Rockstar Churches and Fireflies

Last week was 85418 steps and 51.25 KM. So I went on exchanges to São José da Mata (the other area in our district) this past week. When it got dark, I started seeing little flashes of light. I was really confused about what they were. Turns out, I was seeing fireflies for the first time in my life. I caught one in my hair and saw it flash a bunch. It was pretty cool. Also, I saw a shirt this week that said, "Skate Everything 'Till Death" I wonder whose death? Everything, or the one doing the skating. The world will never know. Also, we invented a new game. We were supposed to have mutual, but everyone but us and Mateus were told that it was moved to Friday. So we showed up Thursday with Mateus. So we made up a game with a ping-pong ball, chairs and hymn books. You have to hit the other people's chairs to get points without letting the ball hit you, which makes you lose points. It got pretty intense. Also, we brought a couple investigators to church yesterday. One woman was there for the first time. I'm pretty sure she wasn't expecting what the meetings were like because I saw she had cotten in her ears as earplugs. There are so many "Rockstar churches" here. They all have drum sets and guitars. It's pretty crazy. We also saw a man who said he was god. That was pretty funny. He asked us what we were doing and we told him, "Oh, we're just out here preaching your words." He responded, "Oh, good. Preach to me." He was veeeeeerrrry drunk. The people here are very interesting. HEY! So my next P-day will be next Wednesday, so don't worry that I don't email on Monday. Sorry.

Love you all!

-Elder Michael Carlson

Sick Day

Only 104736 steps or 62.84 KM last week. I got really sick last week. I felt like I was going to die and my companions said like I looked as if I would. I stayed in one day but I was able to work all the rest of the week. There's not a whole lot to report for this week but I did see two shirts that were hilarious. Some tee-shirts are in english and so the people here have no idea what they say. There was one girl, who was using rollerskates on a dirt road and her shirt said, "I'm ahead of the times". I had a good chuckle about that one. On another, the front said, "I'm making my way around a labrythnic residential area typical of the center". and the back said, "I make my decisions based on the actions and their consequences." Reasonably said, shirt. I am pretty sad that there's no more world cup to look forward to. That was pretty fun. This past week, we did have 4 investigators at church. Two brothers of a member, one friend of a recent convert and a young woman. But we didn't get Everton there, which was sad. We tried his house but no one was home. So that was pretty sad. Overall, this week was alright. Would have been a lot better had I not been sick but we have to take the bad with the good.

Until next week,

-Elder Michael Carlson

World Cup, Finally Done

For all of you who didn't watch the World Cup, you missed out. It was pretty crazy. Germany won over Argentina with a beautiful cross to a goal. Let's see, 106964 steps or 64.17 KM. On Tuesday, Brazil played Germany and got totally smashed, 7-1. And everyone here thinks that I'm a German, so that was fun. Thursday, we had training with the Assistants, which was actually pretty fun. We talked about how sometimes, we get focused on what we do, instead of why we do it. I thought it was quite good because it could also be applied to life. At times, we get trapped in the "what" of life but we need to step back and think of why we do those things and if we actually need to do them. Then we went on exchanges. I went with Elder Williams, an assistant, and Elder Chivers went with Elder Morais, a zone leader. They went looking for new people and we went to talk with some investigators. Mirela told us "Look, I know that your church is right and I don't actually agree with everything in my church but I'm not going to change." I was pretty sad. They found quite a few new people but I haven't really talked to any of them. They're always like, "Oh, sorry, I'm busy, could you stop by another time?" We stopped by one man's house but he was busy, so we marked a new appointment for the next day, then he wasn't there, so we passed by on Sunday to walk with him to church and he told us, "What, do you not have any one else to visit other than me? I don't want you to ever come to my house again. I hate your church. I listen to evangalical music." He went inside and we moved on. This morning, we payed soccer with other missionaries for about 3 hours. It was really fun but now I'm tired and it was raining when we started but then it got really sunny, so I'm a bit burnt now. That's about it from me. I always appreciate the letters you guys send me.

Love and stuff!

-Elder Michael Carlson

Just Another Week of Walking

123413 steps, or 74.04 KM. Let's see, highlights of the week: I hit my 1 year left mark (probably) this past week, that was pretty crazy. I got to watch a Brazil World Cup game on the 4th of July and all the Americans got together and we sang the Star Spangled Banner while holding an American flag. That was really fun and patriotic. Church was really good, depsite having no investigators there. Elder Loaiza is being transferred today. We woke up today at 5:30 to go play soccer (which I didn't want to do that early) and then it turned out that it didn't even happen, so I missed a lot of sleep last night, which is not very fun. My investigators: We're teaching Pamela and Bianca, who believe the church is true, they just don't want to get baptized. We've already taught them everything, so we don't know what to do. We're teaching Cicero and his family but they are VERY Catholic. And they hve some very weird ideas about what happens in a church meeting. They thought we did blood sacrifices there... Which we don't... We are also teaching Robert, he's already been taught everything multiple times but he doesn't want to leave his church. And the last person is Viviane. She's pretty sweet. We've taught the first lesson and she liked it. She has a good friend from a different ward who already gave her a Book of Mormon and already taught her to pray. So that was pretty cool. But, she's a missionary in her church (I think), so we're going to have some difficulty there.

It was a pretty good week over all. There were some hard parts but I think I've pushed through the worst of it.

Love you all!

-Elder Michael Carlson