Hey Mom and Everyone!

Great to hear from you guys!  I havent been able to make the corndogs yet, we have been really busy getting everything ready for our English course to start, but I am going to translate and pass the recipe to the RS Pres.  

This week was pretty amazing.  Last Monday night, we left to work and we kept seeing people in the ward on the street.  We passed them and said hi each time, and they kept looking at me kindof weird.  Our meeting with the WML fell through, and we decided to do contacts.  Then my comp remembered me that we needed to download a movie to pass for the zone in the training we would give the next day.  We headed over to Marcos´s house and when we got there we knocked- they opened up- SURPRISE!!!  there were so many people crammed into that little house.  They were all dressed up in party stuff, and had made a cake, and sang to me for my birthday.  It was awesome!  They gave me some soda called Guaraná Jesus that you cant find in Rio, and we took tons of pics.  Coolest Bday Ever.

The cup is kindof making work a little hard.  For all the Brasil games we have to lock ourselves in our house and keep quiet, but I guess I kindof expected that.  On the bright side, we got to make a stinking delicious homemade lasagna that kindof tasted like Pizza.  Dont know how we managed that one.  We just kindof throw whatever we had in the sauce, and it turned out pretty dang good.  

Also, Elder Richmond made some choc chip cookies for us.  We both got diareah.  

Yesterday was the confirmation of Vanessa!  She is doing great, is happy and feels included inthe ward.  I guess that´s all I could ever ask for. She is completeing the young womans personal prog. even though she is already 22 because she wants a medallion.  I told Sammy that she has got to get working on it or else Vanessa will beat her hahaa.

This week, I made a contact with a guy in his front yard, and we marked a day to come back.  He seemed a little weird.  We got there and we asked him about his life- he is like 50, lives alone, has a big house with almost Nothing at all in it, and has gone to church like 4 times in the past (like 4 yrs ago.)  We were a bit confused.  Normally if you go to church like 3 times, you are already wanting to be baptized.  What was even weirder, is that me and my comp both had a weird feeling in that house, and for the first time in our whole missions, we had absolutely nothing come to mind as of what to say to teach him.  Nothing, at all.  It was as if someone had turned off my mind, and took away my tongue.  Weird.  We decided we needed to leave, and he told us he would go to church that sunday.  We left there confused, and weirded out.  Welp, he went to church.  A member came to talk to us after he left, and told us that he remembered him.  He wasnt baptized because something pretty grave happened with him, that has to do with Homosexual tendencies.  Now we have a lot better idea why we were prompted to get the heck out of that house hahaha.  I think we will just pass by and tell him that we cant come back alone, but if he wants he can keep studying the scriptures, and visit the church.  

Well, I just want to end with a quote that Elder Richmond´s greatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgrandpa said.  It doesnt really have to do anything with what I already wrote, but I really liked it. "I´ve often thought how wise it is that we cannot see the end from the beginning- for often the difficulties would be greater than our faith, and we would fail to make the progress that we do." William Mourley Plack

Love you all!

Elder Stinnett