I´m not dead!

P-day was moved to wednesday this week. Elder Tobias of the 7th quorum of the Seventy came to my ward on Sunday for a ward conference (the second time he spoke in the ward I was serving in). Then on Monday we had a short little conference with him, that´s why I didn´t write on Monday. 

Things are going really great here in the area. On Friday we have the wedding of Reginaldo and Maria. They will be baptized on Saturday night. It´s finally happening. We also had a bunch of great investigators at church for the conference. 13 in total! It was so wonderful. We are teaching another family that needs to get married. They are really cool. We helped them move to a new house because their last house was in such horrible shape. They were afraid of their kids getting sick from the rats that were infesting the property. Their landlord didn´t take very good care of the place. They are still a bit hesitant to officially get married despite having two daughters and living together for eleven years already. I think it´s more of a financial issue though. It´s such a  joy to be teaching whole families.

We basically only teach people from the Nordeste (northeast) of the country. They all come to the state of São Paulo to work and save up money. Working conditions are much better here. There is a lady in the ward from Bahia. She was telling us that where she lived she would work hard for a full month just to earn 40 reais (about 25 dollars). Here in São Paulo minimum wage is about 800 reais per month (equivalent of about 500 dollars. It´s such a  big difference. All the people from the Nordeste are so simple and humble. It´s so much easier to teach them than people naturally from São Paulo. It´s so much fun to be teaching them and how happy they are to hear the message. I can´t believe I have less than five months until I come home. Can you believe that I hit the 1 year 7 month mark on Sunday? It´s too soon!

Elder Bean´s birthday was on Monday. We were excited to be able to celebrate his birthday on a P-Day, but lo and behold it was cancelled. But we will celebrate today with the Betty Crocker brownie mixes his family sent him. I might be more excited for it than he is.  I´m loving the work with Elder Bean. He is such a fun guy. Its a big stress relive to have an experienced companion.

Í´m about to have a heat stroke. We have been having 100 degree weather about every day. And we are in a stifling hot lanhouse right now. I can´t wait for the cool season. It actually does get surprisingly chilly  in Brazil in the months of May-August. I can´t wait!

I love you all and shortly I will already be writing again. This P-Day in the middle of the week has really thrown off my weekly routine. 

Até Segunda-Feira!
Elder McLelland