Holy Ridiculous Amount of Grotas Batman!!!!

An example of a small Grota.

Well, here I am.  I've been officially transferred to the Jacintinho Ward in the Maceió Pajuçara Stake.  It's pretty cool here.  Of all the areas that I've passed through, this one is the one that makes me feel like I'm in a completely different world.  It's not the richest area in the world and everything goes really quickly.  There's lots of traffic, people in the streets, and random people selling things on the side of the road.

Like this last week.  We were walking down the road and I was trying to pass by this fruit stand on the side of the road. This was rather difficult because there was a semi-truck going down a street, that was way to small for it, driving on the wrong side of the road.  So I was like sandwiched between a fruit stand and this semi-truck just hauling down the road, there was only like two inches of space between the truck, the fruit stand, and I, and it just squeezed right on by like it was something completely normal.

There are also a ton of Grotas here too.  Our area is basically like a mountain. We live on top of the mountain on the slopes going down to the valleys or the ocean is just a ton of houses that people have just built there.  There are a ton of stairs going hither and thither, tight alleyways, ridiculously steep hills, tons of music, partying, and very obscure entrances to houses.  I've had a Grota in one of my past areas, but that one was tiny, these ones are HUGE!!!!  I'm loving every minute of it.  You feel like you're entering a different world when you go in.  You walk over a bunch of poorly made bridges, and if you don't watch your step going down the stairs, you'd fall off a cliff.  Pretty neat if I do say so myself!!!

My area is also super close to the beach.  If I get up on top of a house or something, I can see the ocean.  So just to let you know, this transfer will probably have a lot of pictures of the beach and Grotas.  My district is pretty small too; it's just my companion and I, and one companionship of sisters.

My companion is Elder Ortiz, from Lima Peru.  He's trilingual, he can speak, Spanish, Portuguese, and English all pretty well.  He's super funny and super excited.  He also is pretty new on the mission; his other three companions didn't train him so I'm going through the training with him rather quickly.  I like my companion, he's pretty cool.

Also, on my last day with good ole' Elder Rutledge, we had a good time making pizza, we've gotten rather good at it.

So yeah, I'm liking the new area a lot.  We're working with a lot of less actives and recent converts to help them out with staying firm in the church.

So I heard a pretty ridiculous rumor the other day.  Someone told us that they heard that our church likes to take pictures of Jesus and stab it with knives.  I have to admit, that one was getting kind of ridiculous, I have no idea where people are coming up with this kind of stuff.

That's all for now, I'll try to send some pictures.  I love you all and have a great week.  I'll be trying not to fall to death or get ran over by cars this week.   #OneStepAtATime  #PegaoRut

Elder Johnson