Itaciba

As always with the transfers, everything has changed completely here in the last week.

The bus ride from Campos back to Vitória was absolutely gorgeous. I have never made the trip in the daylight hours. The four hour ride was full of green firelds, mountains covered in lush green jungle, rivers, blue skies, and a few small towns built up on hillsides.

The transfer happened in a chapel this time. Normally, it happens in the bus station, but I think that from now on President is going to have us do it in a chapel. So, we arrived there in the chapel and waited a long time for the transfers to start. My companion Elder Wilson from Serra went home this transfer! It was too weird. We talked for about an hour and he showed me all the neat stuff he is taking home. He is my last senior companion to leave the mission.

In the end, I got a little bit of a shock. I was called as a zone leader. Half of the current zone leaders were either released or went home, and I was called to be one of the zone leaders of the Zona Cariacica. Me and my companion will be the zone leaders of the missionaries of the Cariacica Stake.

My companion is Elder Rocha, from Campo Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brasil. He is pretty neat. He is going to hit the one year mark soon. He and I arrived together here in the area. The ward here is called Ala Itacibá. (Eee-tah-see-BAH). We meet in the big stake center chapel of Cariacica. I think I have already sent a picture of the chapel in a past email. It is the chapel where President Pickett gave his farewell, where we had the Christmas conference, and where I have had several zone conferences. And, this is the area where Elder Bagley, my former companion was run over by the train and lost his leg. Several members here recognized me because Elder Bagley put up photos of us together on his facebook and a lot of the members here are friends with him on facebook.

Cariacica is one of the suburb cities of Vitória. We divide the ward with one other companionship. The other companionship is made up of Elder Furrows (Roberts, Idaho) and Elder Dance (Redmond, Washington). Elder Dance is arriving in the mission. This is his first week in the field. He is really funny. Elder Furrows only has five months or so in the field! The two of them are working really hard to learn Portuguese. They have a 100% Portuguese goal, no speak English never! Meanwhile, my companion wants me to teach him English, piano, and how to write in his journal. He has only written one entry on his whole mission.

We are getting to know the members and the leaders here in the ward. It is pretty exciting to get to know a new area, but it is a lot of work, and it is a slow process. This is the third time in a row that I have arrived in the area together with my companion.

Yesterday we went to church for the first time. We had to almost run to the church because we forgot that we had a meeting with the bishop before the meetings. One detail: to arrive in the chapel from our house, it is a thirty minute walk and a big hill (think Camel Back Park) sits in between our house and the chapel. We walked it in about 20 minutes, power walking. Sweating. But the meetings were good. We were told when we arrived that I would be giving a talk in sacrament meeting and that we would be teaching Gospel Principles. Surprise! It was good. Funny that people always have a really hard time pronouncing my last name. I joked with them that they could just say Elder Bode (pronounced bodge) which means Elder Goat.

Our house is big. It has a hammock, but it is broken. I think I am going to have it fixed.

This next week is going to be wild. We have four divisions and a counsel of the zone leaders. The counsel is going to happen in President´s house!! The first time since I arrived in Vitória that I am going to enter. It is a neat apartment with a view of the beach and ocean.

Elder Dance says a lot of funny things. And all the questions that his companion can´t answer come straight to me. He is a diligent learner and will learn Portuguese very quickly. He also lived and studied at BYU for a year.

Have a great week,

Elder Bodily / Elder Bode

Ao Hospital Novamente (To Hospital Again)

Queridos,

This week was an adventure. A boring adventure. We tried to get things done in the week, but Elder Aranha´s pains did not leave him alone. Tuesday was pure suffering and slow walking and heat, and it made him worse. On Wednesday we went to the hospital again, a better hospital, but there was a problem with his health plan card and that meant hours and hours of waiting and phone calls and waiting for the insurance company to sort things out. Finally, at 6pm, we learned that we would have to wait until midnight for the technical problem to be worked out and to have him be able to enter into the hospital. Super annoying.

So the next day we went and got straight in at 11am. He went in and they did exams of the blood, urine, ultrasound, x-ray, gave him two more IVs, etc. It took until 6pm again. And after the whole day, much of which I passed either standing up in the exam room or sitting in an uncomfortable chair with sassy nurses running around everywhere. We did get to talk about the church with a murse (man-nurse) and a mom and daughter who were sick. They asked lots of questions. The mom and daughter didn´t believe that the Church is a Christian church or that we use the Bible. Thanks to a bunch of false rumors from neighbors. I showed her the Bible I use and my nametag that clearly uses the Savior´s name.

ELDER BODILY

A IGREJA DE
JESUS CRISTO
DOS SANTOS
DOS ÚLTIMOS DIAS

Well, in the end, the doctor said: Well, you won´t die, but we don´t know what is causing your pain, ok? You can go. I almost fainted.

We spent the whole day there, and all they could say is that it probably isn´t life threatening.
We spent a lot of time at home because he was having problems alternating between diarrhea and constipation. That´s probably more than you wanted to know.

In the end, I read three Liahonas (Ensigns), a bunch of scriptures, updated my journal, and slept this week. It has been horrible to stay doing nothing all day. But, in the last two days, it seems that the pain has stopped and his problems have gone away. We are excited to work like crazy this next week.

The zone leaders got permission to do a new year´s activity. We went to their house at 10pm and ate barbecued meat and sausage (traditional party food here, called ´´churrasco´´), salad, rice, etc until midnight. People lit off fireworks and yelled, and it was kind of neat. Then we all slept there before leaving early Sunday morning to catch buses back to our areas and arrive in church. We arrived late, sadly, because Elder Aranha was feeling sick and walking very slow. Therefore, no one was there to play the piano for the first hymn. I walked in and they had just announced the second hymn and sacrament, and I had to walk straight up to the piano, open the book ,and go. Phew!

There were only 32 people in church though. There is a custom here to spend New Years on the beach, so a ton ton ton of people went to the beach (an hour from here) and didn´t make it to church. We gave the lesson in Elder´s Quorum about goals, missionary work, and service. It turned out great.

Funny story. Tuesday night, walking home, Elder Aranha said that I always take forever to cross the street because I look both ways and wait for cars to pass that are way far away to pass. He claimed that you don´t have to wait so long, and don´t even have to stop to look both ways, it´s just a matter of being alert. I said it is better safe than sorry. He insisted on demonstrating his technique, walking out in front of me to cross the next street, making a determined effort not to look both ways or stop. It seemed that the street was empty, he glanced back at me with a smug look and then out of nowhere was almost hit by an old man on a bike. The old man was able to swerve and give a dirty look to Elder Aranha, thus avoiding a collision. Elder Aranha looked back at me laughing and said ´´He almost hit me!´´ And then his face fell, and he realized what had just happened. I laughed and laughed and laughed and he didn´t bother me about looking both ways before crossing the street any more.

Well, I want to send pictures next week. Maybe I won´t have time to do that and write an email, so just warning.
I hope your New Year was great, every one.

Tchau,
Elder Bodily

Crazy Christmas!

I am so tired.

This week we had the baptisms of Rodrigo, Ruan, and Renan. They were confirmed yesterday on Christmas! Their mom wasn´t able to go, so I had to arrange a taxi to pick them up last second. The baptismal meeting was special. The Bishop was there, two friends of theirs from the ward, our ward mission leader, their mom, and Elder Aranha and I. It was calm and traquil. It was good to accomplish. I felt such relief.

The members of the ward gave us an awesome surprise. As we returned home on Christmas Eve a ton of them surprised us and gave us almost a whole supermarket full of food. They hugged us and wished us a merry Christmas and it was really neat. I guess it is a tradition here in Aurora. We spent a majority of Christmas Eve with a woman in the ward who got baptized this year. She also lost her husband this year. She was feeling really lonely and hopeless, so we helped make a little Christmas feast and celebrate with her and a few of her family members and neighbors.

The tradition here in Brasil is to wait until midnight on Christmas Eve and then open all the presents. It´s almost like New Years. There was a ton of noise at midnight, fireworks, and people yelling. This made sleeping somewhat difficult. Christmas morning Elder Aranha was feeling way sick. He threw up, he had diarrhea, feeling horrible and weak. He didn´t eat anything. Well, we went to do phone calls at a members house! It was awesome as usual to talk to the family! Love you family!

Almost directly after Elder Aranha finished talking with his family, he was much worse. He looked dead, and was in the bathroom for almost an hour. At 11pm, the bishop came by and gave us a ride to the hospital. After waiting FOREVER, they let us in. They gave him two IVs to hydrate him. It took until 4AM for the IVs to get into his bloodstream. I was so tired, and there was no place to sleep. I tried to sleep in this ridiculous ´´reclining´´chair, but it was less comfortable than sleeping on broken glass. I barely even fell asleep. Bishop had to leave because he had to go to work at 4:30am. I felt really bad for him, he helped us a lot. So, we had to wait until 5AM for a taxi to come by and then we went home. I showered, and we woke up way late (the first time in over a year that I did not wake up at 6:30 am). And now we are trying to make the most of what is left of the preparation day. I am really tired. Elder Aranha is a little better now.

The week between Christmas and New Years is interesting, lots of people are busy, travelling, or with family. We will see what happens. Hope your Christmases were excellent, every one. Happy New Year!

Elder Bodily