Maringa April 16, 2012

Hello!
Bom dia from Maringá!
So, yeah! This week was pretty good!
P-day was good, we just had to go to the foot doctor again and watch Elder Van Orden get his toenails yanked! Then that night we had another sad story. Our district leader had some complications with depression medication that he was taking and woke up not knowing who he was or anybody else and going crazy. He talked with President after and ended up having to go home. That was kind of crappy.

Then we kept on working normal and it rained quite a bit this week. That is nice because it cools things down quite a bit, although it is still quite hot! On P-day I had some extra money and so I bought shrimp! It was really bad poor quality, but I liked eating shrimp. And speaking of crazy food, I had to eat something seriously nasty-squire yesterday! Irmã Aldenira is from way up north in Brazil where they eat something called Mokotó which is boiled bone marrow from the ankle of a bull. I only have two words to describe it:  ´´Wow its really bad!´´  Of course we told her it was great and so she made us eat some more and then I ate a whole bunch of ice cream to get the taste out and Elder Van Orden almost barfed. I didn´t take pictures because my camera was out of batteries. Dang it! 

Also this week was real great because we had the baptism of Margarete! Margarete is the daughter of Angela who was baptized 2 weeks ago. She was really shy, but Elder Valiati came from Londrina to do divisions with the other zone and I called him up and asked him to come with us. He is basically like the Mormon Justin Bieber that can’t sing and he helped her to not be so shy and get baptized and now the Ward is helping her get integrated with all the other girls in the ward. Yeah!! The service was really nice and she is really happy and I even made a cake and people liked it! One Sister asked: did you make this out of a box? I said nope! She said: no this has to be from a box (because here they have boxes with ready cake mix in them). Nope! I didn´t make it out of a box. She was impressed! (I actually made it out of a plastic sack cake mix that is really the same thing, but totally wasn´t a box cake!!! Haha!) 

Fernando and Fernanda are progressing really well! It’s actually been a little hard to teach them just because they are really busy, but I have great faith that they will be baptized real soon! They are awesome. To answer your perguntas: I said that I would probably be leaving in a week or two because transfers are one week from Wednesday and I´ve been here for 3 transfers and Elder Van Orden will be terminating his mission on the same day as me, so President probably won’t leave us both here until the end. It seems probable that I will be transferred. Sad! Elder Cook will be coming on April 28 and it will be a conference with the entire mission. Sweet! I was asked to participate in a special quartet to sing at the conference. That should be cool demais!   

I know that this church is true. The work is going really well here and the ward is excited. I know that this is the work of god and that nothing can stop it. I know that the book of Mormon is true and that Joseph was a prophet. Even more important I know that Christ lives and that the plan of salvation is real and that our family can be together forever.   Just keep on being a good example. I´ve learned that who we are is waaaay more important than what we do, so when you don’t know what to do, just live the gospel and things will turn out alright.   
I love you a whole bunches and..... ready for this?...
See you soon! Ahhh!
-Elder Iron Man