A few words from the field

The bus ride was really long and sort of... funny. Me and my companion, Elder Lima (which is a very very common Brazilian name) would get off to buy food or snacks and everyone would just stare at me. The only white guy, and a very very white guy at that, in the middle of nowhere. So i felt a little awkward, a little cool and unique, but finally i arrive in Porto Velho, which is the capital of this state. My area is outside the main city area and is in more of the... tropical foresty area, with the muddy roads, and tons of churches. seriously, there were 6 different ones on one block. So it makes the point of the Restoration very powerful. Joseph Smith went to many pastors and they all told him their church was true. He was very confused, so following the advice given to him in James, he prayed. We find it very hard to explain things to some people who immediately shut themselves when we mention about a prophet today having the same power as that of Moses or Abraham. Sometimes people are really mean and when we say hi they just ignore us, but noone does anymore than that to us. The members are really cool. I don´t understand what they´re saying, they speak really fast, but the other missionaries say that i´m way ahead of where they were. For instance, there´s something you might be familiar with called reflexive verbs and they say that it took them three months before they understood it whereas i´m blessed to have that knowledge. So i have a lot of hope that i´ll learn the language quickly. Everyone talks very very fast here. Some events and things that have happened here so far or in this area: I´ve walked through the tropical forest area on some shady scary bridges and felt like indiana jones. There are tons of cats and dogs, but only the little chiuauas are mean enough to bark, and then run away. Alot of kids love fly kites here, very very high. We´ll walk through the streets and just see tons of kites in the air, getting all intangled. We almost witnessed an accident. We crossed the street and were continuing walking and then we heard something and turned around and saw bus ran over a motorcycle. I didn´t see and blood or a person so possibly it just ran over a motorcycle on the side but i didn´t get a good look till later. The other missionaries caught a frog and thought about eating it but after killing it they didn´t know what to do with it... poor frog. It was big too. And i get bit by a bunch of mosquitos so i could use a mosquito net at night. It´s rare to get a bad disease from them like dengue, and they don´t worry about malaria or yellow fever, but they´re a pain at night and i don´t want to use up all the repellant for when i sleep. The juice here is amazing. They mix things like bananas and avocado with milk and sugar and it´s this great, creamy drink, as well as other combinations of fruit with milk and ice. It´s dang good. So the only problem that i´m really facing is the language. Everything is great here otherwise. I hope everythings going good at home. The missionaries found a way that we can talk for free on Christmas. We can use this thing called Skype.com, which is basically talking over the internet for free. All you need to do is create two accounts, one for me and one for you, and get something to speak into. The speakers on the computer will let you hear. So how´s everything going down there? Sounds like you guys are doing well, and the grandparents too. Can´t wait to talk to you guys next week! Love ya!
-Andrew