Elder Henry: "So I'm somewhere..."

Rue de Ladeira one of the oldest streets in Brazil, which goes through the center of Rio Pardo.  Found images on this website:  http://www.wcams.com.br/images_04a_2001.htm

Closeup of the cobblestones (Brazil missionaries go through a LOT of shoes!

Hey Mom,

I've been in my new area for about a week now and I'm loving it.  I'm in Rio Pardo - RS, a small dot of a town of about 25,000 people.  I'm in a small branch of about 50ish active members and my new companion is great :), and its COLD!!!!

I don't know where to even begin with this week, a lot of changes and I'm sure I will miss a few things.  Everything went well at the transfers, fortunately my new companion was with me for the voyage.  Which brings up another point, I'm opening yet another area!  This makes my third area in a row I've opened up.  I was just starting to think at the end of last transfer, "Ah I can't wait until I arrive in my new area and my companion knows where to go, where everyone lives, has investigators.  That's going to be so nice."

WRONG!

But its exactly what I wanted.  We are in the middle of nowhere.  Actually Elder Black (my new companion) and I were talking about it last night.  We have no idea where we are in relation to anything.  I know we are about an hour bus ride away from Santa Cruz, which is 2 hours west of Porto Alegre, but I have no idea if we are north, east, south, or west of Santa Cruz.  So I'm somewhere....  I'm sure google maps can help you out :P.

Anyways when we arrived here, it was about 7:45pm and we were starving after our bus ride.  Fortunately for us, there was a member waiting for us at the bus station to take us and our cargo to our new apartment.  First though we stopped in at his house, and he gave us a run-down of the area, as well as a huge dinner ^^.  I didn't really get a good look at the town when we came in because everything was closed and it was dark.

When I woke up the next morning and opened our old-style European shutters, I was amazed at how beautiful this little town is.  We have a small down-town area called Centro, and we live right in the middle of it.  There's one main road that runs from the furthest points of the town.  We have a lot of dirt roads out in the neighborhoods, and I'm not sure if there is any such thing as asphalt here.  There's only one stoplight in our entire area.

Fortunately for us the branch here loves the missionaries.  They are excited to have a new set of Elders here, and really want to grow the branch into a ward.  As such we've been really busy :).  Which of course is the best as a missionary.

We currently have 3 solid investigators.

First we have Adriana.  She's a middle aged woman who has a son on a mission.  Apparently he converted a year or two back, and just left on his mission a couple months ago.  Elder Black has an extra special connection, because in one of his previous areas, he became really good friends with William, Adriana's missionary-son.  She really wants to join the church as well, but is having a hard time kicking the cigarettes.  Oh how I absolutely despise Alcohol and Tobacco -.-'.  She didn't come to church this week, and I didn't really understand why not.

One other thing I forgot to mention.  People here are incredibly hard to understand.  People speak with an incredibly thick accent.  The accent here is to Portuguese, what a southern accent is to English.  As such I've been thrown for a bit of a loop in my Portuguese progress, which can be pretty hard at times especially when my companion has such an easy time with Portuguese.

Secondly Natanael.  He's 28, loves the church, wants to be baptized, but has the same smoking problem.  He also is super busy and hard to find at home.

Last we have Talison.  He's 12 years old and found the church through one of his friends bringing him to the activities.  He is excited to be baptized, but his Dad is CRAZY, like mentally not all there.  I don't think he'll have any problems, but its hard to meet with him because of his father.

So Elder Black.  Elder Ethan Black is from Palo Alto, CA and has been on his mission for about a month less than I have.  He's 6'5", and played basketball and football before the mission.  He also went to BYU from 2010-2011 and visa waited for a month in Chicago, IL.  He's an awesome companion, and we work really well together.  This transfer should prove to be an incredible 6 weeks with lots of success :).

Anyways I have to get going, but I love you and promise to take pictures today.