I'm borrowing a pair of shorts

I'm borrowing a pair of shorts from Elder Freire right now and the brazilian size is 38... brazilian size 42 for men is U.S. size 32... Booyah!

I'm staying strong all right! :)

I went a few weeks without doing exercises but I started up again. I was sore at first but now I'm good and I can actually see muscles! :3

The basketball shorts still fit fine. The proselyting clothes are huge, but I think I might be  able to find a sister in the ward who tailors soon.

Haha oh Nana :) I'm glad she had a good birthday (Elder Lundy's Nana turned 91.) 

I really hope you're able to have one of those Little Red Hen activities finally! (the last 3 were snowed out)

Horray for Tristan Measel!!! (Turned in his papers to be an eagle scout)

I made the salsa this week!! It turned out pretty good! Elder Caramujo never had salsa before but he liked it so much he ate more of it that anyone else. I made tortilla chips out of pan fried cut up tortilla wraps. OH!! The other thing I do with fried pieces of tortilla wraps is make a sugar and cinnamon coated dessert that's pretty darn good. :3

And I personally feel that I might focus a little more on the less active members in the area than on finding new people because there's a significant number of people that I've been hearing about that were baptized then quickly went inactive. 

SNOW!!!!! (we're expecting more snow - Elder Lundy loves snow.)

And you're back to having the Bishop as a home teacher huh? ha ha 

Oh, ask him where he served his mission please! and when! and his president! Thanks!

Work sounds like it's more than frustrating... it gets that way here too sometimes... :/

Sunday sounds like it was a pretty good day for you and the ward though!

Tell Bridger hi for me please! I am getting better at speaking and singing the hymns. It's easier here to progress and practice more because people talk with me more due to the fact that they don't know me yet.I think that's all for this week.

I love you a lot!!

Hooray for temple recommends

Hooray for temple recommends and HORRAY for Clara Madeline Perry! (one of Elder Lundy's cousin just gave birth to a beautiful baby girl!) And Hooray that Nathan will be alright. Amanda told me about what happened with him, and really it was a miracle. (one of Elder Lundy's cousin's children was injured in an accident at home) I'll be praying for him and for Aunt Marlene and Uncle Dan as well. 

As for what you said about recipes... Salsa!! I need salsa and it doesn't exist in Brazil!! :'( If you can find an easy recipe I'd appreciate it!!

As for my week... it was alright I guess. I had my first legitimate division this week. I went to the area of our zone leaders and one of them took my place. The division went alright. We did a lot of walking and managed to visit one family. I spent a day and a half in the area. During the bus ride back we were sitting in the front and were going to pay at the end when we exited, but a little over half way through the ride the bus driver told me that Furtado and I could exit the front without paying, and here's why. I spent the whole ride standing in the front of the bus chatting with the driver  all the while holding onto a race car shaped stroller that a woman brought onto the bus. I gave up my seat to the woman and her 13 month old son. For a little while during the ride, the woman scooted over and insisted that I sit and hold the stroller in place with my foot. But then an older woman using crutches got on the bus so I gave up my seat once more and spent the rest of the ride standing, then helping the people out. A little bit of service went a long way :3 Then after we'd finally arrived at our casa, the other companionship showed up and said that they missed me during the day and a half I was gone. That was probably the best part of the division right there. what else... oh... Since I've been here lunch has only fallen through once and an Irmã that lives just down the road found out and gave us money for lunch that day.

I love you a lot!!!! 

Carnaval

As for Carnaval, I only saw a bit on TV while passing stores in the street. Honestly it's not something I have any interest in.

Questions I asked Elder Lundy

Thought for the week: I was just thinking...Do you think that Pday is on Monday so that missionaries can avoid the Monday blues, and TGIM since TGIF doesn't apply?  ;)

haha I never thought about the reason p-day is on Monday but that makes sense :3

1. Tell me more about your new area. it's not too big, but it's big enough. there's a street running straight through the middle of it that's nothing but shops and I honestly think it's kinda cool.

2. Is it all you hoped it would be? It's alright. I like the fact that it's smaller and that there's wind. But the work is different and a little harder here.

3. What new thing did you learn this week? I learned that Elder Furtado doesn't handle it well when the ward members aren't exactly helpful. No one gave a ride to our investigators due to the short notice they received to do it. I hope I'll be able to help him learn to set up these sort of commitments better.

4. Any new investigators? Kinda... there's a guy who's become "friends" with us because he wants to learn English, so I told him that I'd help him a little if he let us give him and his family messages about the church

5. What are your other companions names? 6. Where is everyone from? The others are Elder Caramujo (from porto alegre) Elder Capener (from boston) and Elder Freire (from a small city a bit farther north in brazil)

7. Tell me about your new neighborhood. The new neighborhood is in the other Elders area, but our area is really close. It's pretty calm but there' definitely more people because it's within the city of São Paulo.

Oh!! so we had a baptism on Sunday!! Paulo, an investigator that they've been working with for a little while finally got the chance to be baptized!

Elder Lundy's Father's birthday was last week so Dad told him to celebrate it!

So we had 7 elders there for burgers. Sadly they were pan fried. We had some pineapple and I got some of them to try it on their burgers and at least one of them liked it!! haha :3

And you've got no idea how much I wish I could have winter weather in the middle of summer right now

That would be cool if the ward got to do more temple work! I'm going to the temple in March I think. The temple is in a different mission but in the same city so it's close enough that the president can choose when he wants to take us.

I love you a lot and the other Elders say thanks and they love ya too haha :) 

I love you all a lot!!!

New Places with Old and New Friends

Questions:

OK so tell me all about your new companion.

1. What is he like?

2. Where is he from?

3. Life member or convert?

4. Is he fun?

5. How old is he?

6. How many siblings?

7. Do you have a lot of investigators to teach? Did you get to say good bye to your last area of investigators?

8. What is your new area like? Is it clean or run down? Odd question to ask, but Google map pictures of the area were sad.

9. Are you cooking meals with Elder Furtado? Are you eating better?

10. Please give me a Phonetic pronunciation of Elder Furtado's name.

11. Silly question...but where do you email from?

12. If you start cooking with him...Please send me a yummy recipe so I can make it for us here.

13. Tell me all about your trip to your new companion...How did it go? Easy or complicated...I want to hear it all.

14. Did you forget anything at your old casa?

15. How many Elders are in your new casa?

Answers:

I'm in a suburb of São Paulo

1-6: He's pretty fun. He likes to joke with everyone and goof around, but he doesn't let it get in the way of the work we're here to do. He's from Cabo Verde. He's a convert from his childhood. He's 22 right now and will reach the one year point of his mission this month. He's a middle child of 6, 3 boys and 3 girls.

7: We've got more than a handful of investigators here and I didn't get to say bye to my last area of investigators.

8: It's not run down, but it's got the city trash and smell :/

9: We cooked lunch today, and every night (minus sunday) we stop by the supermarket to get a little food. I've been eating a lot of Frosted Flakes recently. There was a discount on them one day so I managed to buy 4 boxes for 2 reais less than the price of 3! I gave a box to each of the Elders in the casa.

10: Elder Fur-ta-doh... it's funny because that means stolen... Ele foi furtado= It was stolen

11: The place is called a LAN-house here in brazil. It's an internet cafe

12: Alrighty. What we made was just pasta with a tomato sauce, corn, onions, and something that was more or less spam

13: We got a ride to the bus station in our neighbors car. It couldn't hold all my bags in the back so one of the big suitcases was on my lap on the way there and my leg fell asleep. Then Pereira and I waited for an hour for the bus to arrive. Then the bus ride was a couple hours. We arrived at the bus station in São Paulo which is connected to the metro station. We rode the metro for a while. We met a member on the metro and he said he'd help me get to my stop so Pereira could go where he was supposed to wait for his new companion. Then the member left me on the correct metro line. Luckily, a non-member son of members recognized me as a missionary and decided to help me. He teaches english at a  business college so he was pretty good at speaking english. He helped me a lot. We arrived at the correct stop and no one was there waiting for me like they were supposed to be so I was freaking out a little. He ran around for me looking for the other missionaries but they weren't there yet. He waited with me for 20 minutes and even offered me his lunch that he'd been planning to eat when he got to work! I eventually just thanked him a lot for his help and let him go and just waited and prayed. Before leaving he gave me his card and said that if no one showed up I should call him and he'd come get me and we'd figure something out after that. Almost an hour later my prayers were finally answered and other missionaries showed up. And not just any missionaries, but Elder Matos and his new companion!! Honestly I almost cried with relief when he came up and hugged me. My companion Elder Furtado showed up about 15 minutes later. After that we took a bus to our area and got to our casa.

14: I didn't forget anything, but I did leave a bit to lighten my bags and make the trip a bit easier.

15: There were 4 Elders in our casa when I arrived but by Saturday the other companionship got one more Elder so now we're at 5.

Thanks for setting up the facebook page for me! Their may be some requests popping up within the next few weeks.

So something cool about my new area is that the Elder I took the place of is Elder Beatty, one of my friends from my group in the MTC. The people in the area really liked him so the fact that he and I are friends has helped them warm up to me quickly. Elder Beatty is now a District Leader, trainer, and opening a new area! And Elder Webster is a District Leader and has already trained... and the companion they both had before this major advance in responsability is none other than Elder Furtado... in other words, it's highly likely that will happen with me during the next transfer... Luckily Furtado is actually training me (unlike my previous companions)

I love you a lot!!!!

Transfer week!

Transfer week!

I've been spending some time packing. 

I'm being transferred to 

Jardim Tieté to be companions with 

Elder Webster's trainer Elder Furtado.

Questions/Answers: OK so someone is probably getting transferred this week.

1. The question is WHO and to WHERE?

I'm getting transferred to Jardim Tieté, and Martinez is getting

transferred somewhere nearby I think.

2. Is your area getting additional Elders?

Taubaté First ward will be getting a second set of Elders but Periera

isn't happy about it anymore. He wanted me to stay and open up the

new companionship in the area so that there would be at least one

person in each companionship that knew the area. But instead he's

getting a companion who just finished training and the new companionship

will be a trainer and a newbie.

3. Are you opening up a new area or staying put?

My new area is already established aka I'm not opening a new area.

4. Are you going to have your old companion sign your tie?

Already had him sign it last night

5. Will you be training someone this cycle? 

I'm not training yet. Thankfully. That's not a challenge I'm ready for yet.

Opening an area with an Elder that I'm friends with and can work well

with Absolutely! but Training a newbie... no thank you...

The "no more transfer meetings" was a mission (or Brazil area) rule.

The rule changes had nothing to do with the training session.

I saw a little about a virus on the news at a members home but I didn't

hear that it had gotten that bad!

Oh gosh... okay so I was reading the last little bit of your email and I'm

sorry but I couldn't help but notice the spelling/grammar error of

weather/whether... sorry :P (Good thing my children are better at it than I am. lol)

I love you a lot!!!