June 17

we went to the farmers market and that was really cool and ate some pastels. they are like flaky scones with whatever you want on the inside. kinda like a hot pocket. the farmers market just had a bunch of fruit. i cant remember what they were called or anything. i had some coconut water though. that was pretty good.

i guess we are the only mtc that has been shaking hands still. we arent allowed to shake hands anymore. it is pretty laid back here though and the teachers shake our hands a lot still. and elders definitely cant hug ha. thats always been against the rules.

i shut my window before we left but my roommate decided to open it up and he left it open and my stuff is next to the window. my stuff got wet but it doesnt need replaced. my portuguese scriptures and my jesus the christ got a little wet. i am gonna get new scriptures anyways. oh and my PMG got really soaked and one of my notebooks. but i just got a new PMG so it wasnt a big deal!

June 10

Last Friday, Thomas went proselyting for the first time. He said, "we placed all 4 of our books. it was really fun most the time but real scary the rest of the time!"

My parents sent him a Pizza Hut pizza party through Mission Ties that Thomas was enjoying today. He also got Guaranas, which is really good pop from Brazil, and he said you can get it at Winco. He sounds really good, but says he's been craving chocolate.

Thomas has 3 more weeks in the Brazil CTM and then he'll go out in the field.

June 3, 2009

it has been a pretty boring week actually so this email will be pretty short i think. so sorry ha. well i wish i was learning more lately. it seems like we have slowed down a lot on the language study part. i am sure it is just cuz i have been learning conjugation or verbs and i will probably do that most of the rest of my stay here. i have done a lot with the gospel aspect tho. i am going proselyting on friday. i hope i can remember my lesson! it seems pretty weird that i am going to be teaching people. i know i wont be able to answer their questions if the ask any so i am kinda nervous. i went to the temple today. são paulo of course. it was good. i didnt pray about anthing this week. i wish i woulda. i finished that book though in two days. i have started reading Jesus The Christ though. as well as the new testament. it is going to take me a while to read those i think. like the rest of my stay here!! whoever told me it didnt ever get cold here was lying!! it is way cold. it was probably like 40 yesterday. and it is only fall ha. well that was my week ha.

Email

"i got a kinda funny story about yesterday. the sisters in my district told me that jeffrey r holland was coming to do the tuesday devotional. i was pretty excited! i was really surprise that he would come all the way here for a devotional. provo has them all the time and we have only had one once in like the last year. so i thought i lucked out. right before the time for the devotional, we found out that holland gave this talk about a month ago, and that we were just watching a dvd of it!that is quite a difference from having an apostle in são paulo. i was bummed, but it was still probably the best devotional there has been since i got here. i think he was supposed to give the missionaries in provo a kick in the butt or something ha. colby and eric arent in the choir i dont think, cuz i didnt see them. i saw josh kunde in the choir. it was a pretty motivational talk that he gave. he talked a lot about not letting the time go by wasted. and he shared a lot of good stories. you should try to find the story about elder toronto that went to the czech republic before ww2. it was an awesome story."

Thomas sounds like he is doing great! He just finished reading the Book of Mormon. His spirituality is really growing. It's so fun to hear from him.

Yeah! Photos!

Thomas wasn't able to email us too much today, but he did send pictures! Yeah! Here are some of them.(above) these pinkish buildings are outside Thomas' window and they have 8000 families in each and there are twelve of them on the one block.


(above) Tom's Ronaldo jersey

(above, From L to R) Thomas, Elder Barton (Tom's companion), Elder Robertson, and Elder Carden

(above, from L to R) Elder Barton (Tom's companion), Thomas, Elder Carden, and Elder Robertson

Thomas' district (minus the sister missionaries)

Another Email

Well, today we were online at the same time as Thomas, so we got to write a few emails back and forth. It was pretty fun. It was almost like talking to him. Today, some of us also got letters from Thomas via Mission Ties.

He sounds like he's doing good still. He's liking the food better (except the boxed milk) and he's gaining a little weight. :) He let us know that he will be in the Brazil CTM until June 30. It only takes about six days for a letter to get from her to Brazil, so that's not as bad as we thought. He said he'd try to send us pictures next week!

Here's some of his email:

"Eie everyone? hows everything going? things are still going good here. i went to the são paulo temple today and the inside is pretty cool but i liked campinas way better! i didnt even know we were close to the temple until we were pulling in cuz all the skyscrapers around it ha. but it was good and i wasnt even that tired when i woke up at 5:45. we have rice and beans for 2 meals a day and have a sandwich and cereal for breakfast. but milk out of a box isnt that good. i get an hour of gym time a day except sunday and thursday. we switch off playing volleyball and basketball. it is pretty fun. i havent really learned anymore in the language since last week...i guess we have started our street contact but i can give the 1st lesson in english pretty well now. i just bought my first soccer jersey! it is pretty cool. its a ronaldo jersey. he is one of the best soccer players from here. i am pretty excited about it even tho i cant ever wear it ha. hopefully it fits in two years."