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First lunch: cream soda

(The decorated porch was a surprise from the Dublin 1st Ward.)

Parque das Bandeiras - Week 6

Lunch with Marcia and Iara

"Açaí do Pai"

My last haircut

Baptism of Jonathas

Alessandra's house

Guilherme, the neighboring cuber

Elder and Sister Hammond, Elder Baptista, and Elder Glover

A square in Santos

I figure it'll be more fun to give you the update in person. :D  We already had lunch with [the Obatas], I already had my last interview... man...CRAZY. What's going on...now, we're pretty much just going to sit around and wait for tomorrow, I guess, hahaha. Our bus leaves Santos at like 3 or 4 tomorrow (afternoon), and then...you know the rest :)  It's just hard to believe that it's happening. Anyways, I just wanted to send this short little update from the office. I'll see if I call you guys when I get to NY, from a pay phone or something. Although I only know how to do a collect call in Brazil, hahahahaha. Anyways, love you guys :)  Até muito muito muito logo :D [See you very very very soon]

Parque das Bandeiras - Week 5

Hello! Sorry in advance... I've been a little bit sick-ish this week, although I'm pretty much better by now. I still have a weird nose, stuffy/runny... that sounds weird in English, a stuffy nose... stuffy? It's not stuffy is it? Hold on, that sounds strange. In Portuguese, it's a clogged nose. I don't know. Anyways, that's been happening. And it seems that all the vitamin C supplements in the world did nothing to stop the onslaught. Who knows, maybe it was dengue again. Just kidding, I don't think it was, but it's a possibility. :)

Let's see what happened this week... Last Tuesday we had a district meeting here in Parque das Bandeiras. And I did a division with Elder Nascimento, who lived with me in Caragua, so it was fun reminiscing a bit. That was the day I started with sore throat I think.

On Wednesday, it was Dia dos Finados (Day of the Dead), and we were going to do an activity at a cemetery in Cubatão, but it got cancelled. I was going to play a little keyboard and they were going to sing hymns. I remember that last year on the same day, it was my first activity as a zone leader and it was very stressful and very disheartening, because it was kind of a mess... ah, whatever, it went fine. :)

Thursday, weekly planning, surprise surprise. We had lunch with Isis and her mom, which was good. We visited Bianca's house, they made brigadeiro de colher. It's awesome, obviously. I played a bit of guitar at her house, so that was fun for a little bit.

On Friday, we went back to Bianca's house so we could teach Layssa's dad. My companion bought cake mix and ice cream, so they made that. (I just noticed a typo in my journal, that's super embarrassing.) :) Layssa's dad is the sort of drunk guy, although I can never tell if he's drunk or not because he's always just kind of crazy. Someone was talking about how they drink tea and then he said, "Que tomar chá? Que tem que tomar cachaça." Basically, "You don't need to drink tea, you have to drink cachaça." Cachaça is the cheapest alchohol that exists, it's dirt cheap. That was funny. It'd be funnier if you guys spoke Portuguese, but I guess only Dad got the real meaning of it. :)

On Saturday, we had lunch with Mikael and Michele, they're super cool. They made fish which was awesome. We had English class with the youth in the ward, that was good, we just translated phrases and stuff. Then we had a family night with Alesandra, and Elder Barbosa made cake. Alesandra made torta salgada, which is like pie with sausage in it, it's good. I gave a message about the sacrament and showed them this painting:

Sunday, I actually played piano in church because Isis wasn't there, so that was fun. I'm used to it now so whenever I don't play piano in church it's weird. Lunch was stroganoff, with two older ladies who are on diets because they have diabetes and stuff like that, but they bought soda for us, so that was sweet. We visited Cleonice, she said she would send you pictures. We met up with the Elders in Samaritá, it was fun visiting a house I had lived in a year ago. It hadn't changed much. While we were there, I tried to visit Christina that I baptized there, but she wasn't home, so that was a bit disappointing.    

Today, we're going to the bank to take out money. I have a self-sufficiency course in São Vicente tomorrow at 9:00, so that should be good. Learn how to manage money, stuff like that. Wednesday there's zone meeting (which is apparently going to be my farewell, from the zone anyways), and Thursday/Friday/Saturday/Sunday, I don't know. I guess I'll probably slowly be packing during this week....ah...it's all very weird. Monday, I will have lunch and interview with President. Tuesday, I don't know what's going to happen, I'll probably leave the office at 5:00 to go to São Paulo. I don't know anything, I don't know what's going on. :)

I'm trying to control myself, but it's hard to not get SUPER excited. Last week wasn't bad, but I guess this week being the last the excitement has hit home. I had a dream last night that Dad helped me build this sweet home studio with a MIDI keyboard and everything hahahaha. It was fun. I don't know...it's just so weird. Such weird feels. I don't actually know if I'm going to e-mail next Monday, I'm pretty sure that I'll be chilling in the office, meeting up with Magda and Joel, stuff like that. So I don't know. And also, when will I get...disobligated...how do you say that...released? Desobrigado? Help. Is that the day I get home? 'Cause I would like it to be. Like get home, unpack, and sleep, and at night go get released? Is that how that works? Ha, mentira [lie], I won't sleep hahaha. I will be too excited. I'm thinking that I won't even be able to sleep on the plane, I'll be like a kid on Christmas. Love you lots :) I think that's it! I'll probably end up checking my e-mail before Tuesday next week, so just in case you guys feel like replying to something. Gosh, I'm so excited. Don't worry, I'm going to make this week count though :) I love you guys! :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D
Love,
Michael