Tracting

IT'S SCRIPTURE TIME!!!!!!

It rained a lot this week.  Like A LOT.  I loved it!  I thought tracting in the rain was a lot of fun and people generally took pity on us and let us in their house.  We got soaked and we live up on the this hill so the roads were like rivers when we were making our way back home and had a blast!  There was one weird guy we found in the rain though.  He was sitting in the middle of the road and was bleeding out of his head.  We went and tried to talk to him to see if he needed any help, but we couldn't understand him because his mouth was filled with blood.  He said something about money and we really couldn't do anything for him so we just left.

So, this week was a week of finding people to teach.  Most of our investigators are either:

a.  baptized

b.  disappeared off the face of the earth

c.  non existent

d.  cut

We went and tried to find people all week and did not have much success.  It's all good though because I got to meet a lot of interesting people this week.  So I think I will talk about them mostly in this email.

We had one guy that came up and talked to us about how Jesus built the pyramids in Egypt.  We gave him a pamphlet and he committed to coming to church the following week.

We ran into the guy who talked to us for about 90 minutes about Adam and Eve the other day and he actually read parts of the Book of Mormon.  He started in the book of Jacob because that was the only name he recognized from the Bible.  He was confused because it did not follow the storyline of Jacob in the Bible, but he read it nevertheless.  We told him it was about the people in America and that helped him out.  He then said some more nonsense and that was about it.

There are two kinds of people who love missionaries:

a.  little kids

b.  drunk guys

The weekends are always hard at night.  At night everybody gets drunk and parties outside their house so we have difficulties getting in with anyone because they won't remember us the next morning.  So on one of these nights we were talking to one investigator who runs this market down the street and we were waiting for him to finish up with some customers.  This one drunk guy came up and started talking with me.  He asked some of the usual questions, "Where are you from?  What are you doing here?" and he then proceeded to talk to me about Brazilian women.  I told him I wasn't allowed to date anyone while on my mission, but he wouldn't accept it.  I then fibbed and told him I had a girlfriend serving a mission too and he got really sad.  He felt really sorry for talking to me about Brazilian women and we became good friends.  There was this other drunk guy we ran into while leaving said investigators market.  I'm not quite sure what he said, but it was about God and how God related to his beer can.  He was really getting into his "sermon" and our investigator was getting embarrassed.

There was this lady who we found and she talked with us for some time and she had a lot of stuff to say about religion.  We could tell she was a little crazy and we asked her if we could have a prayer.  She asked if we wanted her to pray and we said yes because we were really curious as to how she would pray.  We bowed our heads and she closed her eyes and starting shouting praises to the Lord and blessing everyone and everything.  She had lots of wonderful dramatic movements and we knew "she could feel it!"  I was trying really hard not to laugh during her "prayer" and it was overall a wonderful experience.

On a more spiritual note there was one really cool thing that happened this week.  We were walking down this road after lunch and this guy came up to us and said we were men of God and that he had to talk with us.  We followed him home and he told us his story about how he used to be homeless and how God helped him overcome it and he now has a family.  He was really interested in what we had to say and invited us to come back.

Portuguese language update:

I am not yet fluent and I've got a few more months until I am, but I have improved a lot.  In the beginning it was a tad bit frustrating, but as soon as I stopped caring and just tried to do the best I could, it started coming.  I now don't really have to think too much about translating what I want to say and I can speak pretty well without thinking, which has been a huge blessing these past two months.  

The culture hasn't really weirded me out or anything.  The first few days I thought the houses were really strange and I had to get used to not showering with hot water.  I got over it pretty fast and it really isn't that strange of a place here.  I've grown to really love it here in Brazil and love every second of being here!

Até Mais,

- Tanner

My house in Aracaju Brazil.

So I think this thing is called a Pimtopa, but I'm not quite sure.
It's like a nut inside a fruit inside a nut.  Some lady gave it to me while
we were contacting.  We knocked on her door and she just gave us some.
You are supposed to suck that little white fleshy stuff off and it's disgusting.
It tastes all chalky and feels unnatural in your mouth.