16 Jan 2011 - Alvorada Area (Mom)

I got your Christmas package too so you shouldn't spread the mail fear to all my potential package senders :) I am grateful for the stuff, the T-shirts, the christmas tree in a box that is a little too late now :) I liked the gravy and stuffing but I don't have a pot here in my house so I will have to wait and cook it some other time. The tic tacs are good and even have flavoring from a fruit here in Brazil.

[Comments about it being cold.] Yeah cold is no good at all, maybe you should move down to Costa Rica with all the oldies. You will be rich there, here in Brazil you will have almost twice the amount of money too. [I'd still rather live somewhere where it snows in winter than move to sunny Florida and join the millions of other oldie people.] How will you get warm by moving to a place that snows and is cold all the time. It's weird because the ghetto apartments that I lived in [at BYU-Idaho] were always warm and we didn't even have a heater. But the house is cold in Texas psshhh.

I remember when Sister somebody was talking about how the pioneers sacrificed more than we do right now and how you had a "battle" with her :) The prophets say that today is more of a sacrifice but a different kind of sacrifice. These days are a lot harder those of the pioneers too. Satan has a lot more power in these days. That makes us stronger and more faithful than the pioneers eh? :) I was going to say né because that's what they say down here at the end of sentences, like the word no. "You like apples no?" I will probably still say it when I get back from the mission.

16 Jan 2011 - Alvorada Area (Dad)

Grandma talked to me when I called to mark the time to call on Christmas and said she gave you $300 to put in my account :) Just kidding she just said $100 but you had some problems with the bank. I just need a soccer shirt of the Brazilian team, that's the expensive one though. I'll stock up on açaí and caju soda :)

[I mentioned Jimmer Fredette's amazing 40-foot swish at the end of the BYU-Utah basketball game. "He launched a running swish from 40 feet. The crowd went wild. Jimmer just turned around and walked off the court nonchalantly, kind of like I'd expect you would."] I might do that if I would score from that far. I do that when I score in soccer so I guess you guessed right. P.S. Phil Collins is playing right now on the loud speaker in the LAN house...weird Brazilians... :)

I saw a crazy guy that looked like a goblin in front of one of my investigator's house. I was kind of scared to pass him to talk to knock on the door. He was sitting on the hood of a car all goblin-like, you can imagine that right? :) He had like 10 hairs and they were super curly and one of his eyes was glazed over and the other one was looking off to the right, no doubt searching for hobbits or something, golden rings, or tattered clothes.... whatever goblins like. I was with another Elder that day and the Elder said hi and the goblin just said Ya! Ya!! The sad part is that I didn't have a camera to take a picture with him, which I will regret forever :) [Michael has a job now at BYU.] I came up with a good idea, Michael should work at the MTC as a teacher!!!!! Leave this manual labor behind and get a nice job at the MTC. I'm sure they don't have many Thai teachers there. [Way to hang in there with not going home when you were sick, at least since you did get better. And yes, recovering due to a blessing does make the story more epic.] I have an iron stomach and nothing has made me feel that bad, I thought I was giong to die one day for some reason when I got home. But guess what? I didn't...I was frying hot and then freezing cold etc. but it only lasted a few hours.