Matt: December 15, 2010

Dearest Family of mine,

Oh family, what is up? Not a ton has been happening here as of late. It has been rainy/cloudy for like a week and a half. I can´t remember if it was last week or just since last Wednesday that it started to be gray and cloudy and rainy and such cuz these days all seem to blend together into one never ending week.

So last week our calentador or residencia, or whatever the device that heats up the water in the shower is called, broke... WOOF CITY!!!! So this past week has been nothing but icy showers. Maybe it is a blessing in disguise, because until this point in the mish I haven´t been very good at doing morning exercises. I do more like "exercise my faith" and wait for revelations to come in a dream, or "exercise my agency" and just write in my journal or sleep. However with the broken calentador/residencia I have to do a good number of push ups and sit ups to generate enough body heat to keep me from freezing to death in the shower. So after saying a prayer and cowering in my bed at the thought of the inevitable morning shão for a few minutes I get right out and crank out like 40 push ups and like 6 sit ups and head straight into the icy water closet with the hope that I don´t turn into a naked missionary-cicle.

Yesterday we taught a family that (get this) has 8 kids! Even better they have 4 boys and 4 girls! And better yet it goes 3 boys, 3 girls, 1 boy, 1 girl! And only the 3 oldest boys are married!!!! That is exactly like our family, but reverse child order. ha ha ha Could you imagine if Nick was the oldest (yikes!) and Alison was the youngest (ahh poor lil lamb)? Nossa, so I make special mention of this not only because of the similarities to our fam, but because gigantic families like ours are super duper rare in Brasil. So yeah we taught a good restouration lesson and they said they are going to pray to know if what we taught them was true. My comp wasn´t quite as excited as I was though cuz he thinks they´re members of some other church that has a special hatred towards Mormons. So yeah.

Tomorrow we have our Christmas mission conference where all the missionaries from the entire Curitiba area get together and drink coca-cola and go swimming and watch movies and hug. Ha ha jk but they will have all the missionaries there, and they´ve been holding all packages that have come in the past month and we will get them tomorrow. So that is exciting. I´m pretty sure it is going to rock my world.

Ooh in other news I was at a member´s house who´s daughter served in this mission (didn´t know that was poss, but whatev) and she had a photo with an Elder Richards that I went to high school with. Then my comp saw it and was like "Oh I remember Elder Hishards. He was an assistant when I got here." Then it dawned on me....Nossa, the two people from my same graduating class that served here were both APs. So normally I'm not one to keep up with the Jones' but now I´ve got an expectation to live up to! So I decided that I´m going to be AP before my mission's end....Yup.
So that has pretty much been my week.

Dad- great to finally hear from you. I have been thinking a lot about the DeAgostinis lately, so awesome that you ran into them at Chillibee´s. I think I saw their cousin that lived with them when I was like 13 years old, at the Curitiba temple last week, but I didn´t have the chance or guts to go ask him if he was related to any DeAgostinis in Utah.
Al- Christmas around the globe sounds rockin. I´m glad Abby forgave you for all the days your were mean to her, and even MORE glad that you´ve been playing your violin! Nossa maybe you should join the BPO; get paid to play violin full time- Awesome! Also did you ever find that quote by Boyd K. Packer that I was talking about? If so did it help? If not, FIND IT!
Michael- Yeah muitos inativos aqui neste país. Achou que aquela familia foi brincando com vocês ou talvez seu português é peor do que meu, kkkkkkk espero que não!
Nate J- Crohns sounds crappy but the downtown date night sounded sweet. Tell Marv to get a hard copy of those ski pics right quick!
Jor- Letter on the way to ya.

Well I love you all tons and tons. I am super stoked to maybe get some packages tomorrow, and I will surely be thinking of y'allsies this Christmas...OH speaking of natal, I think I will call sometime at night, or maybe on Christmas eve. I´m not sure how it works here. I´ll probably find out tomorrow, but because of Christmas next week instead of having pday on wednesday and emailing and whatnot, our p day will be on Christmas day Saturday. So yeah. My comp isn´t much help with this either cuz he doesn´t really want to call his parents, so he´s not quite as anxious as I am to dial that numba. But yeah maybe the fam should just stake it out by the phone at Nena´s for all of the 24th and 25th.
Yup that´s all.

Love, Elder Matt