Elder Henry~Gravatai 10/29/12

 

Elder Henry, Miguel R's Home Teacher, R. and Elder Roman at R's baptism =)

Finally I have a decent amount of time to write to you guys!  I'm really grateful for the help with those essay questions, I've forgotten a lot of the eloquence of English writing (not that I was ever all that good with English in the first place).  The questions looked a lot better after the revisions.  I just put all the questions in the boxes and submitted my application for BYU.  All that's left now is to wait until February/March and see what happens.

     I'm glad you are enjoying The District (a show on BYU-TV, Michael doesn't know this is the second season, not the ones he has seen).  It's actually pretty old, the missionaries had it for training purposes even before I left on the mission.  I think its about 2-3 years old, and I've watched it over and over and over, but it is pretty much what life was like in California.  Of course they weren't serving in Compton, its most similar to when I was in Whittier so far as demographics go.  Yes it does feel like a long time since I've been in Long Beach even though its only been about 6 months.  I'm 100% Brazilian nowadays. (Well as far as an American can be Brazilian)

     Politics are such a funny thing.  Here in Brasil all I ever here is how amazing the political system in America is, and how great it would be to be an American citizen.  Here in Brasil all the politicians do is rob rob rob rob rob.  For example, a city councilman in Vancouver receives something like $30,000 a year in compensation for his work.  Certainly a nice bonus, but nothing unreasonable as he will have to continue to work at his other job in order to continue to live.  Also Vancouver has 5 city councilors. Gravataí is a little bit bigger than Vancouver with about 250,000 people but its more or less comparable.  Here they have 25 city councilmen that gain R$10,000 per month, or $60,000 (american) a year.  Plus for every act they make they gain 30% of the expected cost of the bill.  So if they make a great big bill to build a hospital for 200,000,000 Reais, they'll gain 60,000,000.  Its absolutely absurd!  I've learned to appreciate our politicians much more, because for all their faults, at least they are working to gain an honest pay unlike the politicians here.

     I've never been robbed on the mission, but I always keep a little bit of money on me to give to thieves if I were robbed.  Fortunately I'm working in a very nice neighborhood, Gravataí really doesn't have nearly as much criminality as Porto Alegre.  Also I keep my money and my ID in different places, and Identity theft isn't a huge threat here (criminals are pretty stupid here), plus my Passport is locked away safe in the vaults of the Mission so I'll be able to return one day ;).

     I see Elder Glessing every now and then, but we are in different zones for the moment so I haven't seen him for about 4 months.

     Yup I can buy milk chocolate here, even Hershey's Chocolate.  I never thought I would see the day when I thanked Wal-Mart, but thanks to wal mart I have almost all the American products I'm used to.  The only things I don't have are Dr. Pepper and Root Beer :(.  Also walmart brand peanut butter isn't all that good, but its better than nothing.

As for my Christmas Wishlist:

Photos from everyone at home

And I have one really weird request, Could you send my decks of Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon cards down here?  I was talking with some people and they are really expensive here, so they make for a good presents, also helps them to learn English.

     So far as Weddings go, we marked the wedding for I and his family last week or two weeks ago.  Finally after a 5 month bureaucratic nightmare we marked the date for their wedding for November 24th, and the whole family will be baptized on November 25th.  I was so relieved to have that taken care of, now its just a wait for them as well as arrange everything for the wedding.

     S and N are on a bit of a hold, but they are only missing one paper and if everything goes right we should have the paper we need in hand here in 2 weeks, so they'll probably be married in December close to Christmas time.

     R was baptized which was very exciting on Sunday, and now we are going to work with his Grandma to help her into the church.  She was in sacrament meeting this Sunday and she really liked the church.  She also has a strong Christian background which means that the commandments won't be a problem for her at all.  I'd love to see the whole family in church together every week.

     Well that's pretty much my week.  Oh I almost forgot, this Saturday we had a huge ward party for the Youth to raise funds for EFY.  It was a blast and our investigators loved it!   I attached a couple photos of the activity.

Love,

Elder Henry

Dear Dad,

Man how I miss halloween, last year the missionaries got a TON of candy for Halloween, and this year nothing.  They don't even have Halloween here, how sad is that :(.  We had a pretty good week, and I'm excited to see our mission grow.  We really need more missionaries here to help the work.

     The LAN House is closing up, but thanks for keeping me up to date on the family.  I'm glad to hear Tori is working hard on her homework, and that the Ducks are creaming their opponents.

Love,

Elder Henry

Everyone gathering for the prayer at the ward party.

A picture of our ward activity, the place was packed with over 300 people who showed up.  More than double our weekly Sacrament attendance