Letters from Brazil: March 25, 2013

So, I won't lie, I LOVED the pictures! Thanks for sending them my way! SO PROUD of Jacob for destROYING the Pinewood Derby! That's so sweet! With every news of that boy, I get the growing feeling that he's seriously going to be at least 2X better of a human being than me. The best I got in the Pinewood was 2nd place, and that was with the extensive help dad gave me. Jacob made his own car...? That was my understanding, and smoked everyone. And so, using logical numerical math analysis, we can see that if you place 1st place above 2nd you get a 1/2. So using further deepened numerical observationalists, we can see that 1/2 is a clear indicator of 0.5, which is a half of 1, which is what Jacob is.

Using this logic in further application, we can further assume that by the time he has reached my current age, he will have had twice as many girlfriends, and earned twice as much money. He will also have gained 2X as many trophies, have 2X as much hair (which at this point looks like I'm not going to be much competition for him), and he will also be 2X as big, topping 360 pounds, give or take a few. He will also have 2X as many diseases, speech impediments, and roughly 2X as many crimes on his permanent record. In his case, although he's going to have some rough times, he'll always have the good times to fall back on...which are probably going to be twice as good.

But I'm getting distracted here. In Brasil, here in the city of Aracaju, things are going well. We're starting over on a new leaf in the area, because now I have a new companion, whom I am training. He's way cool! His name is Elder Roper, and he's from Phoenix! We're already making plans to play after the mission. He had problems with his Visa, so he arrived in the middle of the transfer. But he's way cool, he's super willing to go out and work, and he's learning Portuguese from the ground up right now (so it's kinda tough for him!). So, that makes 2 people in this companionship that don't know how to speak Portuguese. :)

I'll be honest, my favorite part of the week was getting to know the new arrivals, the americans that were stuck in the States waiting for their Visas to clear. There were four of them, and all 8 of us, trainers and trainees bunked up for a couple days in Maceió getting briefed by the mission president. In the apartment where we spent the night, all the new Americans were admiring how everything was different, making all sorts of commentary and questions, all super wide-eyed and eager to learn more. At one point in the night, one of the Elders ran squealing from the bathroom and shouted excitedly, "Oh man, guys! I had my first cockroach experience!" Ah man, I love this training stuff :)

Hope you guys like the pictures I'm sending! THANK YOU for the letters and pictures, I LOVED them! Got a few pictures in with different companions, and my first night with Elder Roper.

ALRIGHT I LOVE YOU ALL SO EXQUISITELY. GOOD DAY!

Love,

Elder Reneer

(The balder Elder Reneer)