EU VOU PARA BRASIL! MEU VISTO ESTÁ CHEGADO!
The visa is arrived!! I received a phone call from President King on Tuesday afternoon while sitting at a table being served homemade Brazilian cheese-bread in the home of an investigator and her recently baptized daughter! He passed me the news that my visa had arrived! Five other visa waiters from this mission have received their visas also, but not Elder Gneiting (my current companion). I can't believe
it.
I am booked on a flight for Wednesday night! I don't have the travel plans yet, so I don't know if I'm connecting to Vitoria in Sao Paulo or Rio or what. I also don't have any other details like if my
seat is a window seat, etc. (Please let it be a window seat!) I am weirded out!
Strangely enough, we are caught in another cold snap here. I don't know if any of you have heard the news or if it is even big news, but Atlanta got about 4-6 inches of snow starting last night and it has been sprinkling down freezing rain since then. The snow was legitimate snow, big and thick and sticky. In a matter of twenty minutes it was accumulating. There is a layer of ice on top of the snow thanks to the rain, so we are snowed into our apartment for the day. No driving allowed mission-wide.
Also, my roommate Elder Vitorio, from Brazil, was scheduled to fly to his mission in London
today, but his flight was cancelled. Not like we could have made the trip into town anyways. So, he is without travel plans too. We made a snowman today, because Elder Mundt is from Las Vegas and so has
never made one. We had success.
All these weird things happening, it seems unreal. I am excited, anxious, and overall jumpy to be going to Brazil! In a matter of three days I will be there (allowing that Hartsfield-Jackson is up and
running again by Wednesday evening). My last Portuguese Group sacrament meeting was yesterday. They are now officially without a piano player! Lots of the members gave me well-wishes. It was really nice of them.
I need to start packing...not fun.
Fatima and Luca both decided they want to be baptized for sure this last week. Luca is planning to be baptized before the end of the month. It is a little disappointing that I will miss it, but they both assured me that they would send me pictures. We had some good visits with both of them. One visit was just Elder Gneiting and I because Elder McGregor was busy taking care of another missionary who
was having a very bad day.
We also had a lesson with a religious expert named Silas who is actually a Presbyterian minister. He is trying to learn more about the church. We had a nice discussion with him, but my head hurt afterwards. He is a really great person.
Really, it was a slow week until Saturday. Now feathers are flying and the whole Paper Mill Area is scrambling to adjust to the rapid changes. Three of the eight of us will be gone in a matter of 72
hours. We will go from six to three Portuguese speakers in the area, two companionships to one. Things should be pretty wild from here on out. Next week I will be emailing from Brasil!!! Four months and
four days of visa waiting has come to a head (not counting the two week delay at the beginning!)
Boa viagem,
ELDER J. BODILY
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