So speaking of liver...turns out it's a delicacy here...????? I'm honestly really confused, because I can think of at least one type of meat that tastes better, or like, two or three. Like bacon...marbled meats...oh and DEFINITELY eggs. Yeah, eggs are WAYYY better than liver. I'm still not really sure if they're technically meat, but if they WERE technically meat, I would SO eat them before liver. But seriously, I don't mean to complain, but I'm not really sure they understand here what the organ known as liver does. It's seriously what the garbage truck guys do, it's what no one else wants to do, it filters out all the little nasties and gets them out of the way so you can live like a normal person. Say you have a carton of rotten eggs, stuff you don't want in your house, what do you do? You throw it out. Let the garbage men handle it. They like it. Say you have a poopy diaper sitting around, and no one wants to keep it. You throw it out. Say you've got a dead body lying around in the house, and you quite honestly don't want it stinking up your living room, and the Febreeze just isn't cutting it. You throw that sucker OUT! YOU DON'T EAT IT! YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO EAT A DEAD BODY! Really really! And that dead body is just like LIVER! You DON'T eat it. No.
I bring this up because Elder Marques and I have been eating a lot of liver lately. It's actually an honor for me, because here it's a symbol of endearment, so I honestly AM quite honored, and I'm also hoping it's not some sort of sick joke, because then I'd kinda be ticked. I'm just gonna keep eatin' it, ya know. In truth, it's actually not that bad, they actually cook it really well, and I haven't really had any that has tasted bad yet. So all in all, it's a win-win. The families we're eating lunch with love us, and they're giving us the best of their meat, and it's cooked pretty dang well! Quite honestly I don't have any complaints :)
So this last week I've had a lot of 'Brazilian firsts.' The definition of a 'Brazilian first' is something that you do for the first time, that you wouldn't normally do in another place. A place that's not Brazil. Like being given liver like it's birthday cake, for example. So, this last week I had my first division, with Elder Lewis. He's cool! He's a big elder from Oregon that trashed people as a lineman in high school, super calm and friendly. So in the morning after I spent the night away from Lagarto, we headed for a WEDDING!! It was SO cool, the couple is getting married because they want to get baptized, and they were only living together before, already had a couple kids. So we headed to the courthouse in Itabaiana to get them married off with a bunch of other couples (weddings are done in mass groups here, several couples at a time). And I kinda almost got married to Elder Lewis...kinda. Apparently our matching clothes and Elder Lewis' pink tie were enough to get asked by the officiator if we were ready to get married. I had NO idea what they said, so I just nodded my head, and Elder Lewis caught me and said "No, not today" to the officiator. Meh, it's not every day you almost get married, is it?
Also had some more Brazilian firsts. Met my first parrot, monkey, and half-jaguar this week, it was sweet! I attached the picture of the half-jaguar, he was way chill! As soon as I got him to stop chewing on my hand I pulled myself together enough to snatch a photo, and by some miracle I got another one, and smiling! It was actually really painful, for the smile I think I was actually gritting my teeth, and the raised, happy-looking eyebrows are from surprise, actually, that it didn't go for my neck first. KIDDING. Seriously, it was like the wimpiest over sized cat I've met, honestly just ignored me the whole time I was trying to pet him. Kind of depressing really. It's moments like that you expect to be really special, and it was just ignoring me and trying to get away from me the whole time. Actually, reminds me a lot of my first kiss, now that I think about it. KIDDING. The jaguar-cat was WAY nicer to me. ;)
The parrot HATED me. I was told he just hates people in general, so it doesn't bother me too much. I tried to get it to mount on my hand (at an investigator's house), and he tried to BITE me! I was kinda ticked, and then he started LAUGHING at me. Repeatedly, actually. Stinking bully. I wanted to make a mean joke like, "Hah! At least my momma's the same SPECIES as me!" Or like, "Hah! Have fun not having HANNDSSS, jerk!" Or maybe a, "Nice clipped wings, bro. How's it feel to be a flightless bird, ya dumb penguin?" and then stick my tongue out. But I really didn't know how to say any of those in Portuguese, so I just let it be. The sucker will get his reward one day. He actually lives with an intensely ferocious Rottweiler (120-130 lb), so I'm thinking about paying someone to sneak into their house and douse the bird with meat sauce. I don't know though, I've never really considered myself the aggressive type, so I'll probably just pretend it didn't affect me deeply and not do anything about it.
So also, one more thing that's been on my mind. Since general conference, I've had some time to think about the announcement for mission age. I'll be back at school about 2 years from now, so taking that into account, I did a little math. Seeing as the Sister missionaries can go out at 19 years old now, roughly in the next 4-7 months or so, they'll start filing into the missions around the world. Which means, they'll also be returning probably a little more than 2 years from now, which will be enough time for them to return to school 4 months after me. So now it's looking like by the time I get back to school, there will theoretically be NO unmarried desireable women attending BYU. They will all be serving their missions, or they will be a little bit too young for me. So I and some other tons of return missionaries will all be hanging out on Friday nights in groups, and just be like, "Yeah man, I TOTALLY met this awesome girl today in chemistry, AND SHE DIDN'T HAVE THE BAND BRO!" And then someone's gonna be like, "Bro...remember when the mission age changed like two years ago for the Sisters?" and then that first return missionary's gonna do the math in his head, and be like, "Awwwwww...man, you telling me I flirted mith a FRESHMAN??" And then everybody's gonna be like, "Hahah dude, you like little girlllls, you like little girrllls! Nah, nah, nahnahhhhh nah!" I don't know about the rest of the elders out in the mission field, but I am personally not looking forward to being a part of this conversation.
Alright, I think this is all for this week, things are going pretty good! I actually got a letter that was sent my way accidentally, from Jacob to the Tiensvolds (it was addressed to me:) ). And a letter I sent to Meghan and Skyler got sent to me after a week in the mail system, with no notes of wrong address or the like on it. So I'm sending them both out today, to brave the mailing system again, hopeful the Tiensvolds and Christensen families will get their well-deserved letters soon.
Well, things are going pretty good out here, it's still tough, but I'm learning TONS. I'm generally understanding people well, but not totally. I'm comfortable until real conversations with any sort of excitement happen, but other than that, I'm understanding most of speech in Portuguese. Life is good, can't complain, LOVEEEE YOUUU ALLLLLL SO SO SO SO SO SO SO much! BYEEE!
Love,
Elder Daniel Reneer
