ and great food!

I love you all and I hope you are all enjoying the sun while it lasts! It was about 110 degrees down here this whole week so I am praying for snow! haha Love you all!

Elder Clark