Barra Mansa

This is how big the avocados are here! 

Dad´s questions: 

Do they eat popcorn there?  Yes. Its like the same as the U.S.

Do they have shave ice? Not that I´ve found... but they do have a syrup that you put in water to make like a juice and I found that if you put a little extra of that juice in a bottle with a little less water and stick it in the freezer it´ll be like a slushy... That, and our freeze is kinda broken so it doesnt really freeze things...  

What is the best thing about your current apartment? Hands down its the chairs. Yeah, Sister spent a shinny penny on the chairs that we sit in to study. They are black and are wheely chairs and they have a spring in them so they recline and if you put your feet on the desk and lay back you can literally sleep there perfectly. Ive done that about 5 or 6 times. I was just too tired to make it to the bed sometimes and i fell asleep in the chair with the lights on and Howard did the same thing. I woke up at like 3 in the morning and went to my bed to grab a blanket and then went back to the chair haha. its sick

Sooooo yeah, This week is just full of stuff. So first, I got transfered!!! I will be going to Barra Mansa where I will finish training a new missionary. Its kinda funny cause out of the 9 zones only 3 are here in the state of Rio and as of now, Ive served my whole mission in the state of Rio. Im not complaining cause I like these grumpy people, I like the weather, I like the scenery, I even like the kids who look like they wanna rob me just cause I look american. But yeah I leave tomorrow at 10:15.

The rat came back! But this time, me and H were prepared... We boxed off the kitchen and I entered the kitchen and killed him. He was hiding behind the stove and it was super hard to get him out cause he was like stuck and pretty well boxed in. Buttt we killed him and then I took pictures. (which his mom did NOT post)   OH! I´ll also send you some pictures of a shirt I bought that is literally the sickest shirt I´ve ever bought in my life. like seriously Im in love. 

So this week we did a service project for a family that is investigating the church. So really theres this servidão (which is like a stair case going up a mountion with houses on each side) and we´re kinda teaching 3 families on this servidão and the one who lived at the very tippy top said that he needed some help moving A FEW sacks of dirt and stuff. 

So just a little background of Brazil life, If you do construction on your house, you have to haul everything down the stairs to the road so that a truck can come pick it up. So if you want to re-build a wall in your house, you first have to take it down right? Well in these servidãos theres no way for a car to enter or anything else, so you have to put all that cement and all that dirt that you are taking from your house in sacks, (sacks like potato sacks or dog food sacks) and haul it to the road so someone can come pick it up. 

So this guys literally took down like 4 walls in his house so when we get there its 4 in the afternoon. and we look there and he literally has something like 80-90 sacks of just straight broken cement and bricks that we have to haul allll the way down this servidão to the street. Each of these sacks could weigh anywhere from like 40 to 50 pounds, so the easiest (pretty much only) way is to get someone to help you lift it up and put it on your shoulder and then just kinda bear the pain of 50 pounds of rocks on your shoulders, untill you hit the street. So we decided to make a firemans line and move everything to the middle of the stairs, then after make another firemans line from the middle to the end. So long story short we finish at 10 o´clock at night and I am literally dead tired. I literally could not stand afterwards, my shoulders were all bruised and my legs were dead so we grabbed a taxi to go home cause its late and I cant walk and when I get home, I literally grabbed a chair and put it in the shower cause I couldnt stand up... 

That was saturday, today is monday and my shoulders are all brown and blue and I can still hardly stand. It just makes you think about how different life is here. They buy groceries in bulk cause its such a pain to haul up the stairs so they normally buy like 2 weeks of food at a time. Just kinda put my life in perspective about how lucky we are in the united states.

I had to say some goodbyes this week that literally broke my heart, but thats life. At some point or another, youre gonna have to say goodbye. Not all good things can last forever.  I´ll attach the pictures here
! Love you guys!! Glad our families can last forever!