Week 17 Alegrete, Brazil

Hey!

Well my first week here in Alegrete was awesome. I really love this new city. There are a lot more gauchos here and a lot of cattle. There are also a lot of frogs- the frogs get run over and flattened and their guts come out of their mouth- it’s pretty gross and there’s a lot of them on the road. The city here is very big and there are 8 elders here. There’s a stake here which is great too. Church this week was great. It’s nice to be able to have 3 hours of church instead of two- like there was in my first city.

I miss a lot of people in my first city but I’ve been able to meet some really nice people here. One of them is a lady named Rosa. She’s pretty much the mom to all missionaries here. She loves to feed us which I always appreciate and she gives us great references for people to teach.

Well this whole week seems like a blur. Every day goes by so fast and it’s hard to remember what happened this week. My new companion Elder Ferreira is really awesome. He grew up in the church and loves to teach. He’s a hard worker too. We get along great and we were able to teach a lot of people this week. We’ve made some good meals here this week. We made a pie and some pastels.

I’ve learned a few things about my house here too. The shower head is broken and it’s a lot easier to get shocked. The power goes out sometimes too so we don’t have cold water. We live next door to a former stake president. He’s really awesome and next week he said he’d make us a churrasco- lots of meat! Meat here is pretty cheap and these last few days I’ve had steak for breakfast. It may not be the best thing for me to eat but it’s probably better than when I’d eat ice-cream for breakfast at home.

Portuguese is still coming along for me. A few days ago I was able to understand almost everything that an investigator was saying. I went home very happy that night but then the next day we went to teach a lesson and I couldn’t understand that much. It’s all part of learning a language I guess. Some days are better than others. I have learned a lot and feel a lot more comfortable with it. There are a lot of people here though that mumble and don’t speak clearly. It’s sometimes even hard for my companion to understand- scary. All is well though on the mission so far. I absolutely love being a missionary and working each day.

Today for P-day all 8 of us elders will go eat at a restaurant and then go play soccer! I love playing soccer here. It’s so much fun to play with Brazilians- they are so amazing at soccer.

I’m glad that you were able to get my CD that I sent. I’ll be able to send you more pictures over the internet now in groups of 3 or 4. Before it was just too hard to send 105 pictures and 2 videos over the internet.

I’m glad to hear that everything is going well at home too. That’s great that stake conference was this week. We have such great leaders and examples. Thanks for telling me about the talks. Well I’ll talk to you next week and I hope that you have a great week. Thank you for your emails and your support. Let me know if you have any other questions.

I love you infinity!!!
Elder Fowler