Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Shivering in Brazil

From Nick:

Dear família,

HOLAAAAAAAA! Bom dia bom dia pessoal! This week has also been really rough for me in terms of weather! It gets down to the 50s sometimes. YIKES! Yesterday we worked in our suits! (actually I used that chique coat that I have, you know,so I was pretty bonito) But heck I was not prepared to shiver in Brasil EVER! Especially not in the centro este! But I survived. Also parabéns dad for being called to the High Council! Its good to hear that you will be raising heck in the Ann Arbor Stake. Now you are both bigwigs, haha. I was holding back tears when I read your email and listened to you singing The Holy City at the same time, it was sweet! Also mom I wanted to ask if you can send me my blue beanie in the next box! and there's one Brazilian who keeps asking for a $10 bill, apparently he collects $ notes and doesn't have 10, but if not I don't really care that much haha. Unfortunately no, there is not any member that is caring for me so sorry! Also mom don't worry about sending long emails because now that I've been out a while the only other emails I get are like 2 lines haha so feel free to write!

So this week I finally made brownies. Actually, I made them on Pday and also ate them all on Pday. Haha it was the only thing I ate that day but they turned out super good!

There is something really good here in Brasil called "calda de cana", its like they make a juice of sugar cane and its bom demais!! This week I realized that calda de cana is like boiled peanuts in the south, they have these old kind of farmer guys selling it on the side of the road. Haha so I bought some this week and it made me feel a little bit at home.

Saturday was like the worst day! It was even funny how many things went wrong. It started off that lunch was cancelled, but the Irmão didn't even give money to buy food so we were on our own. And also it was SUPER cold but we didn't have jackets. So we went to another members house in the hopes that they would give us food, but after hanging around for the hour of lunch they didn't and we left. And I decided to heck with it: lets go to the supermarket and I will buy us something with my personal debit card (which I normally don't use). BUT it was a holiday so everywhere was closed! Then our first appointment called, our only investigator with a baptismal date, to say that she couldn't meet with us and that she couldn't go to church tomorrow. So I was about ready to die haha, but I have grown a lot in patience being here so I just shoved it off.

But yesterday was better! Unfortunately we didn't have any investigators in church. BUT fortunately for almoço (lunch) we had cow tongue and cow heart and also cow stomach! So it got better..? I guess haha. Fortunately they had other regular meat too, but I ended up eating all of the others too. And it was really cold outside and one of the kids there at lunch said to me "oh my gosh its so cold out here... somebody throw some hot tomato sauce on me!!" Hahahaha and I was like what?

I liked that stuff from Elder Packer that you sent. One thing I found this week is that its necessary when sharing the gospel (at least here in Brasil) to be bold and not ashamed. Because a lot of people will say "a church doesn't save people" or"God is in all churches" or something like that,and sometimes I just say "mhmm mhmm" but you really can't be ashamed,you have to speak! That's why I was called here!

Unfortunately the work isn't going too well here, but we just have to press on. This week I am going to dedicate myself to a lot more prayer, try to get the Spirit more, be the missionary I want to be,not just someone that is dressed strangely and speaks with an accent. I think maybe that I am missing something. And so please pray for me só um pouquinho só! I hope you are caring for the Sister missionaries, but not too much because they have a car so they're already blessed haha.

Love you guys. Thanks for the support and the prayers!

Love,
Elder Nicholas Olsen

                                                           Interesting meats!
                    The day i made brownie batter but it wasn't enough to bake and I had nothing else to eat.

                                                                                         Brazil!




From Eric:

No time this week for a real email. I hate having only 1 hour it is not enough time. But tell me what Emily is doing! Tell her that I love her and think about her often and that I wish she was here because there are some crazy people that I wish she could meet so that we could laugh about her craziness! This is one of the hardest parts of being on a mission - I tell everyone how important family is - ps we are teaching 2 families now ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!! that is so good! - but I cant even talk to mine. I just want to have a conversation with her and with Phil too! I miss you all. 

I want to send more letters but its really hard here because to find a post office you have to go 30 minutes by omnibus so we only send letter like every two weeks! That's why they aren't coming. By the way if you think of any good recipes of something I could make here that is super easy and small--because I don't eat meals em casa, just a snack--hit me up! Also cake covering ideas haha. They don't seem to have powdered sugar here.
Nothing happened this week that is of note. Only that we are teaching 2 families and it rained a lot!
                                    This rooster always crows outside our window at 3 am.

                                                                    My ZL and me at the beach.

                                                                                        A sewer.
                                         

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