Paul in Brazil: First week in the field ah yeah!

So ive been here in a smallish city of Cabeiceiras its been a great week! Its a new area that the mission president just opened up so there is no chapel but we meet in a school! The members here are great! One is from Victoria Brazil and he served in Boston his name is Alan. So how did i get here you may ask? Well at 4:30 in the morning we left the CTM and took a bus to the airport, got on our flight, oh yeah while on the plane I made my first contact! It was awesome! We talked the entire time in Portuguese and just chit chatted away and eventually i was describing the relationship between the Bible and Book of Mormon he was interested so he gave me his card and wrote his personal email and phone number on it! His name is Arriosto, he is an engineer for John Deer and travels alot but lives in southern Brazil, It was such a spiritual and humbling experience.

Anyways we landed, took a bus ride to the mission home, ate some super yummy lunch, took pictures, slept haha finally, had our interviews and i was off to Cabeicerias! We arrived at like 11 at night i was so tired. My companion is Elder Matheus! Hes super funny and a great missionary, super easy to talk to and he is great at teaching! This week consisted of meeting the members, teaching a lesson here a lesson there, oh yeah one member Lucas who sadly his mom died last week but he is so amazing and strong in the church and the only member in his family. But Im teaching him how to play the piano its a blast! The peope here are amazing, seriously sometimes i just wonder how they can be so kind and loving. Some of the houses remind me of pictures of Africa some are impoverished some arent.

Chickens run around in the streets, as well as countless stray dogs, horses are hitched up to poles outside stores, its great! Its like a mix of everything

haha our apartment is pretty small and one of the two chairs we had broke yesterday haha it was so funny, the other companionship consists of elder Christensen who hails from ST> G and Elder sifuentes from LIMA PERU! Hes way nice and funny. Cough cough the other companionship was having a bit of a struggle with each other like in the best two years but theyre doing alot better,

One interesting thing about this area is that It was closed 7 years ago becuase of bad missionaries that were kissing the girls and other bad things so its kind of scary to be here as the first missionaries in 7 years but then again im really grateful that i get to represent our savior Jesus Christ! THe portuguese is coming along just great, i ate some sugar cane yesterday it was delicious, i dont have many picutrues becuase it just makes me look like a tourist but slowly theyll come! The food here is so so good not as good as my moms cooking though.

Everyone please read Alma 26:36 and just think about how lucky we are to have the restored gospel from ancient times from the beginning of the earth! It just really opened my eyes. Well enjoy the pictures!