Zone Conference

Zone Conference with the MTC boiz!  Elder Roper, Elder Munger, Elder Rutledge, and myself.

Sooo I guess dad told you we got robbed the other week.  It's all good and Elder Godoy and I are doing fine.  So here's the story.  We were walking down the road next to our church and he was talking on the cell phone with some of the other missionaries.  We were about to enter the church to get a drink and then two guys on a motorcycle pulled up.  The guy on the back flashed a gun and told Elder Godoy to give him the cell phone.  He gave them the phone and they went on their way.  I then cursed them and two she bears came out of the bushes and tore them.  There was much rejoicing.  The funniest thing was I knew what was happening the whole time, but when Elder Godoy gave them the phone for a split second I thought, "How did Elder Godoy get this man's phone?"  The really unfortunate part was that we have to call the zone leaders to get a new phone and that is very difficult to do without a unusable phone.  But it's cool and I'm over it.

On a brighter note, apparently peanut butter and jelly sandwiches don't make a lot of sense to Brazilians and they find the idea absolutely disgusting.

Oh and last week on our way back from Burger King (the only one in the entire state) our bus clipped a car and they had to flag down another bus for everyone.  So we basically had two packed busloads into one bus and it was a very sweaty and adventurous experience.

We finally have a hot shower!!!!  This has been awesome!!!  I haven't had a hot shower in weeks and the church came by and installed an electric heater for us.

So a cool experience - we got a referral to go check out a less active, but we had no idea where she lived.  We knew she lived somewhere close to the giant Catholic Church, but that was about it.  So we decided to knock on doors until we found her.  The cool thing was we only needed to knock on one door because we got her house on the first try!!   #HolyGhost4Life   So now we are trying to get her to come back to church and she is showing some desire so we'll see how that goes.

We went to a birthday party for one of our investigator's kids the other day.  The party really started when the Mormon missionaries showed up.  A lot of the people there had a good time trying to speak English to me and they all were laughing and having a great time.  Birthday parties are serious down here.  They said it was just going to be a little cake, but there were tons of people there with decorations, food, and drunken men telling me how much they respect our work.

So an apology is in order.  Sorry I didn't email yesterday, but we had to switch our Pday to Tuesday this week because we had a Zone Conference yesterday with everyone in Sergipe.  Apparently Sister Gonzaga thought it was my birthday, so she made me stand in the little circle of everyone who is having birthdays in the next upcoming months and they sang happy birthday to me and gave me candy.  I was dying of laughter and told her it wasn't my birthday.  She let me keep the candy though.  Oh, and after about 2 1/2 months I finally got to see Elder Rutledge!!!  We had a glorious reunion filled with tears, laughter, and a wonderful vocabulary, which consisted of words such as YOLO and other things that nobody else finds funny.  We got to catch up and share stories.  We spoke Portuguese to each other, but switched over to English because we were too happy.  He looked a little bit like he just served a tour in Afghanistan, but he's doing well.  It was GLORIOUS!!!!!!

Me and Elder Rutledge.  A very joyful reunion!

The work here is going extremely well.  They announced at Zone Conference that they will be making about four new wards in the next month.  The kingdom is growing!!  We haven't had a lot of luck these past weeks.  A lot of the investigators we find don't really have any desire to do much of anything, but I feel like that will soon change.

I. Hate. Snakes.  Snakes are what we call the girls around here who are hunting for missionaries.  They make me so uncomfortable, but I have recently acquired a photo that a friend sent me and I carry it with me everywhere I go.  When they ask me if I have a girlfriend I say yes and show them the picture.  They then get sad and no longer want to be baptized.  But seriously, like this week they have been everywhere and I can't escape them.  They are always saying uncomfortable things and giving me looks that is definitely what I don't need right now!

Anywho, I'm going to an aquarium so have a great week!

- Elder Johnsons Baby

Me and da boiz by our house.

Siqueira Campos

So this beauty is Fanta Maracujá (or as you Yanks know it, Passion Fruit) and let me tell you it's amazing!!
Maracujá is awesome, again you don't eat it, but you turn it into juice or soda.  The Fanta was really hard to find.
 I heard rumors about it so I went to search for it and found it after trying like five stores.  The think
with Maracujá though is that it is a very good sleep aid and it's very difficult to work
after a family has Maracujá juice after lunch.

So this watermelon, that I am obviously enjoying, was grown in our backyard.
Elder Godoy and I found it when it was just a meloncino and it has grown to quite the melon.

This is called a Nuni.  You make it into juice and if you don't add another fruit the taste will kill you.
 One of our investigators gave it to us and I am planning on juicing up this bad boy.