So this week I have arrived in the city of Resende. It was a little hard to say goodbye to the people in Uba, but i arrived here in Resende Tuesday and I already like this area. I sent some photos of the members from Uba:
Elder Lemes, Lara, and Elder Smith
This city Resende is fantastic and I am loving everything about it. The house is close to everything, it has stuff to do on p-day, and the members here are really nice and willing to help with anything that we need. In fact the apartment right next to us is a member and he invited us over to have pizza sometime soon. This ward has a lot of less-active members that we are going to be trying to reactivate, and are planning a bunch of activities to invite them too. It should be a fun transfer.
So my new companion is Elder Palomo. He has 1 year and 9 months serving his mission. He has two transfers left and I think i will be the one to kill him (the last one to serve with him before he goes home). We have been talking a lot about his plans for after the mission, which is all good because he still wants to work. The other missionaries in the house are Elder Favela and Elder Jared. The apartment is a tiny apartment that was built for two people, but we have crammed four in. There isn't much space and we are using every surface. In the "living room" we have put a dresser, a couch, the fridge, two desks, and little drying racks for the laundry. It is a mess there. It is a fight to keep everything clean. When we got here we had to get two desks and a dresser from the sister missionaries in the adjacent city. The house was also really dirty. We took everything out of every room and swept, and then mopped the floors room by room. Right now it isn't too bad.
The location of the apartment is perfect. It is literally right next to the church, the super market is 5 minutes away, there is a Dominoes 3 minutes away, and the area is right out the front door. Elder Palomo is from Sao Paulo, Elder Jared is from Mexico, and Elder Favela is from somewhere in the North of Brazil. There is a way cool park here 7 min from the house that we are going to to relax today. The church also has a soccer/basketball court and we have the basketball from the church to use today as well. There are some historic sites as well. If we can get President Lacerda's approval we can go to a national park in the city right next door that apparently is one of the best national parks in Brazil. There are also historical sites here we can go to. P-days will be good.
(The view from the apartment in Resende)
Right now it isn't too hot here and the last few days have been sunny in the morning with heavy rain hitting about 6:30. Yesterday we had marked with a member to go visit some members at the church and we were 20 minutes away and had to meet him at the church. Well it was pouring and we didn't have umbrellas and we just got totally soaked. We were laughing and telling jokes and I am pretty sure that people looking thought we were crazy. The roads were filled with atl east 3 inches of water at the lowest point. When we finally got to the church I upended my shoes and water just poured out in a continuous stream. Good memories.
As far as the Portuguese I can be understood. I have been told that some words I speak don't even have an accent which made me really happy. I just have to keep working on that vocabulary.
I will definitely look for a violin. This city has a lot more stuff than Uba had, so i am pretty sure i can find one. There is a shopping mall here. A full on shopping mall that is air conditioned, and plays English music which is a pretty big temptation. Anyway for sure i would be able to take the violin with me when I get transferred. I wouldn't buy one if i couldn't. I just have to find a "carinho" i don't know the word in English for this and I am not sure if i spelled it right, but it is one of those things that you use to load up a moving truck with boxes that a lot of missionaries have to put their suitcases on. They just use the carinho to get the stuff to the bus. After that you unload it and then collapse it. Then you organize everything when you take it off the bus as well. It works well.
As far as the work here the people are a little more closed to receiving a message. We knocked on houses for 4 hours and didn't give a single lesson. This had never happened to me before. We did mark some return visits though so it wasn't a total waste. I am opening a new area again, so we are starting from scratch. We don't know the area, and to be honest we don't have a area book to work off of. But we are excited and will be working till the end. Next week I should have some investigators to talk about, but until then!
-Elder Smith
From his letter to the family where we always make sure to ask our questions:
Have you washed all your pants? How did the dry clean only ones turn out? Everything still fits?
I have washed all of my pants. I only use them a max of 3 times before i switch them out. All the pants are working out just fine, but the suit pants are a little tight and i will have to give it a little slack.
Do you think having your name on your clothes helped? Are they still marked?
The name thing doesnt really do much. I just wash all my stuff alone because it takes up a whole load of laundry. it did help to have the garments with names though for the one time i comined stuff in the CTM. All the shirts have a different tag and everyone knows which brand is theirs so there isnt any problems there.
What day of the week is best for your missionary work? Why?
I think that friday is the best day for missionary work. There isnt really a best day, but if i had to choose it would be friday. It is when you have gotten rid of the laziness induzed from p-day and you are in stride, plus the next p-day isnt far away. The only day that just sucks for missionary work is sunday. There is no one in the roads, and no one lets you enter the houses. They are all sleeping.
Did everything fit in your suitcases for transfers? How are the suitcases?
Almost everything fit in my suitcases. I left a few ensigns in the other house. Missionaries have a lot of church magazines. The suitcases are holding up fine, but the big suitcase has a broken wheel. A lot of the roads are cobblestone and it destroyed one of the wheels.
Are you required to do a certain amount of service each week? What have you done or plan to do?
There is no service requirement literally if someone needs help they will call us and we will plan for it. There isnt a lot of service done in this misison. We will be helping with a wedding at the church this saturday though.
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