WEEK 9: August 26, 2019 (2 Months)

See that hill way on the other side of the city?  That is where they walked from that morning!

Another week for the books

Well this week flew by for me!  It started off with a district conference in Vedeira, which was super fun, I hung out with Elder Chub (from Guatemala) and Elder Anjos (From Sao Paulo) both of them are super hilarious and I find it more fun to hang out with them than the Americans in my district haha. Anyways for district Con. we took an hour long bus to the city of Vedeira, and then were met by some senior missionaries who had baked us a cake for breakfast haha (it’s weird everyone eats cake for every meal here)  Elder Chub claims that the Senior Elder looks like Moses from the picture in the bible, so we call him Moses now haha.

His district

Anyway, other highlights from this week, we probably walked about 100 miles this week due to how massive my area is... which is fine, but sometimes I get a little frustrated with how much time we spend walking versus how much time we actually spend teaching, cause i’d say it’s 50/50 at best right now.  But, this week I got to see a lot more of the area, and we walked to the end of the area which was near this super cool jungle.  We saw a herd of Capybaras, (guinea pigs the size of German shepherds, and some cool birds as well (Brasil fits the stereotype!) And overall just a super pretty area.  And plus, we are now teaching 2 different super awesome families from that area, one of them from Rio and the other has been here in Caçador for their whole life.  Super weird to see how different the accents are and how different words are used.  

Other than that, yesterday we had two of the weirdest visits back to back, we were clapping doors as usual, and met a Pastor from the Assembly of God, who was interested in what we had to say, so we taught him the restoration, which he asked a TON of questions.  Then directly after, we had this guy contact us on the street who owns stores across Brasil that sell Free-Mason something?? Still confused on what that is.  But my companion told me that it might be a storefront for selling drugs haha.  Anyway, he’s a really nice guy and is accepting our message really well and likes our church a lot, we are hoping we can get him baptized and to a change of lifestyle!  

Other than that, still trying to get adjusted to life here in Brazil!  Every morning I wake up, turn on the heater and eat coco-puffs for breakfast and every night ends with a grilled chicken sandwich.  

Thanks for reading

-Elder Hammond

Highlight from our conversation:

He’s had to experiment with French, and Creole again this week.  He doesn’t seem at all fazed by all this new stuff he’s having to learn and do. He seems a little tired of all the walking, though.  It’s a good thing we bought him a few more shoes than were recommended.

Elder Hammond's second attempt at waffles got an enthusiastic response from his companion!