This week has been interesting. My new companion is Elder Prates. He is pretty awesome and we have gotten along great so far. No complaints in the companion category, so that's a big relief. There are a lot of things that are different here in Caninde. Caninde is a city that is outside of Fortaleza, so it's a bit far from the mission office. The city itself is actually really cool. It is much nicer than Jatoba and has some cool places, such as a place to buy shakes or a place that sells a bunch of food made from coconuts. The city is pretty dang big too. Because of this, it is divided in half, and we live with another dupla. I love being with 3 other missionaries. Luckily they are all cool and I don't have any problems with them. Being with 3 other missionaries brings a new atmosphere to the house, and I enjoy it. Speaking of the house, it's good but it's also bad where it counts. The house itself looks and is nicer than my old house, but it has a real annoying problem with water. We had water for about 2 days and then it decided that it didn't want to show up anymore. That means that we got the wonderful opportunity of sleeping without showering. And you already know how much we sweat during the day... yeah, not the best. We had to shower at the casa-pela (what they call the church here, house-chapel) in the morning cause we need to at least shower in the morning. Luckily the water is back now, but i'm sure the problem will return.
The reason the people call the church here a casa-pela is because it's just a house. There aren't enough members in the area yet to build a church. There also aren't enough members to have lunch with the members every day so lots of the time we have to make our own lunch. Having to go to the church in the morning to shower and also having to make our own lunch means that we didn't leave the house until around 4. Even during the days that we have water we don't leave until about 2 because of the lunch situation.
This area is also real tough when it comes to our purpose here. Elder Prates was here last transfer too and he only got one baptism. The people in this city are very, VERY catholic. There are big catholic churches everywhere and every house and business has catholic things in them. And just because the church is smaller here doesn't mean that the people haven't heard of it before. The church has been here for about 5 years and has around 50 active members. It's going to be a real challenge to baptize here I think. This week has been really bad in terms of lessons. Yesterday, every single lesson that we had planned fell through due to people not being home. We went to the homes of 7 of our investigators and not a single one was there. Because the area is huge and we have a limited number of investigators we have to walk all over the place to get to everyone. So when we walk for 30 mins to get to an investigators house and they aren't home, and you also don't have enough investigators to plan alternatives in that area, it's real annoying. We've been contacting like crazy trying to find new people to teach but it hasn't brought anything yet. So i'm feeling a bit stuck right now.
The language is also a struggle, still. I'm fine during lessons but I need to expand my vocabulary because It becomes diffcult when people start talking about other subjects. I don't know why I still can't pick up the language. I've got enough stuff to worry about already, so having the language to worry about doesn't help at all.
But even though the mission is hard right now, and i'm struggling, i'm still enjoying it. The last week passed by very quickly, and it has been a lot of fun to get to know the missionaries here. And I really don't know why I continue to get scared by animals, but a few days ago, a cat decided to jump out of a trashcan right as I was walking by and I almost crapped my pants. My comp thought it was pretty hilarious but i'm just wondering which animal will be the death of me here.
Time to answer questions...
I'm going to try to continue eating good stuff. I don't know if i'll continue to make cookies and brownies and stuff cause i'm already fat enough but we'll see.
Yes, the food is the same. The members continue to feed us chicken, rice, and beans (when we have lunch with them at least).
Like I said, this city is nicer. So there are a fair amount of buildings with AC. The churches usually have AC also, but both areas i've been in haven't had normal churches. Pres. and Sis. Chamberlain will also bring AC to our house this week I think. So we can use it during the night. Benefits of being way out of the city!
It wasn't hard at the time, but now I miss the old ward members. I think I was more worried about the fact that I'm going to be training so I wasn't paying attention to them as much. But the members in Jatobá are amazing. I hope the members here are just as good. There were a few members that we were really close to, so it's sad to not be able to see them anymore. I'll send a pic of what one of the members gave to Elder Alcantara and I before I left.
We use the cheapest cell phone you can buy. It's pretty sweet.
Package... more water flavor! Not sure if I already asked for that. Can't think of anything else at the moment... Oh, and ties that aren't cotten. It's too hot and they get all messed up and start curling and get all dirty.
No news on the Chirstmas package.
We don't have to walk far enough to make use of public transit. But this new area doesn't have local transit. Only buses to go to Fortaleza and such.
I'm pretty sure we can choose our time for Skype. Chirstmas is on Pday (lame!) but i'll find out more this week.
Also, the AlphaSmart is smart again. Yay! Hope it continues like this. I also forgot to tell you guys that ever since I arrived in Fortaleza, the steamer hasn't worked. It starts steaming then stops. Then starts again and stops again. Not sure what's up.
That's it for me today. Talk to you next week!
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