28 July 2014 - No Gas

Dear mom,

I´ll read that counter and send you one next week! haha

Yeah so I live with 3 others. Two Brazilians and an Elder from Uruguay. His name is Elder Claro and he´s way funny! He´s being trained right now so he only knows a bit of Portuguese so I have a bit of trouble understanding him and his accent. But, he´s the only one who´s said "Padilla" correctly. We don´t have gas so we pretty much eat Lamen, which is pretty much Ramen. So we have a baby version of a George Foreman grill that we use for toast and other things and we have the micro-ondas for the noodles. We have a washer in each house and then we just hang the clothes on lines that are hung across the rooms on the hooks on the walls used also for hammocks. 

hahaha..Kirk. he´s funny.Man! I can´t believe everybody´s leaving! It seems just yesterday our hearts were broken because we were leaving the Manassas 1st ward and now we´re all grown up.( that was an attempt to bring tears). haha man and Luke is wakeboarding! Tell him to do the "Gary Harris Back-spin" hahaha. I´m going to guess josh is going to...."Boise, Idaho!" haha

Just kidding. I think to Brasil for foreign and Texas for domestic.

Yeah so this week was pretty different. We had a baptism! However, we found out that she almost killed herself while we were teaching her. not like during the lesson, but after we started with her. She said Satan was tempting her to stick a knife in her heart, but then she threw it away at the last second. The next day we came back, Friday, she didn´t want anything to do with the church, but I talked to her and said that the only way to live with God is to be baptized. She agreed that that is what she needed to do, so I had the Privilege of baptizing her yesterday.

Then yesterday after the baptism, we had a "fight" with her brother because he´s very catholic and she´s living in his house and didn´t know where she was for the duration of church and baptism. He yelled at us not to come back and that Catholicism is much better than we could ever be. He yelled that Catholics are better and we believe in things I won´t mention. I became really discouraged to hear this, so after correcting his information on who we are a bit, we left feeling truly spiritually sad for him. I´m not sure what to do about this one.

Hope all is well,

Love,

Elder Padilla

If you look in one of the pics you´ll see my planner is made with the box of my favorite candy! MIKE AND IKES! along with jelly beans ..of course

21 July 2014 Sr Comp Woes

Dear mom,

Yeah it´s weird being the senior comp. It´s not a whole ton different, just that you get the blame for things and you can feel the work load on your shoulders, but that just reminds me of Elder Bednar´s last talk in general conference. bytheway, Brother Corbett is in the Liahona. There´s a rather large picture of him, you can´t miss it. It´s the last general conf. Got a bunch of wild hooligan teenagers, eh? hahaha...and of course I was never like that. :)

But yeah.. my comp is dedicated to the work. Man! Kirk went to the temple! that´s way cool! Yeah, there´s not really too many things that have happened except that I forgot to tell you guys I got assaulted, but I didn´t realize it at the time. a rather small man got off his small motorcycle and asked for our cell phone...having accidentally lost the cell phone we didn´t have anything. The small man grabbed, which we could clearly see, his belt under his shirt. He asked the member who was with us and he gave up his cell phone. The tiny man looked at the phone, still holding securely his "gun", said it was garbage, and gave it back. The little man left on his little motor. The End.

But that´s good they´ll have that "just in case" defense! We had an old man enter the gates of the church because the church has a bit of trees and his grandchild dropped the tuner to the TV out the window. We walk him to the small wood and we wait while he goes to grab it. after 10-15 minutes we go to get him and he´s cutting down trees! we tell him," sir you can´t do that!" and he said," what?" and just continuing. he had a huge machete! where did he get the huge machete? Crazy man left and we had church.

Oh, but I definitely found a scripture reference against what you´ve taught me. Matthew 15:18-20...it has to do with washing hands before eating. :D..hahaha

Love you all,

Elder Padilla

Dat tan/burn line. :)

just eating some coco. é melhor com leite condensado!

14 July 2014 New area and Sr. Comp.

Dear Mom,

Wow! that´s crazy! So much priesthood everywhere! I miss Caleb. Hahaha...Josh has to get his "wis"-teeth because after that he´ll just be "dom"! hahaha just kidding! Man. There´s been a lot of changes already. I can´t wait to see what it´ll be like in a year. Yeah I think I only got one dirty look since they lost, but I heard that the game between them and Germany was bought so that Nike, Adidas, and Puma could establish more places in Germany. but,...yeah..

Yeah so I got some news as well...some good and bad and good I think. So good news is I left my first area! I´m now in Montenegro! I got here today! It´s actually pretty nice from what I´ve seen already. The bad news...I may have lost all my photos from the first 6 months of my mission. We got them back in a recovery program, but I can´t view them so maybe we´ll have to work on that when I get back...:/ ....and the other good news is I went Senior. I´m the senior companion now. It´s great, so far. I already met my comp. one time and he has just a transfer less than me so we´ll be great! I´m a little sad that I didn´t get to say goodbye to the people in my first area. I actually went to tell them all and they were all gone doing stuff. So, yeah...

But, now I´m with 3 Brazilians instead of 3 Americans...hahaha..time to work on that Portuguese again...hahaha

I´m going to miss all the people I met in Alto Da Mangueira. I have great friends there and i´ll never forget how I contributed to making it a people closer with God.

Love, 

Elder Padilla

8 July 2014 New P-Day

So this week they decided to take our P-day and turn it into a normal day because of all the days we have off...we have a bit of time to do things in the morning today, but that´s about it. 

Anyways, I´m suuuuppper jealous that Marc, Eliza and Caleb are there right now! I can´t even imagine how everyone will be when I get back! Luke will probably be speaking in some odd deep voice...hahaha

Yeah so all the Brasileiros got mad when Germany won and the Netherlands too because they know they´re good! My companion refuses to admit it, but yeah I can see how he worries..haha

We had a nice relaxing 4th of July in the house! We got some pizza and celebrated the game along with our independence day! We had to go to the hospital again and it looks like my comp is gonna have to go through some physical therapies. He literally has little to no cartilage between his bones at his knee so everytime he steps the bones grind and he feels it. 

So that´s not too great for him. He´s a little worried he´ll go home, but we´ll see what happens.

This week we had a baptism and he´s awesome! we´ve been working with him since I got here and I´m super happy he was baptized.    We also had another baptism a while ago and I forgot to send you his pic. he´s seriously amazing! He goes out with us everyday and knows a ton of people so we get lots of good references! He like to joke a lot so that keeps our live exciting, but he´s gonna serve a mission in a year when he has a year of membership!! super psyched!!

This week was good. We had an investigator who had a dream as an answer and doesn´t have any doubts about the church. I´ll ask first if I can tell you guys and next week I may send it. The dream literally blew my mind.

all is good here!

Love you all,

Elder Padilla

1 July 2014

Dear mom,

That sounds hilarious! Yeah I bet you were going the speed limit like a brand-new driver..haha Man, it sounds like both camps were great this year! That´s hilarious what kirk was doing! Man I miss you guys! I´m totally jealous that you´ll see Marc, Eliza, and Caleb for a bit! Caleb will probably be huge when I get back! By the way, how much more time does Jessie have until they have a brand-new baby?  Yeah the chile/brasil game was way intense...there was cheering, silence , cheering like with fireworks and then when they won it was like we were in the middle of a war! Yeah we don´t have a whole lot of days off other than that, but they have a ton of weird holidays like São João. pretty much they just shut all the stores and go do catholic stuff...we actually had a catholic mob going on without the angry part. all the Catholics just had a parade down the middle of the street...But their valentines days actually the 12th of junho.  The weather never changes, but on the bright side it gets colder at night! :) not much colder, but just enough where i have to used half of my sheets to cover myself. We had a conference this week too! that was cool! But I didn´t email yesterday because we had another conference and then we went to the hospital in fortaleza for my companion. He´s having problems with his knee. I wish I had brought my camera because he had to wear a bunch of silly clothes and then got an electron something something xray...pretty much they put him in a room on a table with a big circle around him, shut the door, and the machine made a lot of weird noises...not sure if it just made noises or actually did something, but they are the doctors...so...anyways we didn´t have time to email because we got back a little latter than usual...maybe. just maybe we got back close to midnight because of the wait...geez i hate when doctors do that...they probably are just drinking coffee in the back anyways.   

I can´t wait to see the next 6 months! Love you all,

Elder Padilla