I'm So Scared

Sunset in Laranjeiras.

Week one of the month of June.  Festas Juninas and The World Cup have yet to officially start, but alas the partying has begun. Bombs have gone off.  The town is decorated with yellow and green.  The Festas and The World Cup will officially start this week. I'm so scared.

So this week was a week of divisions.  I got to go over to Socorro and Laranjeiras on divisions.  One thing that was interesting was this guy we met at the bus station.  I don't know what his problem was, but he was acting rather inappropriately.  The guy first came up and started talking with us (of cours,e it's always the crazy people who want to come and talk with us.)  He started trying to speak to us in English, but we just kind of sat there and ignored him.  He then went into the middle of the bus station and gave everyone a rousing karate demonstration and taught some thirteen-year-old kid how to fight.  He then started yelling trying to pick a fight with someone and then asked if anyone wanted to fight the kid.  He then saw some guy leaving the bus station and yelled to everyone how well the man smelt.  People these days.

This week we had an activity with "Mãos que Ajudam" also known as The Mormon Helping Hands.  We went out and did an activity for Dengue, which is kind of a problem down here.  So what normally happens is that there are these government agents who go around the city, knock on peoples' doors, and go through their house looking for stuff that could possibly house Dengue Mosquitoes. Well turns out that all of the agents in the city of Aracaju have been on strike for a few months and no one has been having their houses checked for Dengue.  So whom does the government call to help?

The Mormons.

So on Saturday we received a little training on how to identify objects that could house Dengue and how to properly dispose of it.  I was with another American during the whole ordeal and naturally we don't have too much knowledge about Dengue.  Basically we just entered peoples' houses, looked for anything that had water, and told them to throw it out if they had any, and pretended that we were experts in a field that we really had no knowledge about.  People acted weird though when we went in their houses.  They acted like they had committed a crime and the police had just shown up to search their house for Dengue.  "No, I swear!  We don't have any Dengue here!  We don't store water or anything here!!", "Quit lying to me!!!  I know you're hiding it!!!"  Like people got pretty nervous when we went in to inspect.  I honestly don't know why they were acting like that, Dengue isn't something anyone really wants to keep in their house or hide from other people.

Dengue Specialists, aka The Mormons.

There was this one guy who got rather ticked at us.  He told us it that the bigger problem was the water in the road and not in the house.  He talked to us for about ten minutes about how we're not doing our jobs right and what not.  His wife was trying to explain to him that we weren't official representatives of the government but just missionaries, but for some reason that didn't make sense to him.  He eventually came to his senses and apologized.  He then proceeded to give us a 15 minute sermon about the importance of religious acceptance.  It was a pretty good sermon.  I liked it.

Anyways, it was pretty fun.  We helped fight of the little Dengue demons and I acted like I knew what I was talking about the whole day.  #DengueSpecialist

One of our investigators is a professional gospel singer, or at least that's what Elder Coon tells me, she was only taught while I was gone on divisions.  He did show me a video of her singing and she's pretty good.  Probably a little difficult to teach, but I thought it was cool either way.

So that's about it for this week.  Partying officially starts this Thursday, so that should be pretty fun for everyone else and absolutely horrifying for the missionaries.  Well here's hoping that I will survive another week.

-Elder Johnson

Bird Statue.

Cow.