Happy Valentines Day

Another week passes.

First of all, here in Brasil, they have ´´Valentine´s Day´´ on a different day of the year.  The 12th of June I think. 

So.  I almost forgot it was Valentine´s Day except for it being on my American made calendar.  Anyways.

This week was kind of ridiculous.  We had more appointments fall through than I´ve ever had before.  On Saturday we had 8 scheduled appointments, a majority of which were with people that are very dependable schedule-wise.  All of them fell through.  The people weren´t at home anywhere near the scheduled times we set up with them.  We went back to several later in the day, and we still only found one of those eight people, and they were only able to briefly talk for about five minutes.  <Sigh…>

On the bright side, the lady that lives in downtown Vitória that we started teaching last week wants to be baptized and we have it planned to happen on February 27.  She is really neat.  Few and far between are the people we visit who actually want to learn and actually ask sincere questions rather than just humor us. 

I had another exchange this week.  It was with Elder Brito, with whom we live.  My companion went with his companion for the day on the east end of Vitória and I stayed with Elder Brito on the west end.  Therefore, it was up to me to know where all of our appointments lived and how to get there and what we should teach them.  All but two appointments fell through.  So, we talked to a lot of people on the streets and in their homes searching for someone interested in learning more about the Gospel.  We found one really neat woman who really was intrigued with the church and we had a very spiritual lesson.  Sadly, when she told her husband about the lesson he apparently has something against religion and so we aren´t allowed to come back.

I gave quite a fright to someone in a hammock.  I recognized the lady in the hammock as the mother of the person we were trying to teach.  (The hammock was right in front of their home in a miniature park.)  I didn´t realize that she was asleep though.  I approached the hammock and said Good afternoon and she nearly fell out of the hammock!  She scared me just as much as I scared her.  From what I could discern she said more or less among other things: ´´What fright!  O my heck!  I could die of fright!´´  Her daughter wasn´t home.  Elder Brito laughed and laughed after we left.  It was pretty funny.  I was paralyzed.

On one of our treks out to the corner of the area in the jungle to teach the family that lives there we saw… A TARATULA!  Real life!  Big and black and covered in little white hairs!  Elder Hein almost stepped on it!  I gasped and pointed and he stopped just in time.  After we admired it in a mix of awe and terror, Elder Hein decided to roll a rock at it (we were 10ish feet away at this point).   As soon as the rock touched it, it put its front two legs straight up in the hair, slapped the sidewalk with its fangs, and emitted a small puff of powder!  It just stayed there with its front two legs vertical.  We freaked out!  Elder Rodrigues says that the powder makes you itch really bad and makes your skin swell up.  Yikes.  Welcome to Brasil.

Elder Hein and I took a ´´shortcut´´ that turned out to be much longer and sweatier a journey than our normal route to the place we were going.  We ended up climbing a great big hill and descended on a dirt trail rather than taking the road around the hill.  It was actually kind of fun.  I felt like an explorer, except for the fact that I was in a white shirt and tie and really sweaty.

I am feeling much better about Portuguese.  I am having extended conversations in Portuguese with the Brasilian missionaries we live with.  And the whole day of that exchange we spoke Portuguese.  I can easily survive, now I just have to find out how to thrive.  The exchange was really good for both of us.  We had another phenomenal lesson in the evening and despite the long hard day of searching for people to teach, we felt very satisfied and content—not to mention feeling the Spirit very strong with us during and after the lesson.   We had asked him to pray about the message we left, and promised him that God would answer his prayer.  In this visit, he told us that the morning after he prayed, someone called telling him he got the job he has been wanting and waiting for for a long time, and felt that was an answer.  Neat! 

Tomorrow is zone conference.  Exciting.  It will be my first ever.  All the missionaries in the Vitória Zone and in the Cariacica Zone will be there.

Summer showed the first signs of weakness here.  For two days the temperature was bearable, though still quite warm.  Also, the wind blew and it was overcast.  Yes, I still was sweating bad, but I didn´t feel hot.  I felt at ease.  Today is very hot again though. 

Ok.  Time to leave!  Have lovely weeks everyone!

Elder JOSHUA BODILY

Sou um Bonitão (I am an Ultra-Handsome Male!)

Bom dia todos. (Good Day Everyone)

This week I kept notes on things to email home about.  Behold.

We encountered our first cockroach in the apartment this week.  And guess who found it?  Me.  Yes.  The only one of us four that is terrified of the little beasts.  I was in the bathroom at the end of the day, taking off my shoes to get ready for my shower, but I realized that I had left my towel out on the line, so i left the bathroom, retreived the towel, and when I came back in to the bathroom there was a big nasty cockroach with antennae waving around on my SHOE!  I yelled and Elder Rodrigues kept saying ´´mata-lo!  mata-lo!´´ (kill it!  kill it!)  i stayed outside the bathroom.  He sighed and shook it off my shoe.  It went skittering away but he took my shoe and beat it to death!  It took about 7 solid whacks.  I was traumatized for the night.

I saw a rat this week.  We were walking up a staircase and it just ran across the stairs right in front of me.  Yuck.

Here in Vitória, you simply put your trash on the sidewalk anywhere and workers come by periodically to collect it.  We collect our trash bags by the door in the apartment so we can grab them on the way out.  As we went to pick them up one day, something big and black sped out from under the trash bag and across my shoe.  I let out a rather embarrassing yelp which made Elder Hein laugh.  It was a lizard.

As you can see, there are creepy-crawlies in Brasil.  I am adjusting.  They seem to be attracted to my shoes...odd.  Moving on.

We found one woman who invited us to come back and teach her the next day.  Due to difficulties we couldn´t make it to her house until 45 minutes after we scheduled the appointment.  To our surprise, she was just arriving home!  It was perfect.  When we finished  talking with her and concluded the lesson, she said to us that the past few years she has been feeling something has been missing in her life and that she had just started praying to God to help her fill the void she felt it her life the week before we ran into her.  She told us she doesn´t believe in coincidences, and we agreed.  Really neat.  And I understood everything she said!  She is vacationing in Guaraparí this week though, so stay tuned for news.  I will refer to her as Teresa.

I did an exchange this week.  Elder Hein went to leadership training because he is a district leader, so I was with Elder Wilson from south Jordan, Utah in Serra-Sede.  About an hour and a half bus ride from downtown Vitória.  It was neat.  We taught some great lessons, gave a blessing, and had some good lunch.  It was much more rural and calm there.  Good to mix things up.  It was my first time outside of the city of Vitória since arriving here.  The bus ride on the way back is along the coast with beautiful panoramic sunset views of Vit´ria, the Terceira Ponte, the beautiful beach, and a giant cruise ship leaving the port.  Gorgeous.

We were introduced to a woman interested in being taught by a member.  Both the member and the woman live in one of the tallest high-rises in downtown Vitória.  I was so excited.  We were only on the fourth floor, but the building is right on the port with views of the gigantic barges.  This was all side details compared to the lesson.  The lesson we had with her was fabulous.  She came to church yesterday and really is feeling good about it.  it´s a great feeling to help people come closer to Christ.  We were there again this morning where we gave her a Book of Mormon and explained and taught about its importance.  I loved it.

Downtown Vitória is way neat.  Bustling shops and buses roaring by.  

Brazilians have funny accents when they say American things.  Some of note, in case i haven´t already shared these.

Titanic, pronounced (chee-tun-EEE-key)

red hot, pronounced (hedge hotch)

notebook-as in the computer kind-, pronounced (no-chee-BOO-key)

A samba group has started practicing for Carnival across the street from our house.  It is very loud and noisy, but neat at the same time.  They practice until about 10pm.  Welcome to Brasil.

An old lady who is suffering from dementia came to church on Sunday and when she saw me she apparently said ´´I want to sit down next to this bonitão´´ referring to me.  Bonitão means ultra-handsome-male.  Everyone in the Sunday School class was laughing, but I didn´t know what on Earth she had said, which only made everyone else laugh more.  Gotta love it.

Thanks so much for the mail!  I received 7 letters!  My first batch since arriving over three weeks ago!  The mail system has caught up with me!  Each of the letters from family and friends alike were written with a strong dose of personality, which was AWESOME.  I laughed and smiled as i read.

I didn´t even get through all my notes!  The weeks are so full here.  I hope you all have a wonderful week.  Enjoy your winter folks.

Até mais,

Élder JOSHUA BODILY

Address Change

There has been a slight change of address.  The address Josh provided was a little different than the address that the mission president just sent us to use.  Please take note of it and know that President Pickett said letters can take 2 to 3 weeks to deliver, due to the Brasil postal system.  His quote, "The Lord teaches us patience through the tremendous Brazilian postal service!!"  He did assure me that letters addressed with the "old" address will be delivered also.  

Elder Joshua Bodily

Missão Brasil Vitória

A Igreja de Jesus Cristo dos Santos dos Últimos Dias

Rua João Batista Parra, 633  Sala 1501

Praia do Suá

Vitória, ES   29052-123

Brasil

Nova Semana No Brasil (New Week in Brazil)

Joshua's trek up the mountain this morning!

nature!



the view!


Oi gente! (Hi Guys)

This week has been a lot of hard work in the sun.  We work on a lot of hills as I have said.  One of our investigators lives at the top of 168 steps.  There is no shade the whole way up, and all the rest of the other people on the staircase are not interested in talking to us.  It´s fun.  

This morning we took a trek to the top of the tallest hill in Vitória.  330 meters, whatever that translates to 1100 feet-ish.  We trekked through some forest.  It was very peaceful and neat, though it was a rough trail.  The weather was nice and cool, as it is in the morning and evening.

Yesterday we had a baptism.  Ana Carolina is her name.  She is a 13 year old whose brothers got baptized just before I arrived here.  Actually, the baptism got rescheduled from the afternoon at 1:00pm (Sunday) to 8:00am (Sunday) the day before the baptism (Saturday night) because the family had something major come up.  We scrambled to make the change and spread the news--including spending an hour at the church filling the font and getting home late.  Then they got hung up on getting to the church in the morning and arrived at 8:55 to the church!  Church starts at 9, so we had to re-schedule to 6:00pm.  When we went to the church at 5:30 to check on things someone had pulled the plug!  Luckily the drainage here is bad, so it was only draining ever so slowly and had lost less than half its water.  We turned the water back on.  Luckily they didn´t arrive until 6:45pm!  If I had to think of a word that describes the family best it would be: prompt.  Just kidding.  It all worked out.  It was a beautiful meeting and very spiritual.  The ward really worked together to make things happen and happen well.  Joy!

We had a really good discussion\lesson in the home of a 19 year old woman.  We are excited to return and teach her.  She understood better than anyone I´ve ever taught before and we had a really neat conversation about the Restoration.  

We trekked out into the forest for a lesson.  Actually its about half way to the top of the hill we climbed to this morning.  For real.  Not an exaggeration.  The family there had a very humble home in a little clearing.  Very sadly, more than half of that home burned down last month.  They have a living room about the size of my bedroom left.  Their bathroom was destroyed, so they are using latrines.  They take showers with a hose.  They have three electrical outlets  (the electicity wire is propped up on sticks).  We had a lesson on the dirt mound outside the home.  They have expressed a desire to be baptized.  

I love açai.  Yumm.

That´s all this week, I am out of time.  

Tchau todo mundo. (Bye Everyone)

Elder JOSHUA BODILY

Verao no Brasil (Summer in Brazil)



Terceira Ponte Bridge



Oi, tudo bem! (Hi, all is well)

This past week has been quite the experience!  Once again lots has gone on!  I will get right to updating.

Monday we went to the only WalMart in the state of Espirito Santo.  There are only two Walmarts in the whole mission.  But it was in the area I was in those few days before transfers, so we went.  Super strange!  Virtually all the brand names are different.  There is a whole aisle for crackers, so many different kinds.  It is a supercenter with food, but most of the food section was fruit!  I bought a suitcase because one of mine is falling apart.  And words in Portuguese don´t generally end in the letter ´t´.  So they pronounce Walmart ´´Wall-March´´.  They pronounce President Pickett ``Presidench-ee Pick-itch´´.  The Walmart still felt bizarrely American except for the Portuguese everything and the windows with views of palm trees.  It also had a parking garage underneath and you ride moving sidewalks up to the store.  Good grief, if I give any more details i won~t get through one day.  It´s so interesting though!

So, Tuesday, I packed up AGAIN and we went to the big bus station where transfer meetings happen.  I found out that I am serving in the area called Vitória 1.  It is in the Vitória Ward, Vitória Stake, Vitória Zone.  Elder Anderson is serving in Vila Velha, the city across the ´´river´´ from Vitória.  Vitória is actually on a big island, sort of like Manhattan, but a bigger island.  I can see parts of his area from our apartment.  The Terceira Ponte connects our areas!  Google Terceira Ponte Vitória and you will see one of the landmarks of Vitória!  I am with Elder Hein, an American from Lindon, Utah.  He actually knows Elder Mortenson, my trainer in Georgia quite well.  He has been in Brasil a year and a half.  We share the area with another companionship.  Both of them are Brasilian.  One is ridiculously tall-Elder Brito, and the other is ridiculously short-Elder Rodrigues.  They make quite a pair.  They are from Salvador and Fortaleza respectively.  Elder R speaks pretty good English because he took a private course, Elder Brito speaks almost none.  It is an adventure trying to understand everybody when we come home and they all start jabbering away.  Our apartment is really nice.  It is big.  It has an actual washing machine, though it still isn´t like an American machine.  It is plastic on the outside for example.  But it´s nice not to have to rinse the clothes or to have to manually put the water in and drain it out like I had to do at first.  There is one portable fan, and they let me use it at night.  

About the weather.  For real, the weather here isn´t so bad.  I sweat through my shirt everyday, but that´s because we walk everywhere.  It´s hot to be sure, but the hottest days in Boise are still more miserable that daily summer weather here.  Generally, it´s hot from 11ish to 5ish.  The nights and mornings are cool.  Also, there is a nice breeze most of the time.  Similar to San Francisco.  The closer you get to the water´s edge, the more breeze there is.  Elder Hein says that some parts of the mission are hotter in winter that it is here in Vitória during summer.  I believe him.  It has only rained a few times, and hasn´t been a big deal.  Generally, I shower at night and then sit in front of the fan to write in my journal, and I am just fine all the way up until leaving the apartment when it is hot and I start to sweat again.  I´m forcing myself to get used to it.  I imagine it´s just water.

As for the area, the people here are way different than in the States.  We work up in neighborhoods on the hills.  Steep staircases, lots of neat lizards, homes that don´t look like they should be holding onto the mountainside.  They are very welcoming and kind.  One drunk man took ten minutes to give us advice telling us that if we want people to accept our message, we should dress like the people and not in shirts and ties.  (Many many many people wear as little as possible to beat the heat.  For instance this drunk man was in only very short shorts.  He thought we should adopt his dress style.  AFter finally discerning what he was trying to say--he kept trying to speak English to us because he used to live in South Africa apparently--we thanked him for the advice, went around a corner, and promptly started laughing hysterically.)  We find a lot of people who are willing to hear us teach, but it seems to be harder to find people who want more than just a spiritual thought, who are willing to take action and make the spiritual committments that will help them.  For instance, we had 16 people who agreed to come to the church, who knew where it was, who assured us they´d be there.  And no one came.  There are a lot of good people here though.  I am still following Elder Hein as we teach, because I am still trying to listen and understand what the people are saying.  I always always know the general subject matter, but I am just frantically trying to expand my vocabulary.  I can communicate with people very well though, especially when they are patient with me.  I´ve had some interesting charades displays with Elder Brito for instance.

Cockroaches here are much very much bigger than in Georgia.  Luckily, we don´t have them in our apartment, nor do we see them often.  But Elder Hein got quite a laugh when he ran the point of the umbrella up the back of my leg and yelled Cockroach!!  I may or may not have let out an embarrassing cry of a rather embarrassing nature.

The mission office is in our area.  Today we walked there to run some errands.  Up to the fifteenth floor, right by the Vitória end of the Terceira Ponte.  I love the office.  Now we are going to go try açai and caldo de cana, a drink made from sugarcane!  This morning we had cheese bread (pão de queixo) and açai guaraná (a juice) from an awesome little bakery.  Excitement.  Things are beautiful here.  

So many spiritual experiences each day!  I will have to share some next week.
I would´ve this week, but I got caught up in the physical details.  I am adjusting to Brasil, slowly but surely.  If it weren´t so sweaty during the day and I already had a perfect knowledge of Portuguese, then I would have nothing to complain about.  :)  

Our area include downtown Vitória!  It´s super neat.  More next week!  

Até próximo, (see you again, soon)

ELDER J BODILY

NOT in georgia anymore...

Beleza gente!

 

so.  just to preview you.  the keyboards here are different, and the ´v´ key only works when i press really hard and the shift is in a different spot, so to save on time i am just going to go all lower case and i may miss some v´s.  not my fault.

 

i cannot believe that this is all real.  i have to start at the beginning and just go.  i have very limited time.  i am in a lan house which is a bunch of computers really close together in a teensy air conditioned room.  ok.

 

so, in georgia we got snowed in ironically on monday night and tuesday, we weren´t allowed to use the cars, which more or less we were stranded in our apartment because all of our portuguese folks are miles away.  or they were i guess.  anyway, focus.  i ran errands with elder nickel who also got his visa monday and tuesday.  on tuesday i had an adventure.  elder vitorio´s flight got rescheduled to tuesday night, so we got to take him down there.  we rode the marta, which is the subway/train in atlanta.  i got great views of the city and loved it.  the roads were closed from ice, that~s why we had to take the train.  on wednesday we were frantically running errands, but we got word in the morning that our visas were still tied up in the fedex system which was clogged due to the weather.  about an hour before we had to leave for the airport we got a call saying everything was on.  it was a frantic rush to the finish line of getting everything together, which to this moment i still haven~t noticed anything is missing.  so we got a ride to the train station and rode the train to the airport again.  though several others in the mission got visas, only elder nickel and elder arreaga were with me on the flight.  the rest were leaving later.  we got our visas and went through security and all that.  then got on the plane eventually. 

 

i was right in the middle of the middle section.  two seats, three seats, two seats with two aisles was the airplane format.  i had no window view unless everyone in the row was sitting up straight.  i was between two brazilians.  neither wanted to talk with me.  one did, however, for a while because he wanted to practice his very limited english.  he was so proud of it...shame.  not like i have any better portguese skills, but we still communicated in his language.  the flight was long, i was very thirsty the whole time, and i couldn~t sleep.  the flight left at 9.25 at night (two hours after we boarded) and we arrived around 6 in the morning in sao paulo.  the food on planes isn~t as bad as it could be, but isn~t very exquisite.  anyway.

 

i was really nervous as the plane descended into sao paulo.  ps we flew directly over jacksonville, florida/ port au prince, haiti/  the bahamas/  and caracas, venezuela/ also manaus, brasil.  there was a monitor like a gps on the seat head in front of me that showed where we were and all our stats.  i watched it virtually the whole flight.  ps there was a sister on the flight with us who went into the mtc a week after i did.  she was visa waiting in spokane, washington.  i was so tired, hot, and weak in the sao paulo airport.  we wandered until we found the line for foreigners.  we stood in line for a long time.  my backpack and my duffel together weighed 65 pounds.  i was afraid i was going to pass out, but i endured for half an hour and got through customs.  my bags arrived, unlike elder nickel--one of his was left in atlanta (no idea how that will resolve itself).  elder nickel was bound for goaina, elder arreaga for joao pessoa, and the sister for manaus.  my layover was short, theirs were long, so they stayed with him at baggage claim.  i went through immigration alone.  luckily, i had asked elder mcgregor for tips.  it is painless.  they just check passport and you have to fill out a form saying you have ^nothing to declare^^.  curse this keyboard.

 

there was a church travel person there to guide me.  she eventually had to go back to pick up the other three, but she didn~t explain this well to me because she only spoke portuguese.  she left me in a part of the airport and told me to stay.  i was there for 45 minutes watching people and listening.  this is when i got excited to be in brasil.  it was a little insane.  i got into a conversation with a lady who invited me into a free art exhibit right by the spot i was supposed to wait.  we talked about the art, her and the other people in the exhibit.  then i said thanks gotta go and she told me her mom is a member of the church and she is inactive.  we talked a little more and then i had to go.  i wish she wouldve told me that in the beginning!  all this was in portuguese, mind you.  she was very patient with helping me.  anyway, then i got my next two boarding passes and went to the gate.  there was elder anderson!!!!!!!!!!!  we were re-united.  so cool.  there was one other elder who was visa waiting in texas for four months.  elder fischer.  i was so happy.  we talked and caught up.  excellent.  our flight changed gates and we almost missed it because we were so excited to talk to each other.

 

we flew to belo horizante where we ate a quick lunch--so beautiful there.  changed btwn rain and sun five times in the few hours we were there.  so green, so warm.  beautiful really.  finally, we flew to vitoria.  it was all dark clouds, but there was a channel of light coming down thru the clouds onto the city.  ps, i haggled my way into window seats with the airplane people in portuguese for both the brazilian flights.  woohoo!  it was beautiful.  we landed. the airport in vitoria is so small.  we walked out of the airplane on stairs and walked into the baggage area, smaller than a large living room.  just then it started to rain.  it put to shame all the rain the usa has to offer.  it was like an ocean was falling out of the sky.  the luggage got wet.  elder andersons luggage got left in sao paulo.  we had to go back and pick it up the next day after they had flown it to vitoria.  i was sweating bad in my suit.  we met the president and the secretaries.  we took a cab to the president~s home (twelfth floor right on the beach, so stunning) and had dinner and got briefed.  both our brazilian flights were delayed so we had only very little time to eat and get briefed, so were quickly whisked out into the rain again.  caught a cab to the secretaries´ home.  it was very small, very hot, and not very clean.  brazil is so different.  there are no homes.  only little apartments all stacked on top of each other and behind gates.  here are some interesting things:

 

-i walked around some guys tying fishing net on the sidewalk of the street where the secretaries´ house is

-there were several old ladies with hairnets sweeping their porches

-i saw several coconut milk stands

-the stop signs say ``pare``

-there are exotic neon birds in the trees, but also chickadees

-from the shower (which has a small ventilation window) i could see the people selling and buying fish down across the street (the secretaries´apartment is about three stories up)

-most of the cars are shaped like tear drops, like geo metros; except some american cars.  the most common american car i~ve seen is the vw golf and the honda civic (just like the one i drove at college)

 

etc etc.  it is a completely different world.  i wish i could express it to you in this short email.  i am almost out of time as it is.  it~s like something out of a movie, except you can feel the heat.  we ride buses that take us at high speeds through narrow alleys with people and apartments on average three stories tall almost side to side.

 

we registered our visas at the federal police station and got finger-printed and all that.  i was so glad to be with elder anderson for all this. 

 

here~s the sitch.  transfers are tomorrow where i will meet my trainer and go to my real first area.  after the secretaries house i took a bus with my luggage to a part of town called maruipe and have been working here since saturday.  we will go to transfers tomorrow. 

 

unbelievable.  unbelievable.  gotta go.  ahh! 

 

Falou,

ELDER BODILY

SAFE ARRIVAL

Elder Joshua Bodily with President and Sister Pickett
Vitoria Brazil Mission Home

Address Information

Josh sent this email in response to my question of "Where do we send letters now?"

Happy writing!

Elder Joshua Steven Bodily

Brazil Vitória Mission

Rua João Baptista Parra, 633

Salas 1501/1502

Edf. Enseada Office, Enseada Do Suá

29052-1213 Vitória-ES     BRAZIL

Phone: 55-27-3325-3703

If shipping with a private courier, the phone number must be on there!!

This is always where packages go.

The packet says that letters go here until I notify y’all of where I am assigned…idk how that will work out yet.

VISA VISA VISA

Hellooooooooooo  All.
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

New Year and Such

Hello again.

 

Last week I was finished shopping, eating, and sending emails by this time and so I had time to exercise, take a short nap, and tidy up the apartment.  Today, it is already almost 1:00pm and I am not done with most of the things I need to do.  This is primarily because we were on the last computer slot today.  Last week we were first.  There are only three computers and there are 8 missionaries as well as the other people from the complex who want to use the free Internet on these computers.  I like being here in the clubhouse however, it is cozy with big couches.  I have been writing letters and I played a game of pool with a stranger.  I lost.  Both times.  Anyway.

 

We had some progress this week.  We taught Fatima and Luca several times.  Luca is helping out at home.  Fatima said that one day this week she came home exhausted, but to her surprise the house was all clean and he was there to surprise here and hug her!  He is ten years old, you see.  This is not regular ten year old behavior.  He said he greatly enjoyed doing it.  He is excited about church.  He brought his friend yesterday to church.  Fatima has also told us that he has been a lot happier in general since we have started teaching.  It's pretty miraculous especially when I can tell that it is not us that are making the difference.  Fatima had an absolutely great time coming to church and Luca really enjoyed Primary despite admitting boredom during Sacrament Meeting.  We had two confirmations (Tania & Edilberto--who were baptized two weeks ago) that I got to participate in.  Also, there was another Portuguese baptism.  A 21 year old named Isabella.  It was a great Sunday.  We had a record number of 47 at Sacrament Meeting!  Another baptism and Isabella's confirmation slated for next week.  The mission president also came for Sacrament Meeting and the baptism.  It's exciting to see such progress, especially after having exerted such incredible work and hours to keep the ball rolling.  It's a good feeling to be in a group of happy people, who despite having imperfect lives and multitudes of personal concerns, are united in their committment to follow God. 

 

In the news, Brazil inaugurated their first female president ever on New Years Day.  Hopefully she likes giving visas!

 

I had a delicious dinner with a member family that is worth making mention.  It was bowtie pasta with homemade alfredo sauce and real parmesan cheese sprinkled on top!  Lovely.  Simply lovely.  Mmm.  Also, perfectly steamed brocolli and delicious garlic bread.  And root beer floats for dessert!  The family had a lot of young children and they all wanted to play with us, so it was kind of reminescent of home.  The six-year-old especially reminded me of Jake.  He was crazy and funny and very hyper.  (He also ended up getting sent to his room before we left...you see, it is possible to be a little too hyper).

 

We had a New Missionary Training Meeting.  I am not exactly too new here anymore, but we flew into Georgia one week after the last such meeting.  It was nice to drive to Lilburn again.  The meeting was both spiritual and informative.  I also got to see one of the Athens missionaries.  Everyone sleeps on the way there and back except for me and the driver so it is beautifully peaceful, and I got even better views of downtown Atlanta because the weather was clearer than last time.  We drive right by a pair of buildings called the Concourse Corporate Center in Marietta that are kind of neat too.  We nickname the King and Queen buildings.  If you look it up you will see why.

 

I forgot to mention that we had a lesson with Fatima with a member of the Portuguese Group who is a native Brasilian.  That was especially awesome, because well, simply, a Brasilian woman can relate to another Brasilian woman better than can a nineteen-year-old missionary from the States can.  Plus, they became quick friends and the Sister was able to show Fatima around church and such.  When things actually work as a missionary it is just excellent.  Joy. 

 

 

We had dinner with a member family on New Years Eve.  They were really nice.  They fed us on what was probably my third day in Marietta as well.  They tried to make dinner especially cool in honor of New Years Eve.  We all wore party hats and had noisemakers, and we lit off some fun little fireworks on their driveway after eating and having a scriptural discussion.  We weren't allowed to proselyte the night of New Years Eve, so we came back to the apartment and I caught up on my journal writing.  I had plans to wake up just before midnight to briefly celebrate the official New Year, but the cell phone alarm that I set didn't go off.  This is because our phone is, hmm...how does one say it?  Ridiculous.  Yes, that's it.  But, in the end I was exhausted and got a good night of sleep that was uninterrupted.  That's the news.  We found a new Portuguese speaker and a new English speaker.  We have some appointments this week.  Things are looking well.  Onward.

 

It rained all day New Years.  I brought my umbrella around all day and had actually had fun in the rain.  It was unexpected. 

 

It seems like we meet a lot of people who are not very happy.  In general.  I hope that we can all find time to appreicate, embrace, and enjoy life ACTIVELY in this new year.  It's been clearer than ever to me here on a mission that happiness must be sought out!  It doesn't come in consequence of laziness, selfishness, or indifference.  Sit on the couch with some hot cocoa and calm piano melodies, have a conversation with someone you love, really spend some time thinking about someone you could help out and how.  Then do it.  Be creative.  Mix things up and have a good time with life.  And don't forget God in the process.  He's the one who wants us to be most happy of all, and has more than shown us how.  Happy new year.  For real.  Get out there and make it happen! 

 

Tchau folks,

Elder JOSHUA BODILY