11/19/12

Note from Mom : This weekend was crazy and I did not get emails out Sunday evening as planned, so I got up early on Monday but alas both missionaries had already emailed and I about died when I saw the emails.  Lucky for me both were on the computer while I was!! Tender mercies for sure!!

Tudo Bem Família!

Im a little sad to see there wasnt an email from yall today, but im sure you all are busy! This week went by super fast! We found a few investigatiors which is super cool. Gerson and Luciana are there names, we have taught them twice so far, and they like what weve been teaching. We are teaching them again tomorrow which is good. They werent able to come to church yesterday because they had to work, but they said they want to go! Teaching in português is so much harder than in english haha but its coming along.

     This week has been super hot down here, luckly my area has a breeze which is super nice. We walked a ton though. It sucks when people give you fake adresses that are super far away, so when you get there you cant find it, and then you have to walk all the way back. Also my knee has been bugging me a ton this week, cause i tried running on it last p day. I hardly even ran. Its dumb. I just want a new one haha. I think arthritis might not be the only problem with it, cause it always hurts on the tibial tuberosity, not under the knee cap where the arthritis is. Its frustrating. This week i got a massive blister on the bottom of my foot too. Its super gross, but its part of the work. I did emergency surgery on an ingrown toenail i have too.. okay not really surgery, but i had to dig the toenail out and then stuff the head of a q tip under it. 

  Once again church was crazy, the members are great though. The kids here run around every where and sacrament meeting is usually pretty irreverent. It is still great though. All the members make me eat sooooo much, even when i say im full they give me more. They think i eat more than one plate, but i dont. Its awful and kinda funny at the same time. Usually the food is super good too. Simple but delicious, but it doesnt compare to your cooking  mom! Really not alot is new here, we do pretty much the exact  same thing everyday, study, teach, and look for people to teach. I love you all and hope yall are doing well. 

Com amor, 

Elder Brady Simpson

11/12/12

Ola Família! 

This week has been better than the last week i would say. It work is still tuff though. The week went by fast, but the days were super long haha. First things first, im getting tan here which is nice, and yes mom i do use sunscreen... sometimes. This will surprise you, but ive actually found a fruit i like. Açai with banana is soo goood. I think we get a smoothie thing just about everyday. This week i finished Jesus the Christ, it was a super good book and i learned alot from it. Im also about halfway through The book of mormon again in both portuguese and english. The members here are great, the food that make us for lunch is great, usually rice and beans and salad with some sort of meat. And juice. I love juice! The Stake president here doesnt think i eat enough haha he always tells me i need to eat more, and Comer sem vergonha, which means to eat without shame. We got invited to go to a little Jantar (dinner) party with them and the bishop and some other members and he kept making me go back and get more food haha. The food was super good too. They had lasangua and strogonoff thingy with chicken and lime. 

         The work this week was hard, because everytime we would make an appointment with someone on the street, they would never be home at the time of the appointment. That makes it frustrating and hard to teach people. We had one investigator that went to church with us last week, and i think he is crazy. When we went back to teach him he had questions about the sacrament and why we dont use wine. He thinks we at least need to use grape juice to remind us of Jesus´s blood. Then when we taught him about baptism, he said he doest want to belong to a church because he likes to go to all of them. He said he wants to be free. It was really weird. I dont know if we are gonna go back, because of this, and because he like to talk and we are always there for 2 hours. We had zone conference this week and it was really cool to see the entire zone. President Hall Showed up at the end and it was cool to see him. He´s great. i Did get 3 letters too so that was cool. I think we get letters once a month at zone conference only.

      I have two friends in Santiago Chile right now, maybe saydie will go to the same mission as one of them! Crazy that Garrett and Mckenzie are engaged, i thought that would happen though haha. Hows camerons ankle? Thanks for the sports news mom i love hearing about it, thats great for SVU girls cross country! 

     So one thing i learned this week is from the example of Nefi, Its when they are coming back from jerusalem after getting ishmaels family, and his brothers tied him up and were discussing about killing him. When he prayed he didnt pray to have God miraculously break the cords that had him bound, but he prayed that God would give him the strength to break the bands. How many times in our lives do we pray for God to help us with something without us putting in any effort? i like to think that after nefi prayed he worked at breaking the cords until the broke. Thats something i learned and am trying to work on while im here!

Love  you all!

Elder Brady Simpson

11/5/12

Hey Family!

This week was pretty ruff. I feel retarded all the time, because i don't speak the language near as well as i thought. Its been hard. I've also been super lonely all the time. Its hard going from my district in the CTM to being with 3 other people that only really speak Portuguese  All the kids here speak so much better than i do. Its kinda depressing. I've been trying to lose myself in the work though. Its hard because i don't think i'm helping much at all. So yesterday we had church. It started at 4 and went to 7. Its so much different here. All the kids are crazy. if you thought the CTR 6 class you thought was hard, it would be like 10 times worse here. every meeting here is a lot more irreverent  We did have an investigator come though! Whats crazy here is there are animals every where. Dogs and cats just wander around. So do horses donkeys goats. We get lizards spiders, everything. Its pretty crazy. My area municipios is next to Santa Rita. The area is pretty big, so that means a lot of walking. Its hard on my body haha. My bed is awful too. So we had a ¨snake¨ which is a girl that likes the missionaries buy us ice cream the other day haha. Our schedule here is different. we wake up, have till 8 before study time. Study time goes till noon, then we have lunch at a members house, then rest time. so we don't really start working till about 2 o'clock. 

That was a sweet article about Cameron  I hope his ankle is alright! Sounds like everyone is doing pretty good though! Hows Dads Head? I haven't gotten any letters yet, i think we get them on Wednesday though. I Guess we only get them like once a month too, which kinda sucks. Jessi is gonna be a great missionary, she sounds a lot more prepared then i feel. i'm kinda a little jealous of her going to the south. I miss it over there. Mostly just the people actually. I haven't heard from like anyone in forever. Hopefully my Portuguese will get better soon. I love you all a ton! Tell Nate Happy Birthday for me! 

Com Amor,

Elder Brady Simpson

10/31/12

Oi Mãe! 

Estou in minha area agora! Eu saí a CTM ontem! Hey mom i'm in my area in my mission now! Its pretty crazy! I feel like i dont know any portuguese anymore, which sucks. The area i'm at is an area called municipios its like 20 minutes maybe outside of João Pessoa. So far it seems like its a pretty poor area. Its way different here than it was in the CTM or at home. Hopefully i adjust soon. My companion is a native Brazilian  which is cool, but also makes it kinda hard. The Americans don't like to speak English much either though. There is one other companionship in the house we live in. there is only one closet for the four of us so we have to  live out of our suitcases. That's pretty much what i did at the CTM though. It was kinda tuff to leave my district from the CTM, we all pretty much became a family. President and Sister Hall are super nice and cool! They fed us all dinner last night, and it was so good. I'm excited to be out here serving the Lord, and hopefully i'm not to awful at it. I love you guys a bunch and hope you are all doing well and having a good week.

Com  abraço,

Elder Brady Simpson

One other Thing! Happy Halloween! it doesn't feel like Halloween to me because i am in paradise.. actually its kinda hot, but my area gets a breeze so that's nice. Por favor tell Cameron Happy Eighteenth Birthday For me. And eat lots of candy for me, because i don't have any haha. Love you!