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
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