Wedding Bells

Blog time,

Hey everyone, I am doing great.  I am still in Santa Maria and loving every minute of it.  My companion and I are getting along just great, and we are teaching a good number of people. Once more we paid for a wedding.  It is really expensive to get hitch in Brazil.  It is a 160 plus reais.  Which does not seem like a lot to you and me , but to a people who are lucky to make 500 reais a month it is a lot.  I understand now why people do not get married here. It is a long and annoying process.  First there is the whole dating thing, then getting the engagment. After the engagment the people have to get their birth certificates, which has to be from the city of birth and a new copy.  So for instance if you are no longer living in the city of your birth  you have to call up the "Cartório" which is the centralized records for that city.  Give them your name and date of birth and the name and date of birth of your parents.  Wait a day or two and you got yourself and new updated birth certificate.  Then after that you enter in to the marrige at the Cartório in the city which you are curently living.  Then give them those things plus a couple of documents and they put you in line to be married, which means that they  will announce in the in the city news paper about the wedding so that someone could says, "wait a minute! That is my wife!" or something one those lines.  Wait 15-30 days after that when a Justice of the Peace is availible and poof, Wedding Brazilian style.  Therefore I doubt that I will ever marry a Brazilian. It is too much of a process.

I am fine, my companion and I went and climbed the mountain once more. I think that it might turn into a weekly thing for us. I feel good about it.  I am not as tired as I was last time, although I think that the sun took more out of me than the climb. I am a little red. Not a whole lot I used sun screen.  By the way if someone would like to send me more sun block, preferably one that is sweat proof, that would be  great.  I have one tube left.

Well family I hope you all are doing really well, and a getting ready for Thanksgiving, and Christmas.  I will talk to you guys soon.

Love,

Elder Caleb S. Carriere