Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Yikes! Those are some huge spiders!

Elder Hair and I as we cross a bridge

Aren't they just sweet? NOT!

My time is short now, but that’s okay, since this week was extremely uneventful.

Last Thursday, on the borders of our area while trying to find a house, we found another family to teach. And along the way, there was a tree, full of monstrous, venomous spiders. They were bigger than my hand. We fed one an ant, and it ate the thing whole, not cool.

Will, who is part of the family of Rosi and Cida (who just got baptized), is progressing very well, and might get baptized this Saturday. We’ll see. As of now, our teaching pool is getting emptier and emptier. We are teaching people, but I can’t get too excited yet, until they go to church. I don’t know why that is so hard.

Sorry this is so short, I’m out of time. I spent part of my hour writing to my “church family” back in Covington. I’ll have mom attach the letter so you can read it, too.

Tchau,
Elder Titus

To My Dearest Crestwood Ward,

I’ve been on my mission for 6 months now. Crazy! Time flies when you’re getting sunburned.

Things are going swell here in Brazil. I’m currently in a city called Bauru. It is the northern most city of our mission, 5-1/2 hours from our mission home in Londrina, and 14 hours from the southern most city of Iguaçu Falls. So yeah, our mission isn’t small, more of less the size of Oregon. And even though its one of the southern most missions in Brazil, it’s not cold, in fact you could say its quite boiling hot, but every curse has a blessing, in this case, a sweet neck collar tan line.

My companion is Elder Villela from Belo Horizonte, Brazil. He’s cool, his only downside is that he likes to iron his bed sheets, which is extremely weird to me, but me not ironing MY bed sheets is extremely weird to him, so who am I to talk?

There are 6 areas in Bauru, of which we’re in the downtown region, where all the rich people live. Nearly everyone has those stupid intercom doorbell things, where they don’t even have to get off their couch to tell us to go away. In our area the work is a little slower. We teach 20 lessons per week, whereas my last area in Londrina, we taught 30-35. Nonetheless, we’re teaching a guy named Will, who is progressing very well, and has just about stopped smoking. He should get baptized here pretty quick. The rest of his family already left him behind, and were baptized earlier this month.

I have successfully gained 2 lbs even while walking 12 miles a day. I used to think the white rice and beans thing was a big joke before the mission, but I have in reality, eaten with little variety, the same lunch for the last 6 months. The grocery stores here are very similar to the ones there, but they have a special aisle, where one side is rice and the other side is beans. And while it doesn’t sound too tasty, it's actually quite good.

So, anyway the mission is going good, an awesome experience. It has recently gotten better since I’m getting closer and closer to fluency in Portuguese. It’s so good to be understood, and to be able to understand. I had one special experience where the Lord blessed me with the gift of tongues; one day I talked fluently with a bum. We actually had a real conversation for like 2 minutes, and I have no idea what I said, but he seemed to understand. It’s real, the Lord has blessed me immensely with the language, something that confounds the wise on the streets, when they ask how long I’ve been here.

One thing that is most valuable on a mission, is the testimony that a missionary gains. During the last 6 months I’ve come to realize how perfect the gospel is. The only question I haven’t been able to answer is why we celebrate Christmas on December 25th, but everything else we can answer. We like to milk the phrase, “Fullness of the Gospel” and people don’t really like that phrase, but we can back it up.

Brothers and sisters, the church is true. If you don’t know that for sure, figure it out. We have been immensely blessed to have a knowledge of this gospel, and I thank the Lord everyday that it was so easy for me to find it. Missionary work is inspired, and as hard as it is, it's more than worth it.

Until the next letter, I bid thee farewell.

With love, from the depths of my sun burnt heart,

Elder Titus.

1 comment:

  1. Those spiders look cool! I've heard that there are spiders in Brasil that catch and eat small birds and animals, and those look like they could do that!

    I'm surprised they don't go any further north, since the mission boundary goes all the way up to Bolivia in the north west. Must not be enough missionaries, or not enough people up there.

    Elder Burt is still in his first area, but expecting a change next week. I love Elder Titus's letters and pictures. You and Doree are doing a great job!
    Pat Burt

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