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| Elders Funk and Merrill |
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| Michael and the other new missionaries with President and Sister Cordon |
Dear family,
I am loving it here in
Brazil. I'm not in Curitiba, but in a place called São Jose. I have no
idea where that is. I've never worked harder, but I've never been
happier. the ward here is amazing. my companion is an American, and we
live in a tiny apartment with two Brazilians. I was a little worried at first when the toilet didn't flush, but we are able to collect the water that drips out of the faucet and pour it all into the toilet at once and somehow that empties the contents of the toilet. I'm not too sure how the mechanics of that works because we don't push a lever or anything, but I'm soo glad it works. For some reason Brazilians don't flush their toilet paper so I kind of want to puke whenever I go to the bathroom because of the contents of the trash can.
Yesterday we taught a golden investigator. We met him in the street the other day, and he gave us his address, and we said we would drop by sometime on Sunday. So yesterday evening we walked down his street and saw that the number he gave us didn't exist. We turned around, and he was walking towards us. He said that he realized that he had given us the wrong number, so he had been sitting at his window all day waiting for us to walk past. I taught him the whole first vision lesson in Portuguese, and he understood and accepted everything we said to him. We gave him a Book of Mormon and started to ask him to read the introduction, and he said of course I'm going to read the whole thing. He then asked us how his baptism was going to work after he received an answer to his prayer about the Book of Mormon.
I can bear my testimony and teach lessons pretty well in Portuguese, but that's it. A few days ago this lady came up and started talking to us when my companion got a call. She then turned to me and talked to me for like 3 minutes straight. I'm so glad she didn't ask me anything because I didn't understand a word she said.
The language is pretty discouraging, but I knew that going in and I'm getting better every day. When people are just talking about whatever I have no idea what is going on, but when I am testifying or teaching the gospel, I'm practically fluent. I'm definitely grateful for the spirit. I've already taught the whole restoration lesson by myself to two Brazilians who understood everything I said. My companion is pretty cool. His name is Elder Funk. He is from Mesa, Arizona. It's pretty funny because Funk is a popular type of music here, so whenever people see him they laugh and call him Elder Chuchacha.
