Tuesday, October 2, 2012

October 1st letter

Oi familinha! [Hi little family!]

Dad, I've never heard anyone use 'saudações' [greetings] here in Brasil. Unfortunately, I can't tell you what to use instead because people don't commonly say anything that would mean 'greetings' - in letters they just put just say hi or dear so-and-so or nothing at all. It's kind of interesting how commonly used phrases in English aren't used in Portuguese, not because there's no way to translate, but because the people just don't say it. For example, the verb 'rir' means to laugh, but I haven't heard anyone use the word rir or any conjugation of it. Rather, people use 'rindo' which means laughing or 'risada' which means laughter. I'm learning that the trick with learning a language is learning to think in the language, which helps you speak faster, and removes the barrier that the old language places on you (meaning, the fact that a phrase is strange or hardly makes sense in English doesn't impede you from saying it in Portuguese). So yeah, you putting Saudações in the subject made me think of this interesting thing I learned.

Yeah, I got super excited when I saw that Tanner Nelson is coming to Campinas for his mission!!! Nossa! Não acredito!! Legal demais!!!! [Whoa! I don't believe it! That's so cool!] I was thinking another youth from the ward would be going to Campinas sometime, but not this soon!! That would be awesome to train him and have someone I know from home here on the mission!!

Thank you for the comments on spiritual curtains, gostei [I liked it]. I think almost every time I pray I ask for the Holy Spirit to be with us, but really what's more important is that we open our curtains to receive more spiritual light from Him. Sometimes I pay less attention than I should during talks in Sunday or during discussions even! It's something I need to work on.

About flour, I heard from someone that the flour here is lighter, less dense than that from the US. The flour we use is called Farinha de Trigo, or literally Flour of Wheat. I've made pancakes a few times and I've had to add more flour than what is called for in the American recipe sometimes to get the batter right, so I think if I just measure the flour without worrying about not letting it pack up it will turn out good.

Fortunately we'll have general conference meetings streamed to our chapel, which means we can watch all five sessions! The priesthood one is at 9-11pm so that will be pretty fun staying up late.

Baptism of M
So, Saturday a week ago Elder Hill and I leave our house and decide we are lazy and don't want to walk up the giant hill upon which live a bunch of our investigators. So we go to this favorite point of ours and try to hitch a ride (in Brasil, you don't stick your thumb up straight in the air like you do in the States - you kinda point it aside in the direction you want to go and maybe give a friendly wave with the other hand). After many cars passed by, one finally stopped and we got in. There we met R, who is a member but became inactive 3 years ago, the guy she lives with, G (they will get married - they are just waiting on his divorce papers from his last marriage), and her daughter M. It just so happened that when R was baptized with her other two children, M wasn't old enough yet, and because they became inactive she was never baptized. It also just so happened that M is 9 years old! So we passed by their house, taught them and now they are returning to church. G is really excited, and M was baptized yesterday! That really helped my testimony that God is able to put people in our path that are waiting for us.

Okay, acabei. Até a próxima semana! Obrigado pelo amor e apoio. [Okay, I'm done. Until next week! Thanks for the love and support.]
Elder Bradford




Last P-day we went over to some waterfalls (Cachoeira da Pavuna -
Waterfall of Pavuna) in between Botucatu and São Manuel.
It was a tough hike but the waterfalls were really cool!
We helped a little with a baptism 2 weeks ago of V, an 8-year old boy.
Presidente Gabriel (our branch president) baptized him. Yeah it was cool.
This picture includes our zone and two others when an Area Seventy (Elder Mazzagardi) came and talked to us two weeks ago
[AJ is in the 2nd row, 8th from the left]