The Cure for the Common Cold

Well this week marks 1 year that I have officially lived in another country.  It's weird to think that I haven't been in the good old land of pancakes, guns, and the smell of freedom for a whole year.

Brazilian Super Man

So this week I had to retire one of my pairs of shoes because they officially died on me, I think the picture I send will say enough.

So this week the stake was preparing for stake conference and they wanted a ton of people there.  So in order to get a ton of people, the stake decided to hold open houses all week and put a ward in charge of each day at the stake center.  We covered a whole day and we showed people around the church, we showed them important things like the sacrament hall, the FHC, the baptismal font, and the elevator!!!  We had quite a few people come through and we had so many people at stake conference they had to transmit it to other rooms in the building.

Our Church

So for those of you who do not know, my companion is kind of a musical prodigy of some sort, he's really good at the trumpet and piano.  Some of the members invited him to play music at their sons wedding and so we used this as an opportunity to do a service project.  I of course do not have as much musical talent as my companion so I just took pictures and video the whole time.  The wedding went over well and my companion got lots of complements from everyone.

All shall be married by my hand.

We're teaching this one lady who read the whole Book of Mormon in one week.  She's really cool and as of right now is living basically all of the commandments; she's even married which is really surprising.  The only challenge now is to get her to come to church and commit to a baptismal date.

We also received a golden referral from the sisters.  They recently baptized this lady and she gave us the referral for her niece.  Her niece came to church, accepted a date, and cried during our lesson.  The spirit was super strong and was just an over all amazing experience.

In other news I got to do a really Brazilian thing the other day.  I got to mix cement on the street with a shovel!!!!  It was really fun, we asked these guys if we could help and we just got to work.  So if any of you need anyone to mix cement on the side of the road, you know who to call.

So when we arrived in our house a few weeks ago, it was rather filthy, and filled with all sorts of hullabaloo.  One of which, was this little ceramic horse that we just found in one of our rooms.  We threw it out the other day and in no less than 5 minutes latter somebody had picked it out of the garbage and claimed it as his own.  He just sat on the sidewalk for about 20 minutes petting the horse and playing with the little guy.

The entire city of Aracaju has been trying to figure out how to cure my cold this week.  This week I did indeed get a cold and it got treated how sickness usually gets treated, which means everyone immediately becomes a doctor.  A lot of the methods come from the Interior, which means these household remedies have probably been used for generations and /or people just make it up and somehow they can cure anything from the flu to cancer.  These were the following remedies that were suggested for me:

lime juice

this weird honey spray thing, which actually worked quite well

this pineapple honey mixture that a member gave to me

this weird tea a member made out some plant

lime mixed with garlic and cinnamon

(I didn't really want to try the last one)

The honey pineapple potion.

So this week has gone over pretty well.  All is well here in Soledade!!!!  So I'm going to go make some cement, until next time!!!

Élder Johnson

The Center has a selection of really great hats.

Elder Coon & I