Reed hits 6 months!!

Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007

OI FAMILIA! How is everyone doing? I wish I could check the blog to see what everyone is up to these days. Here its the same fight, day in and day out. It is still amazingly hot here and we walk a lot. Our apartment is like a mile away from any civilization pretty much so we walk for about 10 minutes, 4 times a day (morning, after lunch returning, after lunch going to work, and at night) and everytime there is just sweat literally dripping off my face. Even at 9:00 at night we are sweating. I have learned what it really means to wipe your brow, because here after walking, Elder Hallstrom and I wipe our eyebrows and we can fling water and sweat on the ground. Anyway, I am actually pretty accustomed to the heat and just being soaked in my own sweat pretty much all day. As far as this week, it was definately a better week. We had four people at church, Eriberto, Catia, with their daughter Pamela(3), and Joselia with her daughter Joyce (9). Eriberto and Catia are really progressing and really liked church on Sunday. At first we thought that only Catia and Pamela would go because when we arrived at their house Eriberto was gone. So we went with Catia and Pamela and also Joselia and Joyce. Its difficult here because we have to take a bus to the Church. If not it would be like a 30 minute walk for our investigators. Anyway, we went with Catia and Pamela, Joselia and Joyce, dropped them off at the Church for the Sunday school part of church, then decided to return to see if we could find Eriberto. Luckily, he had returned, took a shower, and we went to Church and made it in time for Sacrament meeting. I was so glad to finally have a family at church. They aren´t married yet and so we have been talking to them about marriage and how they can be married for all eternity but right now they are a little hesitant to tie the knot but its just a matter of time. Also, Catia hasn’t smoked since Friday and we set a goal for her to not smoke until Tuesday and we would bring her a present (she likes Chocolate). Tuesday we will break all of her cigarettes with her and she will just have to continue not smoking. Sundays are always the most stressful day of the week. One of my missionary buddies here, Elder Hanson (who also red-shirted on the BYU Football team as a running back) talks about Sunday as being ‘game day’. Its like during the week you are training, and on Sunday is what really counts, the game. Its true because we can teach a person all we want and they can say they will go to church, but if they won’t go to church, all of our work didn’t teach them anything. Sunday is also stressful because we have to visit ALL of our investigators that say they will go to church and pick them up. I know Kari has a problem with people not going to church, well here we do too. NOBODY will go alone, we have to go pick them up and escort them there, at least the first Sunday. I also don’t necessarily like Sundays because the people that don’t go to church we have to drop and I don’t like to drop people. I like to give them a second chance. We work with people that are doing 3 things: Reading the Book of Mormon, Praying, and Going to church. If a person won’t do one of the three we have to drop them. Well, time is flying fast. I will have been out in the field for 6 months on Friday!!! Holy cow, that means that 1/4 of my mission is already gone, past. It doesn’t seem like it has been 6 months, but seems like I arrived here the other day and am still a greeny, but then at the same time it seems like I have been here forever. I’ve already had to sow (sew?) on a couple of buttons on my shirts and pants and they seem to be holding pretty good. I don’t think I sewed them the ‘proper’ way but I used enough line that I’m pretty sure they will hold for a while. As far as the language, I can just about understand everything and now I’m just working on my vocabulary and communication skills. I still have problems at times communicating and the pronunciation in Portuguese is really difficult but its coming. I still am not really confident with my Portuguese but it is improving. Well family, hope everyone is doing great and loving life. I guess mom and dad are on their cruise this week. Lucky! As far as a few experiences, We were teaching a lesson the other day out on this sidewalk and there were a bunch of trees behind us and stuff and during the lesson, this 3 foot iguana was just walking 10 feet from us. It was a little distracting for the 12 year old kid we were teaching to say the least. Anyway, my time is running out so I better go. I love you all and hope the best for you all. Your son and Brother Elder Crosby