Tuesday, Bloody Tuesday.

Distrito Beira Jacintiuca

Sorry tudo mundo.  This email is going to be kind of scattered this time around.  I apologize if my ranting doesn't make any sense.

This week was pretty great.  Elder Ortiz and I are on fire.  Our lessons have become super spiritual and we're working really hard.  I sure am enjoying my time here in Jacintinho.  Right now we're trying to convince our recent convert that he wants to serve a mission.  He says he doesn't know and that he'll have to ask God.  I can accept that answer, because I already know what he's going to say in reply.

So now we enter into a whole new world or randomness.

So there's this one guy in our area who makes the best churros on the face of the planet.  He fills them with doce de leite and I just about die from a mixture of pure joy and an overly excessive amount sugar.  He sells them for R$ 1, which is a bargain.  Elder Ortiz and I did the math and man does that guy make a ton of money off of selling churros.  The guy is famous and everyone buys from him.  I guess if life in the states doesn't work out, I could come down here and sell churros, apparently there is a ton of money to be made out of it.

There's this one street in our area where I'm convinced that all the crazy people are forced to live there.  Like this other day we were teaching a lesson on the road and this guy came up to us and started teaching along with us.  He seemed like a very spiritual guy so we asked him about the importance of prayer.  He then gave us an example about how all of our fingers are different and somehow that means prayer is only prayer if 4 people are praying at the same time.  He then grabbed our hands and started to pray.  We were later informed by him that he had seen the second coming and he saw a bunch of blood evaporate into the sky.  People.....

This week I took the time to study the priesthood in depth.  It was a pretty great experience.  I feel like I understand all of the organizational aspects of the priesthood melhor (better).  

We taught this really cool guy at a restaurant the other day.  We ordered our food and then he started asking us a bunch of really good questions.  The guy was really smart, he studied Greek and Hebrew so he could read the bible in the way it was written.  He asked a bunch of questions and wasn't judgmental at all.  Way cool guy!

I have this problem with calling everyone "Mo Fio" I really need to stop.

Because my area has some parts that really reminds me of India, I witness some pretty interesting things.  The other day for example.  We were walking down the road and it is very common for there to be huge traffic jams on the main road of the neighborhood.  To be completely fair, the road is a tad bit small for all the cars to pass through.  However, that is no excuse for when everyone gets stuck in the road to hold a horn honking competition, to see who can honk their horn: the most, the loudest, and the most obnoxious way possible.  I always know when there's a traffic jam in the morning.  I live like a kilometer away from that road but I can still hear all of hubbub.

I had a dream the other day.  I dreamed Elder Ortiz and I were contacting people on the beach and then this one guy on a motorcycle drove up to me and wanted to steal my camera.  I wasn't quite ready to make that sacrifice so I ran.  Unfortunately for me, Elder Ortiz stayed behind and decided to chat it up with said hooligan and give him the address to our house.  Needless to say I wasn't the happiest fellow on the beach.  The next thing I know, I'm in my house and I see that guy pull up and he tries to break down the door.  I run down the stairs to secure the door in place when the guy opens the door and stabs me about half an inch into my diaphragm with a butter knife.  Naturally I was rather peeved at him and I shooed him away into the night.  

Speaking of violence, Tuesday was a very violent day.  I heard a series of gunshots on three occasions.  When we were walking home we came upon a multitude of people surrounding a few police cars.  The police cars then took off down the road.  We asked onlookers what had happened and apparently the police went to go take some guy who just got shot in the face to the hospital.  The guy got shot in the face and he was still kickin!!  What a trooper!!!  #OnlyInJacintinho

The election situation is getting ridiculous.  I'm so tired of the sound cars driving around the neighborhood blasting advertisements.  There was this one guy who was advertising in the middle of the street.  He was on top of his truck yelling at people why he should get elected.  He said a lot of things like:

"I am not a clown!"

"I will not clown around when I'm in office!"

"So what if I worked as a clown!  I'll be a better politician!"

"I graduated from college with a degree in architecture and marketing!!!  I'm educated!!!  So please everyone!!! Stop calling me a clown!!"

I had to go down into the grota the other day during the middle of a power outage.  Sketchiest. Thing. Ever.  Apparently to do so is not a very wise idea, but we had a lesson to teach!  We almost fell down the stairs, but in the end we survived and our investigators came to church.

All right.  I'm out of stuff for this week.  Sorry it was super long.  I'm going to go walk along the beach, hoping that my companion doesn't give our address to would be no-good-doers.

-Élder Johnson

Brazilian Pizza.  And yes, the slice on the right is indeed bacon pizza.