December 19, 2011

December 19, 2011

Feliz Natal!!

At least for those of you who I will not be able to call on Christmas day, I would like to say Merry Christmas. For those I can call ignore the beginning of this email.

So this week. What happened? I don~t recall many things right now. It was a rather bland week I would have to say. Our baptism fell through, but only because Alexandre was really sick. He was sick all week, I~m pretty sure it wasn~t a "I don~t want to get baptized" sick. But who knows. We gave him a blessing. That was interesting for me in Portugues. I annoited obviously since that~s about a million times easier. And it went really well. Elder Lobo is a great companion. He is always excited and happy. Nothing gets him down at all. It~s a great example to me of the kind of attitude I should try and have all the time. Not to say I get discouraged, the days are just long sometimes and I do get frustrated a lot, usually with my Portugues though. It~s hard to believe that one transfer is almost over already. They say that your first transfer is one of the trunkiest. So far I would agree. Being trunky is a weird sensation. Because I have no desire to return now. You just think about what it~ll be like when you finally do go home. There is a lot of time during the day where we are walking between appointments and I have time to just think. More often than I would like I imagine going down an escalator and having my family waiting at the bottom with signs. Haha. Oh well. I feel like I~m really starting to get into the swing of things a little better. 

I~m sorry I haven~t sent a letter or anything home yet. I feel a little like a vagabond. We are getting thrown between houses all the time and I don~t have all my stuff with me because some of it is stored in a members house that is on vacation right now. It~s a little stressful. Once I finally get a little more settled in I~ll try and be better about that. So I have a question. Did you send any pictures of the family? I always show the ones I have to members and investigators and I don~t have any of Jeremy and his family, people have a hard time understanding who is who. Haha. But it does get me more involved in the conversation which is always good. So last night was the Christmas Devotional here. I don~t know why it took so long. I missed most of it anyway. I literally saw the last 15 seconds of President Monsons testimony and heard Silent Night. So that was cool. But oh well. Next week I~ll leave it on the computer while I send my email. 

So I found out today that one store Pão de Acucar has peanut butter. But it~s crazy expensive and they only have crunchy. I think I~ll hold back. I~ve heard that my area actually has an imports store. I want to check that out. I don~t know if I~ll actually buy anything. But it would be cool just to see anyway.

So two days ago my zone did some carolling in a major shopping area in Santos. We don~t really have the best voices but it was really cool. When it was just the Americans singing English a lot more people stopped and listened. So we did a lot of English, it was funny, we only had the words to Silent Night and Oh Come All Ye Faithful in English, so we would just sing the first verse of other songs three times, or kind of make up words as we sort of remembered them for other songs. But no one knows any way. It was really cool though. We probably handed out like 200 pass along cards and hundreds more of other little things. 

It~s funny that the Missionary Manual says that Sundays and Holidays are the best times for proselyting, because families are together, because that~s totally not true. No one wants to talk with us during their day off. Especially since we~re close to the beach, everyone just goes there.

Oh another thing, so Santos (the soccer team) was playing in the Mundial (club world cup, basically) and they got whooped by Barcelona. The entire island was depressed on Sunday. I was a little too, since I~ve declared myself Santista. But it was probably better for us. If they had won the city would have gone nuts. They were going crazy before the game had even started. I was worried we might have to spend the whole day in the house. But they lost 4-0. 

Ummmmmmm I don~t have much else to say right now. Feliz Natal e Boas Festas. Te amo.

Elder Cameron Bruce

Oooo I just remembered a fun fact for you. Every chance that I have had in the field to receive a package, I have. It~s a great statistic. I don~t think it can last the whole time, but who~s to say it wont? People are starting to say things like my family must love me or something. 

I feel like the Christmas season here is so weird. I always forget it~s almost christmas because it~s 95 degrees outside and I~m not with my family. At night the beach is decorated really nicely with lights and stuff but even then it just doesn~t quite feel like christmas. In our apartment I always have some christmas music playing though. Trying to get the Christmas Spirit going a little. I can~t wait to call home and talk with you all. It~s weird that after this week I~ll only have one more Christmas on the Mission. Weird huh? It~s sad how all missionaries know how many christmas~s they~ll miss, or birthdays, or transfers they have, or days, or seconds, or fast sundays. Everybody is counting. It~s funny. Sometimes a little distracting. I~m trying to make all my time count. An eighth of my mission is already up. I feel like I have barely started. 

Well. that~s all. até mais. Te amo

Elder Bruce