Brazil man...

This is the baptism of Vivaldo this past week.  The YM's President baptized him (he knows English and is hilarious!)
 We should hopefully have another baptism this upcoming week.  (Comment from his Mom: Look how thin Tanner is!!)

I'd like to start off by saying that children's TV down here is down right horrifying!!  Whenever we go over to a member's house for lunch they're always watching it and it's hard to look away.  They really like clowns down here.  They have a show called "Patati Patatá", which is about these two clowns and it's pretty scary and all of the kids here love it.  I thought that was the end of the childhood trauma, but I was sorely mistaken when the other day they had Bozo The Clown.  He in fact looked nothing like Bozo The Clown and appeared more like a serial killer with terrible clown make up.  He was assisted by his oddly shaped friend, Cigarette Steve!  He sounded like an 80-year-old lady who has smoked since she was 12.

Brazil man...

And on another exciting note I almost saw a woman die the other day.  We were at the bus station (the bus is always an adventure down here) and usually whenever a bus arrives everybody storms it and fights to get on.  This lady got too excited and ran out into the road and smacked right into the side of the still moving bus.  There was lots of screaming joined with my companion saying "doideira!" (madness!)

So in actual news this week is that there really isn't a whole lot of news.  I was sick for about three days and I couldn't do a whole lot.  I started to feel sick last Pday and was feeling pain in my abs (Too many sit ups.  Am I right?  #Winning)  I told Elder Godoy and he said that I might have Dengue.  I found that to be rather unfortunate so I called Sister Gonzaga and she had me take some medicine and go visit the hospital.  You don't go to a doctor's office here like in the states.  You go and see the doctor in the hospital.  So I went to the great and abominable hospital, who's founder is the devil and is the harlot of all the earth, and they said I had an "infecção" and lucky for me, not Dengue.  So they gave me about five pounds worth of pills to take (I only needed to take like two pills a day for about a week) and I had to rest for about a day.  Being sick on the mission is the worst.  You can't do anything and the days go by really slow.  I am feeling a lot better now and we had a baptism this Saturday, which was pretty awesome.

As I said I was sick this past week and so Elder Godoy went out and saw some of our investigators with Elder Hurst.
  Two of our investigators asked where I was and he told them I was sick.  They found out where we lived and dropped
 by and gave me this plant!!   Apparently I was suppose to make it into tea or something and it should've helped me
out. Elder Izqueirdo and Elder Godoy said they've never seen this plant like this and that I have  to let it dry
for a week or two before making it into tea or it might kill me.  BRAZIL!!!!!

So the people here always do the same thing whenever they meet me.  They usually assume I'm Brazilian until they either:

A.  Hear my gringo accent, or
B.  Look at my name tag and make a funny face while trying to pronounce my name.

They then look at me and say, "Você não tá Brasileiro?" (You're not Brazilian?)  I then respond no and then they ask me if I am any of the following:

American  (the most common answer)
Spanish
Italian
CHINESE
JAPANESE
and one time they asked me if I was American and if I spoke Chinese.

Brazil man...

Anyways, that's about it for the week.  I'm going to go ride the bus!

Abracaos (hugs),

Tanner

This is a reality here in Brazil.