Before the letter, here is a clarification on almost getting bit by a snake last week:
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Elder Cornwell writes: I forgot to clarify the term ´snake´. Here on the mission, its a young woman who goes after the American missionaries to have a future. So I already recounted the story of the near snake bite for you hehehe.
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Ó la meus queridões! Como vão?
So, just to start off with a little basic missionary vocabulary that we use pretty much every day
Snake- Girl that talks to the missionaries to try to marry them
Sorry for the confusion there! I forget that only the Brasilian missionaries know what that means! Anyways, my area is one of the biggest in the entire mission. I think it is the biggest, but I´m not sure, so I won´t say it. Anyways, we walk probably 20 minutes to get to where all of our members/investigators are, and it’s all way spread out. I think we are responsible for about 110 km^2. So we usually leave about 11:30, head to our area, and come back at around 8:30 to be in the apartment (which is the normal 2 companionship setup) at 9. I´m sure Drew can sympathize with me here. We are still pretty close to the beach, so we get a good amount of wind here.
So, Elder Johnny is from Ribeiro Preto, São Paulo (about 4 hours from the actual city). He is 20, the 4th of 5 in his family, and his whole family are members. He really likes anime, which all teenage boys in Brasil do, and he´s a Corinthian´s fan too (Vai Corinthian!). He is the first one in his family to go on a mission (his parents joined before he was born, and has 4 sisters) and he has 10 months on the mission.
SO, I did a LOT of travelling this week (Elder Johnny is a DL and is responsible for a LOT of area, plus our area includes all outlying cities to the east of Pacajus until Aracatí).
So Tuesday, my companion had to go to a training meeting in Pedras, so I went with Elder Smith to Horizonte for lunch, which is in his area. We walked soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo long to get there (about 30 minutes) after we had taken a bus 15 minutes there. Plus it was hot. After, we went back and waited for our companions, and headed out at 3, and just taught the normal things. Not much memorable that day.
Wednesday, we had district meeting with our whole zone, which is huge geographically... only 2 districts. WE had to go to Pedras, which is about an hour away, and then walk 30 minutes to the church for the meeting. Found out that Elder Pili is in my zone again which I was happy for (he was one of my first ZL´s in Zona Castelão). Afterwards, we came back and taught a less active member, who has a son who wants to be baptised. So we go there, and the oldest son I recognized. Then I realized he had been living in my last area. Turns out, we are teaching/reactivating the daughter of a sister in my last area. I thought that was neat! Taught a few more lessons and went home for the day.
Thursday, we went out with members (young men) and visited less actives because we can always help them return, and then find people in their family who aren’t members. Two of them came to church with another friend, so we were super excited about that.
Friday was a good day. We taught two Jane´s (pronounced Jonnie) and both of them have been going to church for a while, but never talked to the missionaries (their extended families are members). Pretty much we just gave them the lessons for it all to come together. They already have those good feelings from church, but they didn´t really know where it all came from. I guess we were just there to quench that spiritual thirst. After I met an investigator named Edeson. He is a BIG guy, he’s got a goatee going, long ponytail and tattoos on his arm. I wasn´t really sure what to expect, but I just went with it. As we were teaching him, he hung on our every word. We were teaching about commandments and he knew they were important. He is one of the most humble people I´ve met out here too. As we talked to him, he told us about his desire to go to church and do all this, but his wife just drags her heels, and it’s hard for him. We talked to her later on that day and she recognized that she should be going to church too and pretty much told us she would stop being lazy. I just thought that was a cool thing. After, we had dinner with an investigator who is going to be baptized in about 2 weeks (Her and her husband are getting married TODAY! in Fortaleza, and they will both join the church here pretty soon). Their names are Renato and Tuane, and they are practically members already. They are so excited about the church and everything. So we had dinner and shared a message with Tuane and her mother, who we are all trying to start missionary lessons with. So I really enjoyed that.
Saturday was a burn day pretty much. We had to go to Aracatí to do interviews for the sisters there (really neat town... crazy during Carnival). It´s about 2 hours away, so we left at 11, got there at 1, ate, did the interviews, left there at 4 and got back at 6. Then we had to go to Horizonte and do an interview there. Came back and that was our day.
Sunday, we went to the very end of Pacajus for lunch. It was like a 40 minute walk in the blazing heat along a freeway-ish thing. Crazy. After we rounded up people for church. Church was pretty good too. The only problem was sacrament meeting was SO LOUD. It wasn´t the youth either (the young men in our ward are AWESOME. Stripling warrior status, and there are about 15 of them). All the sisters talked with each other the whole time! It was ridiculous! They had the pulpit mic turned up way loud so you could hear. That was definitely different for me. Then we went back home (church is 4-7) and closed our week, then Played Risk Imperial Rome Edition, which I won! Whoo!
And today... we haven´t really done anything. We´re going to watch a movie later and then... I don´t know after that haha. But that was my crazy busy super long week! Hopefully I answered all of your questions Mom/Dad!
That´s all for this week. Love you all!
Elder Cornwell
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