I'm serving in Ala Belém and the São Paulo East Mission office. My p-day is now on Saturday which means I'll be emailing on Saturday, not Monday.
My companion is Elder Williams. He is mostly from Idaho but I think his family lives in Washington now. We have a devotional with the mission president every morning. This week because of transfers we weren’t able to have it every day. It was a crazy week.
President Silcox is amazing. He doesn’t get angry and is super spiritual. He is a really good guy. He taught at UGA for awhile. We talk about Georgia a lot.
I spent all day Wednesday taking people to the airport. It was way fun. We took another the other day too. Next week I’ll be taking people to the federal police office for legal reasons. New missionaries have thirty days to register with the authorities.
Only president and sister Silcox have cars. Missionaries are not allowed to drive in this mission. We call taxis. The mission has a contract with two taxi companies. We just call them and they take us. I would die if we had to take public transport to the airport. It costs about 80 reis (about $20.00) to go. I met members from all over the world there. We talked to a person from Idaho, Venezuela, and Argentina the other day. We also ran into elders from other missions too. We got to go to the Olive Garden afterwards which was heaven to me!
I had a lot of administrative work to do last night. I was entering all of the recent baptismal records. This took awhile.
Because of General Conference we will stay in the office for p-day.
In my new area there are some reminders of home. The mall and airport have restaurants like Olive Garden, Outback Steak House, Johnny Rockets, and things like that and you can get free drink refills there! But, they are expensive. Plates start at 60 reis (about $15.00). There is a store near our house that sells a lot of things imported from the USA. I can buy root beer, cream soda, and all kinds of stuff there. The drinks are 4 reis a can (about $1) but things like chips are super expensive. A can of Pringles is 20 reis (about $5). They sell Ben and Jerry’s ice cream too but a tiny container is 30 something reis.
I like sleeping in a hammock. The power is out in our house. We haven’t had any problems with bugs and I share a small space with six others. This gives us a little more room. Its the only place where I can get some personal space and I like looking at the night sky.
I only have three white shirts left. We live next to Brás which is the largest clothing trade area in Brazil so I hope to find some good deals there.
I was able to go with some elders the other day because the office work was finished. Normally, we work to 6:00 pm in the office and then go out after that.
