"They gave me the calling of Zone Leader, which is a neat experience."

"Pondering the failure"

Art Museum

Thank goodness these aren't real!

Hey family!
Wow that's crazy that all the grandparents were there and that Grandma Claridge had a hernia. Good luck with all the blood taking out stuff. Yah, i stayed in the same ward, which surprised a bunch of people. It's great though, cuz i don't have to go and gain the confidence of the members in another area, and i still get to have the experience of another area. It was a pretty interesting week.

Last Wednesday they gave me the calling of Zone Leader, which is a neat experience. We had a big "Leader Counsel" thing where we discussed about what we could do to improve the mission, received some trainings that we'll pass to the other missionaries, and after ate pizza at a really cool pizza place. I ate pepperoni pizza for the first time here in Brazil yesterday! Some of my good friends became Zone Leader's too which was cool so we had a bunch of fun at the pizza place after the counsel. It's a great opportunity to get to know the whole mission. My zone is Zona Leste or East Zone and it's got 15 companionships or 30 missionaries. So it gets a little complicated sometimes, but you get to know the missionaries. This week my companion got sick so we haven't worked for like 4 days but we should be good to go tonight. We do have some new investigators that are preparing for baptism, but i haven't seen them for a few days, so they might not be baptized this week, but maybe the next. We'll see how they're doing tonight. I still haven't spent any of the money that i brought with me, i was thinking about trading it in soon for reais. Can you guys tell me what the dollar to Real ratio is? I checked if the packages sent were in the offices yesterday and they don't have them yet. How long ago were they sent? That stinks that Laura got creamed in her soccer game.. I know how that goes. Today i did make two goals. My companion and I changed the way a Brazilian thought about Americans, which was Americans are good with their hands basketball,baseball,football) but not so much with their feet. yay we're breaking the stereotype. Hey, maybe Zack can say hi to some of the people there in Cuiaba for me. There's my companion that got sent home early that i heard he returned to the mission (Elder P. Silva) and there's also one of the other missionaries from my group in the CTM that's still there (Elder Swalberg). So is Alessandro Silveira still writing to you guys? I guess he's already found some cheap round-trip tickets for this december to visit his city.

It was good to hear from you guys again, hope you guys have a great week!
Love you guys
-Andrew