Its HOT HOT HOT

 

Santa Rosa

Dear Family and Friends,

It was kind of a bad week. We did not accomplish much. My companion has had 6 months here and he is kind of tired of working.  So we didn't do much, nor did we have baptisms, well sort of, allow me to explain.

The woman with T.B., as it turned out, does not have a tumor but did in fact have a stroke.  She is now out of the hospital and is eager to be baptized.  So what happened?  There is a great lack of communication between the branch leadership and the missionaries here.  They all left on Saturday and did tell us.  So we could not baptize her and her son.

But they will be baptized on Wednesday, fingers crossed, or Saturday, again fingers crossed.

Other than that I am doing well. I have not really slept in more than a week because, save for today, it has been hot.  How hot was it one might ask? Well let me tell you.  It was 41 C, which is 105.8 F.  All week long.  I sweat all day, and I drink literally 8 to 9 liters of water daily, and my pee is still bright yellow.  It is terrible.  But such is life.

Oh, I also have some funny stories.  In the say day I got kissed and had a dog hump my leg.  I was at the home of a members house waiting for dinner to be ready. We were sitting outside and their dog keep humping my leg despite the fact that it's owner kept hitting it in the head with his flip flop and me kicking it off of me. Then the members nephew and his girlfriend show up.  She is a nonmember and doesn't know that you cannot kiss missionaries.  I was not aware that she would do that.  I was sitting in the same chair and she walks up shakes my hand, while I am still sitting in the chair and then bends over and kisses my cheek. Kissing of the cheek is a common greeting here in Brazil.  That is a little awkward to say the least.

Well, that is me.

Com Amor,

Elder Caleb S. Carriere

 

Indiara

 

My English Class

Minha Nossa Sinhora eu não gosto de quente. Bararidade Tche

Dear Family and Friends,

Things here are well.  I am in good health, and the work is progressing better than ever before.  We had another baptism on Saturday. Her name is Indiara.  She is 19 years old and 5 months pregnant.  It was something special with her.  She lives with her sister and brother-in-law, who are members, and they have been praying for her to receive an answer about the Church.  Then we came and taught her the first two lessons and asked that she pray about what we had said was true or not.

Well as it turned out, she did pray.  That night she had a dream that she was baptized by Jesus Christ himself, and later went to Church with her entire family.  The next day, which was Friday, she said I want to be baptized tomorrow.  It was fortunate that she had visited the Church many times in the past so we could do that.

If you have been counting that makes 7 baptisms in total.  I would have had 9 by now, but something really terrible happened to the other two.  We were going to have 3 baptisms this past Saturday, Indiara, which you know about already, and the other two are Tere and Maicon.  Tere and Maicon are mother and son.  She is blind, has a brain tumor and TB.  She has many many health problems, and what happened was on Saturday she either had a stroke or the tumor cause the left side of her body to stop working normally, so she was in the hospital.  She is fine now, but the baptism is going to be moved to this coming Saturday.

She has such great faith, my goodness.  I am envious of it.  She has been going to Church with a member family for a while now, and she told us that her greatest desire is to be seal for time and all eternity to her family in the Temple.  The thing about it is we hadn't taught her yet about Temples.  She learned it in Church.  OOOO.

Well that is me, I hope you all are doing well.  The weather her is Hot.  Hotsts,  I tells ya, and it is only going to get hotter in February.  Minha Nossa Sinhora eu não gosto de quente.  Bararidade Tche.  That is gaucho speak for its really hot.

Até Logo,

Elder Caleb S. Carriere

Healthy and Happy

Dear family and friends,

This weeks as good.  I am with out any sort of ailments and my companion and I are going great.  I am not sure if I told you about the guy, but he is from the interior of São Paulo, the state by the by.

This week, as I said was good.  I did a lot.  He taught, we had zone conference, and had a baptism.

Zone conference was great.  We actually watched Deadliest Catch in Portuguese as a part of a how to find investigators.  I was interesting to say the least.

In truth we had marked down two baptisms.  Only one showed up for the interview.  Which is sad to say the least and the guy who did not show up flaked out before, according to Elder Enout.  The one who did show up is a 12 year old girl, who had visited the Church 5 times before we knew who she was.  Oops.  We were talking to a dinner appointment and a group of members came up to us and said she wants to be baptized.  So we taught her the lessons in 3 days and she was baptized.

I love you all and I hope you are doing well,

Com Amor,

Elder Caleb S. Carriere

 

Life is Great!

Dear family and friends,

Life here is great. I really love the city, but unfortunity I have yet to take photos of her. I am sorry, I know I said that I would have some for this time, but I have been busy doing more important things.

For instance, my companion and I had a baptism this past Saturday. I am glad to say that we have one more on the Saturday to come and maybe more if I can speak the words correctly enough.

I am much better. I am no longer pooping liquid hell fire from my rearend. Everything is back to normal.

Other than that I have nothing to say. I hope everyone is doing well, and I will talk to you all later.

Com Amor,

Elder Caleb S. Carriere

Its All About Xuxa

Dear Family, Friends and the few Brazilians I know who read this,

I am in Santa Rosa now, well sort of. I am actually back in São Luiz because of splits. My companion and my old companion have a meeting in Santa Maria and the new companion of my old companion and I are chilling in São Luiz until tomorrow when our companions will arrive back here and everything goes back to normal.

As Alyson put on the Blog, one of Brazil's biggest celebrates grew up in Santa Rosa. Her name is Xuxa, (shoe-sha). Her tale is a little strange and has some bad parts to it, for instance she was one of Brazil's biggest porn stars for awhile according to my companion, but now she is Barnie, The Wiggles, Seasame Street and Lamp Chop all rolled into one blond 40 something year old woman. Actually our apartment is acrossed the street from her childhood home. I walk by it everyday, also the city of Santa Rosa built this huge gate that has her picture and the phrase, "Xuxa A Rainha dos Baixinhos." Which translates to Xuxa the queen of the littleones. It is really kind of strange, but yeah.

My companion and I get along great, better than Elder Matos and I every did anyway. His name is Elder Enout. He is from São Paulo. He is really a good guy. I will send a picture eventually but I did bring my camera along with me so I am unable to upload pictures.

I really do not have a opinion of the City itself yet but the members are great. This week I received a gift. Now it is not anything that I wanted, but it was a welcoming present nonetheless. I discovered why they say when going to South America do not drink the water. I made that mistake. I drank the water in Santa Rosa which is not as clean as São Luiz. I either had the flu or disintary because I had a feever of a 102 or 39 depending what system you us, and I was pooping liquid hellfire from my rearend all week long. The members here once they hear that I was sick made me soup and I spent many hours laying on the couch of one family as they all took turns nursing me. Good times were had by all. I really loved their charity. But I think I jinxed myself because all the missionaries here received water bottles with flitters in it and I said I do need this the water here is clean, and I left it at our apartement the first day. One family asked about them and I said, oh I do not have any fear of the water here in Santa Rosa, to which they replied with a laugh and said you will. Ah... I do now.

That was my week. I know next week will be better.

Com Amor,

Elder Caleb S. Carriere

Transfer Time

Dear family and friends,

It is finally arrived. I am being transferred away from São Luiz.
It has been a wonderful time here. I really love this place and hope to return there one day, but I am also very glad to leave and move on.

My new area is going to be Santa Rosa, which means Saint Rose. It is kinda close to here and in the same zone. My new companion is going to be Elder Enout, he is from São Paulo. I already know him a little bit and I think we will get alone much better than Elder Matos and I did.

I have to make this one short so I will talk to you guys in one week.

Love,

Elder Caleb S. Carriere

Santa Rosa, Rio Grande do Sul

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Xuxa was born in the city.

The Disneyesque monument to Xuxa in downtown Santa Rosa, Rio Grande do Sul.

Santa Rosa is a town in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, located at latitude 27º52'15" and longitude 54º28'53" at a height of 277 meters above sea level. It has an area of 488.42 km². Its estimated population is 68,468 (2004).
Santa Rosa is heavily populated with German-Brazilian descendants and the majority of the citizens exhibit Germanic features such as blond hair and blue eyes. Gaúcho culture is very strong in the city. The Portuguese dialect and accent of the citizens in Santa Rosa borrows sounds and words from Spanish in consequence of the city's proximity to the Argentine border.
The city is the birthplace of the popular Brazilian celebrity Maria da Graça Meneghel known as Xuxa and Brazilian World Cup Winning Goalkeeper Cláudio Taffarel.

Happy New Year!!!

Dear Family, Friends, and althose who read the Blog,

Things here in São Luiz have been a little bit depressing.  My companion and I have been working on finding all the inactive members of our branch, because our branch by February will become a Ward.  But before that can happen we needed to find over 100 people to see if a) they were still living in São Luiz, b) if their address even existed c) if they had any interest in coming back or what.  It turns out most are not.  We found this couple who had been baptized many many years ago, and left the church and started frequenting another because even though they knew that our church is true, or at least they thought it was at the time they were baptized, it is far away and they started going to another because it is much closer to their house.  We found many people with that attitude.

All is well otherwise. We are working hard, and we had a chance to relax and do little of nothing yesterday at Christmas Conference.  It was good times. I got to relax from my work, and just hang out with my friends from the CTM.  Although it was unfortunate that I forgot to re-apply sun screen on the back of my neck, and so now I have a really bad sunburn on my neck, but it will go away soon enough.

I was so glad to hear from my family on Christms.  That was a pleasant treat.  I got to relax and hear from people I love.  There is little better than that.

Well I must get back to work.  I do not know if the next time I write if I will be in a new city or with a new companion or if the status quo will be kept. All is possible it seems like.

Deus fique consegos até nós encontramos de novo.

Elder Caleb S. Carriere.