May 24 letter

Sorry for the delay everyone. Don´t worry mom, I´m still alive! Yesterday my companion was sick and couldn´t even get out of bed. Apparently, he had some weird infection in the weird glands under his jar. It got all swelled up and his whole body was dead. Sunday we had to go home after lunch so that he could rest, then he had vomit and diarrhea all night. We went to the hospital and got him some drugs so that´s it´s all getting better now. He´s feeling better, but he´ll have to take it easy for a few days. He woke up this morning and took this one medicine, which is like a super Tylenol and then he had weird rash things on his hands and they got all swelled up. Elder D. Souza is doing better though! Yes, for being a soldier!

CONGRATULATIONS to Clayton! Or shall I say Dr. Carpenter. Wow. My brother is a real smarty now. The pictures were cool. Sad to have missed it, but we´ll have to go back to visit Ohio someday. I want some Steak and Shake and Italian bakery foods! Oh, que delícia. And PARABÉNS to Sarah for moving out to a new apartment! Now we´ll be able to have ASU parties when I get home. I´ll call all of my friends over and we´ll buy some Bud! Maybe not. But the singles ward there has got to be awesome. CONGRATS to mom as well for finishing out the year with piano recitals and choir concerts, oh my! I´m guessing that everyone will be coming back for more next year.

Answers to Questions: Yes, the hammock is hanging up in our patio out back. I paid $25, which is like $15. Yeah! I got a super good deal. About the spiders, I have no idea what kind of spiders that they are or if they are poisonous. I´m just a stupid missionary that likes to take pictures of possibly-deadly animals, without knowing whether or not it´ll hurt me.

Thanks for the pictures of Olivia´s wedding! That made my day. The cake turned out... different, but legit at the same time. Nathan is in Peru? Hey, 60 degrees has got to be awesome. I have heard about Peru. They say that it is super poor there. I´m sure that he´s having the time of his life though. Yesterday, I got all of the Seth/Jaimee wedding pictures too! Now I can show them off to everyone. That was awesome. And Devin finally wrote and it got here! Give him a thumbs up for beating Kevin in the Race to Write Elder Carpenter a Letter.

We´re planning on moving to a new house next Monday (the day of transfers) and I´ve been in charge of getting the contract and all of that organized. Eesh. What a headache! The new house is tons better though. There aren´t mosquitos there, the house doesn´t run out of water, and it´s bigger. We´re all happy to get out of our current house.

Sadly, we didn´t have a baptism last week, but we´ve already got one marked for this Saturday. His name is Celso. He´s a 15 year old and Lucas´ (recent convert) cousin. He´s really funny and a Gremista! Grêmio is my soccer team and almost nobody in Cuiabá or the mission is a fan. That´s just because they are lame. Celso is hilarious and I love the guy. We were teaching him the 10 commandments and I asked him what he thought that "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain" meant. He started saying howing it meant that if he had a child, that he wouldn´t give him the name of God, because that´s not showing Heavenly Father respect. Hahahaha. It´s the effort that counts! He loves the Church though and is progressing really fast.

We´ve been teaching Hodinei and Jaqueline lately, too. Jaqueline is a recent convert´s daughter, and they LOVE to make food and have us eat it. They made us a churrasco (big BBQ)  last week as well as other dishes. So, we told them that they´d have to get married to be baptized (since they only got married illegally at the Catholic Church since Jaqueline was 14 and he is 23) and they kind of freaked out. When we came back the other day, they said that they are going to get married! Yes. Then, they started to say how their lives have completely changed since we started to visit them. Hodinei used to go and drink all of the time and they were always fighting. But after coming to Church, everything has gotten better for them and their relationship. They have a 7 year old, too. We told them that it wasn´t us, but the gospel of Jesus Christ that is making all of the difference.

I put some pictures of food in the email too! One is of this one stuff that you put on rice and beans. It´s basically hamburger meat and jalapenos, and it tastes awesome. Another is of Rice and beans with a meat party on top! Most of it is bacon. Delish! Another is of the Brazilian Style Hawaiian Haystacks! The only thing is that it doesn´t have pineapple or dried rice (instead we put on those little potato sticks). I love food. The other is us at a bustop. Uau, que chic!

Things are going well here in Pedra 90, though. We´re just wanting to baptize more people and do our best! I thank everyone for your prayers and support! Have an amazing week!

-Elder Carpenter