missão celestial!‏

Things haven't changed much since I last wrote. The language is still hard. Now I can recognize most of the words people say to me, but still they don´t have much meaning. I have to translate them into English in my head before I can feel their meaning. I´ll keep working hard. Right now I´m a sponge immersed in Brazilians. I think I smell like a Brazilian now. I don´t think it's a bad smell; it´s just a unique smell. I think it comes from eating rice and beans every day. You begin to sweat it out through your skin.

I had a cool experience with prayer the other day. It was about 7pm, and Elder Snow and I were trying to get to Rio Tinto to meet with our district leader. You either need to ride a bus, or find a driver to pay, or take a taxi, or hitch hike; usually you try to find a ride in that order. This night, the buses weren´t coming around, and we couldn´t find a driver or a taxi, so we were trying hard to hitch hike or something. We didn´t know what we were going to do. After about 20 minutes at the bus stop looking for rides, I said, "Elder Snow, keep your eyes open, I´m going to pray." Then after I prayed a tour bus came around the corner. It was a nice one with air conditioning and soft reclining seats, and they let us ride to Rio Tinto for free. I was smiling for an hour after that.

Today we went to a big statue in our zone. It was of a Catholic friar I think. If I can, I´ll try later tonight to send pictures. It was a pretty cool thing.

I hope everyone enjoys conference. I´m really excited for it because I think I might get to see it in English. I miss English. I just haven´t had a good conversation in English in a realllly long time. All of my conversations are just what needs to be said. They're never profound or personal. I feel like I would be a great missionary if I could just learn the language! Right now I´m putting in a lot of work, and not getting much to show for it, but I know the blessing are coming soon. If the blessings aren´t coming to Brazil, then they´re probably going to my family back home, so keep your eyes out for them! I love you all. Thanks for your letters and your love.