Ola!
So...not too much in the way of news has come to pass in the last week. The MTC choir will be singing in conference this weekend, so I can finally have that out of my hair. I am excited to conference. All classes and meetings for Saturday and Sunday are cancelled, so we just have to worry about conference. That will be nice.
For those of you who have been asking, if I don't get my visa, my estimated date of departure will be November 9. I don't know if they will simply reassign us temporarily to somewhere in the states or if we might have a few extra weeks added on to our stay here. Of course, keep in mind, that if the visa comes (not likely), I will be on a plane to Brasil within the week. That would be a challenging transition at this point. Our branch (like a ward, but smaller) is 100% Portuguese speaking. Three districts left this past week. A couple (like, maybe 4 of the 24) were headed for Portugal and for Cape Verde, so they had visas and flew to their respective destinations on Tuesday morning. However, most of those 24 missionaries are destined eventually for Brasil (including two for Vitoria!), but have no visas. They were temporarily reassigned to one of three missions: the Salt Lake City, Des Moines Iowa, and Dallas Texas missions. Crazy stuff. There they will await their visas.The gym (volleyball courts, basketball courts, indoor track, and exercise machines) re-opened this past week after a remodeling project that consumed the past 2.5-3 months. So...Elder Anderson and I have not been running outside anymore. Instead, he plays basketball and I do laps on the indoor track. The track is up high, on the fourth level of the building (hard to explain, the gym in the middle is open to the ceiling, the perimeter of the building has multiple floors). Anyway, the track is up basically against the ceiling with the giant ventilation tubes, and they have it set up quite nicely so that cool air blows out of vents every few meters along the tubes. On the second day of basketball however, Elder Anderson pulled a muscle in his calf. Yesterday was the first time that he was able to play again. We had to go to the trainers for ice and to get it wrapped and eventually for them to do some physical therapy with a tool remarkably similar to a rolling pin. Meanwhile, I have kept running. The track is 10 laps for a mile. I have run either 30 or 50 laps each time. Only problem, the track is narrow. It varies between being two and three person-widths wide. And, to complicate matters, there are exercise machines in the corners. So, all the weight lifters are switching from corner to corner, or waiting in line and blocking the road. I feel a little like Cruella when she is driving down the road while I am running. A good day usually consists of having to come to a complete stop on the track two or three times to wait for the clog of people to unravel. One plus of Elder Anderson's injury is that we got to use the elevator to get up to our fifth floor classroom (a journey we make about 3x per day). Back to the stairs for now.
The showers here are quite tempermental. It seems that they are all connected to each other in unpredictable ways. A toilet flushing or another shower turning on or off will result in a completely random flash of Arctic water or Yellowstone geyser water, or sometimes, nothing at all. There appears to be no pattern, but it does make showering an adventure. I have a favorite shower that tends to be most resistant to change, but even this morning it made me gasp in a most embarrassing manner after a particularly icy spurt of water issued forth from the shower head, again, at a most random moment.
I got a haircut at the barbershop for the first time since arrival. The competition for haircuts is vicious here. They are free, and there are 2500 missionaries here. And, you are required to have a haircut within 10 days of leaving. So people fight hard for the suprisingly limited amount of space and open appointments. My attempts to sign up included two visits to the sign up sheets (posted every morning around 6 am) before class- both unsuccessful and yielding only late arrivals to class. Also, an attempt that involved waking up at 5:40 and standing in line until 6:35. That only failed because whoever it is that posts the appointment sheets did not show up until past 7. (Class is at seven and we had yet to shower or get dressed or groom at 6:35. That wasn't so fun. But, alas, a random hopeful visit in the afternoon finally resulted in one blank spot for which I signed up. My hair is shorter than ever. They cut the sides with a 2 on the razor. It looks decent I suppose.
I have had some really good days. Every Wednesday they serve cookies n cream BYU Creamery ice cream at lunch and dinner. It makes for a great comfort food. Also, Elder Anderson and I had a really great teaching experiece this last week. Our best yet. We had a fifteen minute Portuguese session followed by teaching a lesson about the Plan of Salvation. Our "investigator" was actually a Portuguese instructor at BYU (she teaches one of our MTC teachers, in fact), and is a native Brazilian from Porto Alegre. So...We did very well making small talk and learning about who she was (of course, it was role-playing). It went quite well. Elder Anderson had cue questions memorized for when there were awkward pauses, and then I would basically carry the conversation as far as I could in that direction before the next pause. We make a great team. Then the lesson was in English. We adjusted the lesson to her needs, taught clearly and with the Spirit, and felt really really good about things afterwards. Also, it has been nice and sunny and just happy.
One Elder in our district has gained 15 lbs in three weeks, another has been dieting and has lost approximately 10 lbs. So, it is possible to control your destiny in regards to weight here. I am at the same weight as arrival.
Elder Neilson in our district makes me laugh all the time. He has created several lines that have spread to be inside jokes. They include "Como el shpank was that?", "jotah-kapah" (the rough equivalent of JK in Portuguese- though there is no letter 'k' in Portuguese, as well as him singing "Olho de Tigre" or 'Eye of the Tiger' crudely translated into Portuguese. He keeps us from ever getting too depressed.
Such is life. Another week down. 101 to go. Not that anyone's counting... Thanks for the mail folks, it is appreciated more than you realize!
(Elder) JOSHUA BODILY
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