Tarantula

Pancakes!!!!

questions from my dad, as always. 

Questions: Who are the people in your neighborhood (Any neighbors or characters)? we live in an appartment building so we dont really know our neighbors but we're planning on giving everyone in our building a pass along card with our number this week so we'll tell you how that goes.
 
What was something nice someone did for you this week?  everyone here is so nice. and youll realize that the things people do for you when youre on a mission, you can never fully repay them for the love and kindness they showed you. just a cup of water or someone in church just coming up to me and asking me how its going is a nice gesture that goes a lot longer than you would think.

What is one thing you were grateful for this week? im grateful for everything. Brazil is so beautiful, its awesome, my life's pretty sweet.

 Is there a word in Portuguese that is way better at describing something than we have in English? yes but not that I fully understand yet... haha like I hear some words and know how to use them but I cant really tell you what they mean.. i just know when to use it... haha...sowwy

SSSOOOO this week I saw something that I dont ever want to see again.
so we were walking along the road and one side had houses and the other side was jungle and bamboo. so the girl in front of us starts screaming and stomping her foot so vigorously she almost breaks her ankle on the curb and im like what the heck is this? she literally just flipped out. so as we approach her I see this big fat tarantula still fighting for life. my first thought was, it kinda looked like a crab, which is wayyy less frightening. but then my second thought was Dear Father in Heaven why here? so yeah I now think every big chunk of fur on the street or every dark shadow as big as my hand is a tarantula. so theres that. 

So I also realized that the US should move thanksgiving to like the 3-4 of november because everyone here is aready singing christmas songs and getting out christmas decorations and im like WAIT WE STILL HAVE... wait, no we dont have another holiday before christmas. so me and my comp started a christmas tree fund and if we both stay here another transfer (God willing) we're going to buy a tree. haha


Sunday was actually really hard cause this family that I love and is inactive and recently baptised, didnt come to church for like the 6th time in a row and we had been working with them all week and had a awesome family night with them and the dad gave the lesson and it was sick and everyone said they would go to church and id bring my camera to get a picture all together and sunday morning when we called to make sure they would go to church, the mom said her daughter was sick and so they took her to the doctors so thats why they werent at church. it was super sad but i went over there after church and they we were both kinda sad and asked why i was so sad, and i told them that its tough. missionary work is tough. you work all week long and put your heart into people and then when sunday rolls around no one comes to church to partake of the joy therein, and to progress and learn. so they felt bad, but im pretty sure next sunday theyll all go to church. haha

oh, I´ve also decided to tell my self my mission is 30 months (2 1/2 years) so that it will seem like it is super short. it also makes me want to work harder cause im here for so longer so if i say something about how much longer i have on the mish and it seems weird, thats why.

ALSO, tomorrow we have a conference with the presidente of the misson and a few other zones, so how this works is every transfer we either have an interview with the presidente or a conferencie de zona which actually includes a few other zones but its like all day in Juiz De Fora. 

So the lideras de Zona called TODAY and said that I have to recite from memory the 4th lesson os mandamentos, doutrina e compromissos. this is freaking long and my comp told me yesterday that if i had to say anything at the conference it would be lesson one or two because im still a fairly new missionary. so for the rest of today and tomorrow i will be praying and trying to memorize this page in my planar. haha but really im excited.

so yeah thats all for this week, we´ll see how the next week goes, we could potentially have a batismo on sunday but well see how that goes. I love you guys and think about you guys all the time!!! Love you!

Elder Hamm 

Chocolate!!

Service

so for my dads questions How was Halloween in Brazil? LAME! well the last day in october was pretty dull... nothing happened. but on Sunday we went to a cemetary to proselyte - do some work for the dead (bum dum bum tsh).   everyone goes to the cemetary on, i think, the first sunday of the month of november to give respect to the dead so you could say the grave yard was pretty lively.

What have you done on P-day for fun lately? haha for p day we like to visit a newlywed couple in the sisters ward. we can do this because the church isnt in our area and they live 5 houses down from the church (thats how we justify leaving our area) so we go and visit them eat some DANK pasta she knows how to make while R (the husband) makes stereo-typical remarks about Americans. Its a gay ol time.

 Which superhero would be the best to send to your mission and why?  hmm can Jesus be a superhero? if not, then send hercules cause he's pretty sick and he's also a kinda demigod. haha (I hope investigators dont read this blog)

Do they have daylight savings time there so that you got an extra hour of sleep on Sunday? brah, weve been on that Day light savings time for like 4 weeks now. yeah we lost an hour too so that kinda stinks. had to wake up an hour earlier. 

something interesting about Brazil. So here in Brazil its polite to scoop up a freaking huge plate of food to begin with. I just scoop up what i think i can eat and a little more and pray I can eat it all.  if you eat it all, youre considered a good eater. if you dish up a good size plate and get seconds and thirds (which really no one does here because the first plate was so big) it doesnt matter. youre still considered a bad eater because your first plate wasnt huge so people cant see how much you ate. its weird. Me, im considered a bad eater because I dont want to waste food!! but im becoming better at judging what i can eat and now that my stomach is accustomed to the food I can eat a lot more.

also! This week I realized no one here is praying for rain. Im not sure if you guys remember what happened but a while back it rained a lot in Petropolus and terisoplous and a lot of Houses collapsed and killed a lot of people. I know so far 4 people who had to restart their whole life here in Tres Rios because their house was destroyed and now they all have a huge fear of rain so when it looks stormy they all go to a low point and stay with family. its sad.

but yeah this week was pretty chill. we did a service project on terca fiera that was kinda unexpected. 

so I had been feeling down about my mission and feeling like something was missing. so as I knelt down during my personal study I prayed that I would know what i was missing and be a better missionary. So that day we learned that our allowance had been put in the bank which happens on the first or last day of the month and on the 14-16th day of the month as well. so we left our house at 11 (which is technically my training time but we had already prepared everything for the day so we were set) and on our way to the bank I saw two ladies struggling to carry a couch up the stairs. 

noramally I would have stopped and asked if we could help but today were were short on time and the bank was a 30 minute walk from our house and we had to make it back in time for lunch. so i looked at my comp, and he didnt see them, so i walked on by and and soon as i was 10 feet away I felt so terrible! but we kept on walking to the bank. 

so later that day after lunch we called to see if we could visit our investigator and she said she was busy re-cementing her house and laying down some tile so some other day would be better. I immeaditly told my companion we should go help her. he liked the idea so we got our bag packed and put on our nice clothes ready to go. before we left I asked, ``do you think we shold bring like an extra shirt or something?`` he said nah well be fine`` so off we went

when we got there she covered in dirt and cement and was happy to see us but also surprised. she said no way youre going to help me dressed like that. youve got to be kidding. My comp obviously had second thoughts because when he turned to look at me I was already taking off my tie ready to get get to work. he said, yeah were dead serious, and did the same. 

we measured, cut tile, layed cement and tile all while in our sunday shoes, pants, and shirt. boy was it messy. after 2 hours we had put tile all over one room and half the floor and she re-cemented a room. we drank some Guadana and she thanked us and we left.

As we walked home covered in cement, tile dust, and mud, our ties the only clean part of our clothes, I couldnt have felt more clean. we got home and said a prayer in our hearts as we put our clothes in the laundry bin to soak and hopefully be clean. as I was ironing my shirt I thought that this was exactly what my mission was missing. Service. I realized it had been weeks since we had given someone manual service. 

Tears of laugher and joy filled my eyes as I shined my dirty shoes thinking God gave me two chances today to realize what was missing. the two girls and the couch were the first, and I ignored that prompting of the holy ghost to help. our investigator was the second. I sat there and thought how gracious is God that after I ignored him the first time, he gave me a second chance to follow him. 

I love you guys and miss you!! hope all is well!! 

Elder Jacob Hamm

I'm going bananas...literally

Elder L and me 

Daddy-o´s preguntas – So having been there a bit now, what is one thing you would encourage a YM to do to prepare for a mission? 

Im gonna be honest about something im ashamed of. I showed up for my mission thinking that would be enough. thinking i did my part putting in my papers and showing up. Boy, have i been paying for that mistake. i had never really studied the scriptures for myself, i had never really cracked open preach my gospel to read it which truely has EVERYTHING you need to know about being a good member of the church and an excelent leader and missionary. I had never read more than 5 pages in the Bible and now i quote the bible more than the Book of Mormon. (disclamer: i quote the bible more because I teach the first lesson 1,000 times and people already believe the bible, so it helps the transition. in other lessons you need to quote the book of mormon more) so i would tell them to start reading and start going out with the missionaries. PREPARE, cause people are going to ask you hard questions and you need to have something on the tip of your tounge like its second nature. just be familiar with the scriptures and preach my gospel. 

What is the biggest cultural difference that has taken some adjustment? umm probably the food... definitly the food. its good but no matter how good it is, your stomach isnt used to it. so thats kinda rough.  haha tough out the first 2 months and youll be good.

Do they have milk there?

yes its in cartons and unrefrigerated. so when i buy it i put it in the fridge and drink it with some type of nesquick they have over here. its pretty good but has a hint of coconut. haha

SO as for my caption

im literally going bananas... like ive never meant that in a more literal sense. this week we were teaching a less active family who im really close with and they asked if we wanted some bananas.. so i said yeah. i mean i like bananas as much as the next guy. and so the dude brought out a freaking branch of bananas. im talkin like 50 bananas of all different ripeness... hes like, here do you want more? hahaha i was like ``com certeza nao`` so i separated the ripe ones from the non ripe ones and the medium ones we ate... but you can only eat so many bananas. 

so we had banana shakes for breakfast and dinner, we had deep fried bananas, we had just plain bananas... bananas FOR DAYS. I also bought a chocolate bar (a little more than a bar) and covered some bananas in chocolate, which turned out pretty horrific. it was like gooey frozen chocolate nastiness, so theres that. our whole house smells like bananas and we still have like 30 more. 

it did rain a little this week and was a lot cooler, maybe i should have prayed for no rain? aha

the president election was yesterday and MAN was it close, like CRAZY close. the lady whos name escapes me won again. a women president.... can you imagine in america if we had a women president? haha.   So in brazil you have to vote. its not an option. if you dont vote you have to pay a fine of 3 reals (like dirt cheep) but you also cant have a goverment job if you dont vote. and there are a lot of government jobs out here so most everyone votes. you also cant sell or drink alochol till 17h. they also use army time down here - sorry

oh yeah so your christams package (although a little early) came in clutch.
Josh's 21st birthday package i could have done without.

But for the past week ive been rubbing myself down with a powder laundry detergent to try and keep the mosquitos off of me... its been working kinda haha so the bite stick definitly came in clutch. 

Love,
Elder Jacob Hamm

2nd transfer! (No campo)

first my dads questions:

Are there any lakes, rivers, or streams in your area? yes there are a few streams going through the town and i think 2 big rivers that surround the town.. haha but they are all so dirty its disgusting. they smell just RANK and in the heat you can smell the rivers and gutters from like 20 feet away. the water is a kinda dark sludge like thing that bubbles. yes bubbles. it has a turbidity of probably an inch.  

Is it humid there? no and that is a tender mercy because this week it was 45 degrees celcius. in farenheit thats about...on fire. (MOM: 113F). me and my comp were literally dying. but no almost no humidity.  we are sweating like dogs during our lessons... we have to carry around little towels because sweat starts drippin on our panphlets and gets them all wet.

What fast food restaurants are popular there? haha mcdonalds is like really expensive. like its kinda fancy.. it costs like 20 reals for a big mac meal. haha no dollar menu here. umm Habibs is really popular. look it up its kinda hard to explain. its like a hand held pizza thing that pretty good. i mean its fast food so its not gonna be excellent. they have subway (with alot better meat and cheese and topping selection) pizza hut, yeah thats all i know about so far.

So we did have transfers this week and i did have to say goodbye to my trainer. it was sort-of a blessing. haha I learned alot from Elder R but you really need two different trainers to get the hang of whats right, whats wrong, and what is habit of someone. 

My new compainion is Elder L. he is a amazing missionary. Just by hearing the lessons he gives and the way he talks to people i can tell he is a amazing missionary. pictures of him will have to wait till next week.

we must of knocked on like 500 doors just in 4 days. He works so hard and were trying to get a new group of people to teach. needless to say we have a few.. haha but yeah I actually really like knocking doors because you never know what youre gonna come across.. ahah well chat with people who hate mormons and dont want to hear our message, but love the missionaries. 

its weird no matter what religion you are or wether you like mormons or not, you like the missionaries. haha we dont do much but share messages about christ and be nice to people so we´ll talk to people who have told us they dont want to hear our message, but will still invite us over to eat or to talk. haha. its awesome. 

but yeah this past sunday when i left church, it was an idaho summer kinda day. it was sad. it was hot but not too hot, a slight breeze, people chatting and the faint smell of gas. we were walking home. it made me miss home. haha but thats life

oh Btw we only have water for the next 18 days. if it doesnt rain with in the next 18 days... no more water.. haha i have yet to pray for rain because i want to see what Tres Rios does when we run out of water. im not praying against everyone but then again im not praying with everyone either... so dont pray untill 20 days from now. haha thanks jk

I love you guys!! i need to remember to upload pictures first because they take literally like 10 minutes to upload love you guys!!!

Elder Jacob Hamm

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1st transfer over

What do you use for shampoo? umm, the shampoo i took from the house. haha i still have american shampoo. 

Do they have delicious candy there they don’t have here? yes they do its called balla. (like ballin but with an uh at the end) and its like starbursts but more of a fruity flavor. they're shaped like a tootsie roll but are fruity flavors. it costs like 3 reals for a bag of 50-60. i'm already addicted.
Are the streets full of buses or cabs or bikes or what? literally anything that moves without you doing much, is on the road... bikes, motorcycles, cars, trucks, a lot of old VW bugs, horses, bikes, bikes with engine...

oh yeah another thing here, they use salt as a flavor.... so like ``how would you like your chicken?`` salty.

wow these are really good potatoes. what flavor? oh they're satly. yeah needless to say its easy to down 2 liters of water before i go to bed.

so yeah this week i had some interesting food... not sure if i said this last week but we ate the heart of chickens this week. yeah that had a really unique taste. they are like really condensed meat and they just cook them in a sauce pan. my comp said they're really good so i took like 5-6 and he had 10ish. i still cant look a chicken directly in the eye knowing i've ate their hearts.

yeah if you thought a heart of a chicken was bad... just wait.

so at the same house a week later she had some deep fried triangles... no idea what they are all i heard was the word chicken... so i pop one in my mouth. it was really crunchy and not alot of meat but it was pretty good. so i ate a few more and my comp ate one. im chewing on like my third and hes kinda laughing... and im like great. so i ask what type of meat this is? he says chicken. so i eat another. then with a puzzled look and a question i dont really want to know the answer to i ask, ``elder what part of the chicken is this?`` thats where he kinda lost it and was laughing for 5 minutes quietly so the owner of the house didn't hear who was next to the house in the store she owns. he then asks for my english to portuguese dictionary to make a phrase in english, (we do this a lot to help his english and then he just says the phrase in portuguese after so i get the best of both worlds) he then says in really really bad english, chicken buttox?..... he repeats it and i guess the look on my face gave away that i could now understand what i had just eaten like 10 of... and we start laughing all over again. then he asks, you like buttox?

so this part of the chicken is right above the butt of a chicken. it is like a flab of skin with i think a spine going down the middle... turns out people dont really eat the spine, but i did. it was like eating deep fried salty sunflower seeds with the shell on. i was picking pieces of chicken vertebrae out of my teeth for the next 40 minutes... but they were actually pretty good. haha

so yeah thats my week in a bundle. i had my first person who i know believes this church is true decide not to get baptized after the LZ came down and interviewed her and said we could baptize her sunday. thats depressing but we'll continue to pray for her and give her strength to decide that this is what she needs. its just annoying because she knows our church is true and that she needs to be baptized but shes just very timid

well i love you all!!! hope you had a good week! transfers are today but im staying here and my comp is leaving :( but all is well i'm ready to learn more.

love you guys!!!

Birds in the Chapel

so this tree me and my companion think is the tree of life. it is just in disguise so no one eats of the fruit and be damned to live in sin for all eternity. jk

How do you say Hi in portuguese? welllll thats actually a really hard question and really easy all at the same time... ahah, oi! is like hi. but people say 1,000 different things to greet eachother... its actually pretty sweet. like, tranquilo, beleza, todo bom, bom dia, boa tarde, boa noite, literally a thousand things.

Questions from my dad: who was your favorite speaker? well, i didnt understand much so i'll answer that question when i get my hands on an english copy of the ensign. 

Do you have microwaves in your apartment? yes, yes we do and my companion actually made toast in it the other night because our oven was really slow and we wanted toast. yeah bet you didnt know a microwave could do that.  Does your mission president have a car? yes he does

sooo this week was general confrence and me and my companion had kinda been running all over the place this week trying to get things done, savin souls and whatnot, so we didnt think on saturday that we would be able to make it to any sessions of general confrence. fortunately the lord had other plans. saturday morning i look at our schedule and realize it is the most inefficient thing i have ever seen. we were taking busses all across town only to return and take another bus and so i mentioned something to my comp and after 20 minutes of arguing and me giving in, HE came to the conclusion that our schedule was pretty inefficent, so we rearranged some things and made it to almost all of both sessions of confrence! BUT they were still in a different language so i didnt understand much...

also during conference 3 birds deicded to just fly into our chapel. literally no one batted an eye (get the pun there. bat is also a bird) but really no one cared that we had a bird flying around the chapel just chillin on one of the fans. it was pretty cool. 

yeah so you heard spanish and portuguese this general confrence, now tell me, which sounded cooler? ;) haha (s/o to my older brother)

after conference on saturday i really wanted some homemade pizza and priesthood session ice cream social. it was a depressing thought being this far away from home but i know that if i came home i would only be more sad. 

love you guys!!! miss you!

Elder Jacob Hamm

sooo 1/12th done with the mission what?

In front of Sao Paulo, Brazil temple

Questions from my old man: What is your apartment like?  its on the 3rd floor of a appartment building. it has a big room where we study and such and then our bed room is behind it. we also have a seperate room for our clothes and our ironing board and such. we have a small bathroom at the end of our hall and a kitchen where we make our dinner feast! haha

Do you have windows? yes in almost every room we have a window and a celing fan. no ac. not very man bugs but there are alot of stray dogs and cats, and some of the dogs are so freaking cute its impossible to not touch them- ahah, and every animal here has fleas. you can see them scratching and biting all the time..

older photos:  Brazil MTC Mission President and his wife

but yeah so the news for this week is we got a call from the prez this week (which is always a worrysome thing now)and me and my comp are actually getting a kid who is putting in his mission papers but his parents want him to get some in field expierence before he leaves for his mission so he is going to be in a trio with us for who knows how long... yeah so now he's gonna be with us so there's that. 

its crazy to think that im already 1/12 done with my mission already... its kinda nice but kinda sad at the same time. its crazy how the days are just flying by and it really is a blessing and kinda a sad thing. 

Enroute SLC-->Brazil

not much happened this week, we were suppose to have 8 people come to church with us this week! but when we knocked on all their doors sunday morning all of them either didnt answer or couldnt come because of other things. so this week were gonna have to do some deep prayer and evaluation and see who really wants to recieve the gospel and who is just wasting our time and the lords time because they dont know how to say no. 

we did two service projects this week! my favorite actually, we cleanded our chapel becasue its always dirty and me and my comp were tired of it so we rounded up a few people and cleaned the whole thing! and we're probably gonna have to do the same thing next saturday so thats fun. we also helped some lady in the sisiters' area clean out her house and yard. shes owns a farm with pigs and chickens and other things so we got to chase the little pigs around the farm and try and catch them, that was a lot of fun. and also one of her 15 dogs just had a litter of puppies so i held a new born puppy who was nawing on my finger for a solid 5 minutes. haha that was fun but a lot of work.

 she had bags all over, and leaves and bottles and plastic it was a mess, so me and my comp made one big pile and she just lit it on fire at the end haha, i thought, well thats one way of doing it...

so yeah thats my week, i love you guys and i miss you so much, i sent mom some pictures! look at the date to figure out where they are from or what time haha me and my companion had a deep study of the bible and book of mormon the other day and this gospel truly is unique and truly is the most correct church on earth. ah its just so crazy im excited i have the opportunity to share this gospel with others and help them receive joy and happinesses in this life and the life to come though the gosepl of Jesus Christ. 

love you guys. not a day goes by i dont think of my family 

love you,

Elder Hamm