September 28, 2015 - Ipatinga

I just need to keep esperança.

 

This week was just okay for the work. We definitely had some highs and lows. This past p-day was just Elder Barbosa and I. We actually cleaned our apartment. It´s a lot better now. A little info on the apartment. First off, we don´t have a dryer. This means we have to plan more about when to wash our clothes. I forgot to wash my lights soon enough and was forced to wear a long sleeve shirt. I´ve actually done this twice, I´m wearing one right now. We then have to hang our clothes to dry. I´m going to be really good at ironing after staying here because when I hang the shirts out to dry they get all wrinkled and I have to iron everything.

We have lots of walking to do and the hills here feel endless. Also, we had some extremely hot days this week. It was so bad that I had to hold my plate out in front of me to keep sweat from dripping on to my food. All this and it´s only spring right now.

 

We have a few rays of sunshine with a few investigators and ward activities, but we also had a bunch of fake contacts this week. They make you walk for a mile to an address that dosen´t exist. I would rather they just say that they're not interested.

 

About Elder Barbosa. He´s a nice guy and loves ketchup. He puts it on his sandwiches and on his pizza. Apparently it´s a normal thing to put ketchup on your pizza here. I can kind of understand it because there is next to no sauce on them. Also, the strangest type of pizza I´ve heard about is mozzarella and chocolate.

 

Elder Barbosa had a migraine one day, so I just studied for a long time. I am now in Mosiah in my reading of the Portuguese Book of Mormon

Randoms:

* As we were walking home one night we were passed by a double decker bus completely covered in neon and blasting music.

* Last night there were fireworks and an eclipse. It was pretty fun to watch.

* We are supposed to have 8 missionaries staying in our house tonight in preparation for zone conference.

* The are quite a few fires here (nearly every day), but they are all rather small. I feel like I´m back in Vacaville.

 

Elder Quain

Ward Activities

 

September 21, 2015 - Ipatinga

All I can see is a Belo Horizonte

 

Things are going good and the ward members are great. Last p-day we were able to play soccer with some of the members and I actually wasn´t that bad. I know I surprised myself too. This p-day activity is cleaning the Apartment, which it is in need of. I have actually cleaned it on my own a little, that´s how you know it´s not good. Hopefully I´ll also get a nap in.

 

We teach a lot of people one lesson. Either they say they are not interested or we can never find them home again, or last of all they just don´t answer the door. What is almost harder than not knowing the language is knowing that we have a great message that could bless their lives and families, but they don´t want it. One of the hardest things this week was a guy that we have been teaching only needed to come to church to qualify for baptism and he actually was at a church. We know this because as we walked to church we passed him. We stopped and talked (I didn´t talk much, mostly my companion), but he just didn´t want to go.

 

This mission is full of hills. The motto is "called to serve a mission in the hills," translation to English. About half of the hills are so steep I wouldn´t ride a bike down them. Quite a few turn suddenly and would send you flying over a ledge. I´m going to have calves of steal by the time I´m done here.

 

My trainer, Elder Barbosa has been on his mission for 18 months and this is only his third area. He says that the last mission president didn´t like moving people a lot, but President Fernandes does. He has actually never watched the Pirates of the Caribbean and really likes music. He said the last president didn´t allow any music, but I´m glad the current one does. Elder Barbosa is always hungry, he really likes pizza.

 

Randoms:

* A guy said that he loved Christ and wanted to become Jewish. I don´t think he believed me when I told him that Jews don´t accept Jesus as the Christ.

* We visit the ward mission leader a lot - he´s really nice and his name is Mazinho.

* We attend noite familiar (FHE) whenever a person invites a non member.

* We were taken to an all you can eat Brazilian BBQ by a return missionary that is a computer programmer.

* One of the questions I get asked the most often is, Estados Unidos?
 

Elder Quain

 

We also got to see our fist baptism this week. It was kind of funny for the interview. The Missionaries weren´t in our area, but we have the closest chapel, so they came to ours for the interview. They needed us there to unlock the chapel. They came with the investigator and they needed their district leader to give the interview. There ended up being 3 sets of missionaries there for the interview. It was fun and I got to see Elder Nelson. We kind of hove our own language right now. A mixture of English and Portuguese. The Baptism was two days latter and there were a lot of people. That should be happening every week. At least that´s the goal.

September 14, 2015 -Ipatinga

I can see Belo Horizonte in every direction.

 

Well, the city I am in is called Ipatinga. For those of you that don´t know Portuguese pronunciations it is Ipachinga phonetically. It has a population of around 1 million people and 7 missionaries (one tripanionship), and it's in the Guinness book of world records for having the most churches in one city in the world. I walked down (up really) one street for 4 minutes and passed 3 churches. There are hills everywhere. They call them morros and I die is said eu morro(rr equals an h sound). I can´t tell if I´m going to gain weight or loose weight. We walk up and down a ton of hills every day, but the people feed us a ton. They eat more than me, if that´s possible. I eat 3 platefuls and they tell me to eat more. One person said I don´t eat enough so I bring them shame. I thought that was funny. The food is really good here though.

 

The people are awesome, few in number, but awesome. They are supper patient with me, especially with the language. They do something on Wednesday night similar to youth activities, but with entire families. I think it´s pretty fun. They also do two Family home evenings a week. One for family and one for the ward. They play games at the event, but I´m at a loss when they try to explain them. There was one where they repeatedly chanted "crack." I got a laugh from my companion when I told him it was a name for a drug in the U.S. One of the guys at noite familiar (FHE) was wearing an Oakland Athletics shirt and I was talking with him. I then told him Oakland was my favorite team and he tried to give me the shirt. I told him that I already had some and he could keep his. The people here are happy with so little.

 

My companion is really nice. To learn the language we kind of talk in this weird mixture of Portuguese and English. It´s annoying when neither of us know a word, or how to explain it. During language study I read the book of Mormon in Portuguese and he reads it in English. He thinks I am a strange American because I am not enamored with McDonalds and I don´t watch professional fútibol Americano (only college). I told him I like watching baseball, but I don´t think that convinced him of my normality.

 

So, I was taking showers and they have the water heater in the shower head. One side says inverno(winter) and the other side says verão(summer). Thinking summer -hot, I set it there. The water didn´t really get warm. It was actually pretty cold, but I though it was just not a good heater. After 3 days I decided to try inverno, just to check. Turns out you´re supposed to put it to the season you are in. I finally got a warm shower.

 

Randoms:

*Two other elders stayed with us last night, but other then that it just us. 

*They have a bunch of ceiling fans installed in the sacrament meeting room.

*McDonalds is better here then in the states.

*My companion has a player and some church music.(life saver)

 

Elder Quain

View from our Apartment in Ipatinga

With ward members

 

 

September 9, 2015 - Arrived in Belo Horizonte!

So, I got my companion, but I´m guessing that you already received the picture. His name is Elder Barbosa. My first thought when I heard his name was the Pirates of the Caribbean. Our area is about 5 hours outside of Belo Horizonte by bus. I´m almost getting used to these long travel days. From what I can understand Barbosa is the district leader. He´s a pretty cool guy, a Brosilato and is trying to learn English. He is pretty good at some of it too. I hope my Portuguese overtakes his English soon, but it is nice that he can explain some things in English. 

New companion - Elder Barbosa!

 

We had a flight yesterday and met the President and his wife. The Fernandes´ are very young. Their oldest child is younger then me. That could be Nate in a few years. They fed us some really good food and Elder Barbosa and I ended up staying in a hotel overnight. We had a long commute time today and I lived off of a loaf of banana bread Sister Fernandes gave me. I ate the whole loaf!

 

I´ve met two people from the ward and they have a ward activity tonight. I guess it´s trial by fire. I can understand as long as people talk slowly and I can hear them clearly, so this is going to be interesting. I just need to remember that as long as I put my trust in the Lord I will be able to learn all I need.

 

Randoms:

*Sorry I don't have my camera, so I´ll give you pictures in my next letter

*This keyboard is in Portuguese so it underlines everything in red and it looks like I have horrible spelling

*After writing the last letter the guys from our district got 17 big cookies and 2 liters of ice cream and ate it all

*We had and in-field orientation and it was about 12 hours long and they spoke only Portuguese.

*They have a parrot at this computer lab

 

Elder Quain

 

Arrived in Belo Horizonte

At the mission home

 

The whole group with new companions.

 

Sister & President Fernandes

September 4, 2015 - São Paulo CTM

Well I´m down to less than one week in the CTM and I'm super excited and a little nervous, but I´m confident the Lord will strengthen me as I work on the language. I still don´t really have a personality in Portuguese, but I feel almost functional in the language, at least on gospel topics. We have the joke that we will be the most obedient missionaries ever because all we know how to talk about well is the gospel. 

My companion, Elder Nelson, and I had some of our best lessons ever this week. He already has a good grasp on the language, but I was able to talk a lot more and express some of my ideas. They decided to throw all three subjunctive tenses at us this week and I think I might understand maybe one. They don't exist in English, there's something like a hypothetical tense in there.

 

Some info on the district; everyone in the group loves to sing and we do it a lot. One of the frequently sung songs for the guys is "Let's Get Down to Business" from Mulan. We have four other people from Texas in our district and no one from Utah. Elder Bowcutt is our district lead and enjoys country music, fishing, and wants to go into medicine. His companion is Elder Freeze and he is really good at piano and likes the band 21 Pilots. Elder Karren is from Ogden and his main talent is knowing everybody. Elder Nelson is from Maryland and is a movie star. (made a movie in college and some how Elder Karren saw it) The favorite movie of our district is Nacho Libre. I have never seen it, but they quote it so much I have started to quote it also.

 

Me weekly randoms:

* I had a dream I went to Disneyland with my family and rode the haunted mansion, but I skipped the corpse bride room in my dream (guess my subconscious doesn´t like it)

* I started ironing this week and got my dry cleaning done.

* I talked with a Brasilato while at the temple and understood him, so there´s hope.

* The guys in the district got shakes and they were really good because I haven't had ice cream since the first day at Provo (July 29)

 

Elder Quain

Elder Hollingshauos & Me