Registro - Week 7

Let's move on to the weekly news!

So starting on last Monday... We visited Franciele e Matteus. They responded pretty well. I did an object lesson where you get a tupperware thing of water and you put a little bit of steel wool on top and it floats. We talked about when Christ was walking on the water and Peter walked on the water as well. So the steel wool is Peter and he's walking on the water and everything is chill.  Then we talked about what helps us have faith: scriptures and prayer and church and all that good stuff. Then I asked, "What is one thing we do that hurts our faith?" It could be whatever. Then you get a little bit of dish soap and put one drop in the water. Then the steel wool sinks, and it's to show that a drop of doubt or whatever it is can change everything.

On Tuesday , I got a little canvas thing for Elder Martins to paint on for me. It turned out nice. Elder Azarias found one of the olympic coins, which is a mascot, which is a rare one. He doesn't even collect them, so that made me super happy. I was like, "I want it, what do you want for it?" And he said, "Will you teach me how to do the rubik's cube?" And I was like, "Heck yes I will!" Best deal ever. So that was awesome, I got a sweet olympics coin for trading information. :) He's getting pretty good at it, he hasn't quite memorized everything but at least he does it by himself now. So that's cool. Also I'm learning a new piano song, in case you guys are wondering, it's the Luigi's Mansion medley. It's pretty cool, I like it. I bet Matt would like it as well.

On Wednesday, we didn't have a lunch, but we all pitched in and we made some pretty good macaroni. We visited Viviane and it was the 2nd time she's asked us for a priesthood blessing. Also on Wednesdays, I started doing the English class at the school for adults. Which I'm not super excited about because I realized that I don't like teaching English. :) I'm fine with teaching it to other missionaries, but to people who either don't have that much will to learn English or they're not super interested, I don't like teaching it. But on the way to the English class on Wednesday, this super drunk guy stopped us. He was in nice clothes but he was super drunk. He kept telling us his name was Michael Andrade and also that he lives in California. So if you guys know a Michael Andrade per chance, I talked to him the other day. :) I'm pretty sure he doesn't live in California, I might be wrong, who knows. :) He kept telling me to write his name down, and then I wrote it down, and he got mad at me for some reason. Then at the end of his little drunk rant, he sort of reached out and touched my hair, so that was creepy. I don't know what it is about my hair that makes people think that it's okay to touch it, but I'll have to look into that, because not okay. :) So English class, they have an English teacher, so I thought I would just be there in the class to help them with pronunciation and stuff, but no. The teacher was like, "Alright, you have an hour. Go ahead. You can use the white board if you want." I was like, I'm not prepared for this, I thought that I would just be helping, but nope I teach the whole thing. So we just talked about food and stuff, just vocab, it was boring, I was bored. But whatever. I'll have to see if I can do something exciting for the next ones. Also, Elder Rodriguez laid on top of his glasses and broke them irreparably, I'll talk more about that for Thursday.

On Wednesday night, we were coming home and I saw a bat just chillin' on the side of the road. It didn't look like he was hurt, he was sort of crawling around, don't know why he wasn't flying. It was kind of interesting to see a little bat. Then incidentally, another day after that, we were passing on the same road, and I saw a little bat pancake. So I'm guessing it was him, and at least he was put out of his misery. :)

So on Thursday, I'm pretty sure we went to all the glasses stores in Registro, but then we finally went to the Registro eye hospital or Hospital de Olhos de Registro, and Elder Rodriguez bought contacts, because he had been wanting contacts but when he was home his dad wouldn't let him get them. So I guess he took advantage of not being near his dad to buy them, which I did not counsel him to do. But whatever, I'm not going to hold his hand. There was a lady in there that helped him learn how to put them in and take them out. It was a very out of body experience, it was like watching myself learn how to do contacts for the first time, except it was all in Portuguese, it was pretty crazy. It's been funny these few days watching him struggle like crazy to try to put them in and take them out. His time is coming down, when he first started out it was like 15-20 minutes, now it's like 10, he'll probably go down to 5 minutes not far from now, so he's getting better. It's very funny watching him learn how to use contacts. So what else... We couldn't visit anybody because they were too tired to let us in.

On Friday, we had a division with the ZLs, the líders de zona. That was fine, we went to lunch with them. I went with Elder Brandão and Elder Rodriguez stayed in our area with Elder Batista. So that was a nice change for me, I just had a nice relaxing division where I was just working with their area book, and I didn't really have to worry about where we were going, so that was cool. Poor Elder Rodriguez had to go around with the zone leader in our area and find his way around. I think it went well though. I got the easy end of the deal. At lunch, it was funny, there was a cat that jumped and clawed Elder Azarias' leg and made him shout a little bit, then it kept coming close to Elder Brandão and apparently he's deathly terrified of cats, so he kept standing up from the table whenever it would come by him. So that was funny. The division was fine, we didn't do much. We visited Bibi's sister, actually, and we taught a recent convert and his nephew, I think, but they're the same age.

Then Friday night, we are starting a soccer activity with the rapazes [young men]. Only four went, but it was still cool. One of them, Emerson, he's a huge clown, he messes around and everybody was making goals on him. Irmão Rosete went as well (because his only son is a rapaz) and even he made a goal on Emerson. And it was a backwards goal, with his heel, so that was pretty impressive. One thing that is happening lately is that the city elections are coming up, mayor and other stuff. Much in the same way that they have cars going around selling eggs here, they now have cars going around with speakers on top playing the two candidates' propaganda. There's only two candidates that pay to have people do that, so they're the only ones we know, and they're really catchy songs so that's annoying. And everybody keeps asking me if they do that in the United States. At least where we lived I can never imagine that happening. They'd probably get the cops called on them for disturbing the peace. :)

So I slept in the other house here in Registro, which was fine, then on Saturday on the way back, we stopped by the apartment before we went to lunch. And just a funny thing that happened, we got into the elevator with a Jehovah's Witness lady with her cart of books and other publications, so that was awkward. As if elevators weren't awkward enough. :) And then there was this other guy that got in with the three super religious people, so that was funny as well. :) Also on Saturday, I'm starting to buy more fruit and stuff instead of cookies and stuff, because I need to. :) Also, I am an idiot and on Wednesday I said to the teacher that we were going to start doing English on Saturday at the chapel. So I was dreading that, but then we got there and nobody went, so that was fine. Then it was just piano practice, so that was cool. At night, Elder Martins bought tapioca and ham and cheese and oregano and soda for us. It was super good. I only managed to eat two because they're super filling. I'm excited to make that at home with you guys in California.

Also, Elder Martins wants me to write some music for the mobile video game that he's doing art for. I would tell you what it's about, but who knows, somebody might steal the idea. Basically the idea is that you're running down a mountain away from an avalanche, so it's pretty cool. Maybe that will be my job. Maybe I will write music for video games, which sounds amazing to me. That would be perfect really. Or writing music for anything. So Dad, feel free to hire me on as a musician/composer, because I'm totally up for that.

Then on Sunday, the priesthood class was really good, talking about the less active members and being a friend to them. I raised my hand to say something. Irmão Rosete who was giving the class looked at me, but then he had to finish whatever he was saying, then he forgot. So when we went to lunch (lunch was with him, which was so good) he realized that he had forgotten about what I was going to say. He was so sorry and asked me to share it with them as the message for lunch. It was a quote that I found from President Eyring that talks about true friends: "All of us need true friends to love us, to listen to us, to show us the way, and to testify of truth to us so that we may retain the companionship of the Holy Ghost. You must be such a true friend."  I just really like that quote. Lunch was lombo [loin]. It was really good, and there was lots of food as usual at his house and lots of ice cream and dessert.

Then at 6:00, there was a family night at his house. There was a double-dose of Irmão Rosete, so it was awesome. There was lots of chocolate cake and juice (because we drank all the soda at lunch). :) And we played a cool game with the names of Book of Mormon prophets.

Earlier today, we had plans to play volleyball at the church, just us four, but then we forgot that the room with all the equipment was locked. So we were at the church in our sports clothes because we thought we were going to be able to, but we couldn't, so we decided to go into the backyard of the church. There's a bunch of amora [blackberry] trees out back so that was our lunch today, I'm pretty sure I'm going to get sick. It stained all of our hands. It was totally worth it though. They were small and they didn't have too much flavor, but occasionally you got a really good one and it was all worth it. So I listened to your recording while I was standing under a blackberry tree, eating blackberries, listening to birds, and enjoying the shade. It was very peaceful.

So that was my week. I love you guys. Tch-Tchau!