#5 Mother's Day call and a quick email

(We were able to Skype with Carl for about an hour.  It's weird to think that this is our last call to our missionary.  He will be home August 31st.)

 

After talking with you, Elder M talked with his family, then we went to talk to our ward mission leader and we went to Taguatinga 1 to watch the baptism there. Then we got home SUPER late. Well alright, two minutes late. But when you leave to catch a bus at 8:30 and you don't get to the end of a 15-20 minute ride until 9:30... annoying. Turns out our bus doesn't pass by very often at night. . .

As for fun stories form last week, you know that children's song "the pioneer children sang as they walked and walked and walked..." Yup, that was last week. We walked and walked and walked and nobody was ever home! But, our investigators are moving little by little. We also have some cool people to teach this week.

 

Today we are planning on doing not much at all. Clean the house a little and rest. For whatever reason, I'm really tired, and Elder M was saying yesterday that his knee was bugging him. SO, we will stay nice and quiet in the house.

But... for now that's all, so until later!

Tchau,

Elder Funnell

#84- waking up chilly...

Anyhow, this week was interesting. Elder M is a fun guy, we just didn't get along very well the first few days :P Now we are fine, he was just grumpy about something or another, and so I had to be the victim of his grumpiness... but whatever.

He's got nine months in the mission and is coming from Recanto. He is from Recife, he really doesn't have much to say about what he likes to do (play soccer... duh) and he wants to study something in computer sciences after the mission. He has already said that he becomes trunky very easily... awesome. But he is actually a really good missionary.

Funny note: He already has as many areas as I do :P

This week we did a lot of door knocking. In the process we found a few okays a few goods, and one or two really cool people. This week will basically just be catching all of these people again to see if they will progress or not.

A couple days ago I was talking with the stake something for teaching kids. Yeah. That. She oversees Sunday school for the young men and young women programs. Or something like that.

She said that they were having a lot of trouble with the teachers this year because of the new curriculum. She said it's great because the teacher has to think, but that it is getting complicated due to the kids getting bored out of their minds having the same class over and over and over again.

Sounds special. Similar story there?

Our relief society, young womens, and primary programs were all mixed up this week. Should be a fun change.

I think the most interesting day was yesterday. We went to church, lunch with the Bishop (which is always great), and then we went to the early-return-missionary's house with the Bishop. I said just about nothing, but it was a cool lesson that the bishop gave :)

Oh, and a note: he asked me to send you a 'hug' and say that you have an admirer.

I'm excited to hear about these stories... someday... but whatevs :P good idea though, being hostage does NOT sound fun. That's kinda the point of being hostage...

Ah, it's been really dry and kinda hotish this week. This is the month that its usually kinda cold, and I DO wake up cold, but everyone is complaining about how it’s hot here. Funny because I just think it’s warmish. The dry though, is somewhat annoying.

Anyhow, that's all I got for now…until later,

Tchau!

Elder Funnell

#83 Pics and transfers!

Numbers first: Our mission has 180 'seats'. About normal-smallish in size. The only real difference is that our mission is one of the few that weren’t changed at all, so we won't be getting too many missionaries for a little while. The newbies are going to the new missions or the missions that recently got split. We are just getting a little trickle for now. Already knew that :P

I was talking to Elder H (LZ) during our trade a few weeks ago about the sisters having a part in the mission counsel thingy. Was just announced today. Now there is a position for sisters that are basically like 'wandering assistants'. Our mission doesn’t have these, but they are kinda common. These sisters will be going to ALL of the sisters in the mission to spend a little bit of time training each one and will participate in the mission council.

Cool stuff. Different though

Transfers HAVE returned to Mondays, and they are once again six week-ers.
The dying missionaries will now be leaving on the Thursday before transfers, instead of transfer day (WIERD).

Oh, and my last senior companion left today. Elder E is headed home.

Dang... I'm getting old.

AAAAAAAANNNNNNNDDDDDDDD.... Elder S left. Not super surprising. He was a sad panda though. Didn’t catch his area name, I got my companion first. HIS name is Elder M. I believe he is from Recife. He has a lisp. First Brazilian I've seen with a lisp. HARD TO UNDERSTAND. But whatever. We'll get there :P

He's got about 9 months on the mission, and is coming from Recanto das Emas JI talked to Elder M (who was with Elder G this transfer), and he gave me notice that M was baptized and that C and C Roberto will be baptized soon. YAY! I worked like crazy with them, they are the reason I wanted to stay there. Sounds like all is good :)

This week I had a special combination between allergy and cold-ishness. I got up one day with what seemed like super strong allergies, but it turned into a cold-like thing. Totally fine now, but I still have that random pressure in the sinuses... stupid. Can't hear quite right. VERY annoying. But all is well.

I have actually been feeling COLD here! 70s would probably just kill me :P

Hammock is bigish. Big enough for me for sure... But dunno exactly the size.

I DO have pictures. Eventually. Not many though.

Sounds like everyone is having a good time at home, that's good (except maybe Blake... but oh well...) our week was cool. I gave an English class on Saturday, and it looks like it will be a consistent thing. Look, perhaps I can teach some things, and perhaps I speak English... but I do NOT know how to teach English. We just kinda played around with pronunciation, alphabet, numbers, and saying our names. I'll have to think an awful lot more this next class.

We had stake conference yesterday. It was cool. President was there. Didn't see the people from Recanto that I wanted though.

Oh, elder H is somewhere else now, and Sister T as well. That's sad, she was a fun part of our district (and she makes cake!) Sister T stayed and now we have some other sister that I don't know yet, but she knows me. Weird.

Sounds like sister white was her trainer, so she must have told her something about everyone in the district from the CTM.

Our LZs are those kind of missionaries that are somewhat popular, really energetic, and quite funny. I think they are going to drive me crazy though... Elder Q was already bugging me yesterday. I love spastic missionaries... J

ummmmmmm.... I think that's it. I wrote literally non-stop until now, and now nothing else is coming to mind, so I'll leave it there.

Anyhow, I'll let you read that.

So, Tchau tchau!

Elder Funnell

 

 

#82- More exchanges this week that all together!

Our week was. . . Don't even remember.
Went fast. I'm pretty sure that it had a lot more of some people in it than was necessary, but it was good.

We've got a couple of new potential investigators. They are the son and daughter of a recent convert. I already knew both of them, but they didn't have any real desire until now. Out of nowhere M asked his mom if he could go to the church activity on Saturday and the meeting on Sunday. We'll be teaching him Wednesday.
T also moved out of her mother's house (four kids later :P) and ASKED when/if we would go visit her. She also is wanting to know more, she just didn't go to church because her two youngest (rather poorly behaved, although super-cute) kids had her really tired after the first week in her own house. Also will be visiting more.

We went out with members quite a bit this week, Saturday was an entire day with members. We started by visiting an AWESOME less active, hopped over to C's house with A to teach an English lesson, went out with G for the entire afternoon, visited another less active real quick and went to the activity.
Busy day, but quite fun.

The rest of the week was pretty normal. Just the weekend was weird.

Thank heavens we only had patient people in the class (excluding me :P) (He is learning to deal with people that talk non-stop.  Shouldn’t be new to him considering his siblings… J)
I sort of (in the most polite way possible) told them both to be quiet and get back to the topic.
It's weird. I realized that I know WAAAAAAAAY more than I used to... but I don't really remember learning it all. Being an olderish missionary is bothersome. I liked keeping quiet in my corner. Oh well.

This IS the last week, but I'm still not sure which day will have transfers or when we will receive transfers... I'll have to tell you next week.

But, I think I'll stick at that.
Tchau tchau!
Elder Funnell