August 8, 2011

OK so this week was crazy! Elder Richins and I were in Rio staying with the secretaries from Sunday night until Wednesday night. So crazy. So Monday morning when we got to the Policia Federal at 5am, we waited for 3 hours for them to open the door and start. When they opened the door, the guy came out and explained that as of that day they no longer accepted the old applications and that everyone needed to have new ones from the internet printed out and have appointments scheduled. So we went to the LAN house there at the airport and found out the next available time was Wednesday morning. So we stayed until then. Did a lot of cool things. Rio is really cool. We went to this giant outdoor vendor place. Rose the subway there, that was cool. Then later Monday night went to a family night out in one of the favelas. That was cool. The next day we had lunch at a member's house out in Copacabana. Found out that the telephone booths there are horrible. Plastered with pornographic ads for hookers. Really really horrible. Anyways, I got to see my first companion Elder Sanchez for a few days! That was cool. We had fun hanging out again. I should have taken pictures with him but I didn't. Transfers are coming up soon. I'm kind of wondering what is going to happen with me. Who my new companion will be, if I will stay in Cabo Frio or if I'll get moved. I don't know. But I do know that wherever I go and whoever I'm put with I'll learn a lot and it will be a good experience. So, I'm excited. Hey I really want to have some of the kids start skyping with some members here that want to better learn English. And they in turn could teach Portuguese. That would be cool. Let me know about that. Going out to Buzios again for P-day today. Our zone leaders are going home next week so we're hangin out with them. They are pretty cool. Oh forgot to say the office is not way inland, it's really not that far from the beach, and Copacabana is rally close to the beach. It's awesome. The home schooling thing sounds like a good thing. You can never get enough scripture study. They really need it. It really helped me as a kid. I learned a lot from the scriptures and had a pretty good understanding of the things taught in them at a young age. And if they do the same thing they will greatly benefit from it. Anyways, got to go lots to do today. I will send some more pictures soon. Hopefully, computer and internet are slow. Lol. Love you all, and miss you. Elder Bender