It took a long time for us to get to the internet place; we had a zone p-day today that lasted 'til 3 and then we had to bring one of our investigators to the church for a baptismal interview during our p-day time, so I'm actually over time right now since it's past 6 but apparently it's okay because we used p-day time to do work. The guy we picked up and brought to the church for the interview is Alexandre. He's 20 years old, has approximately 8 earrings/1 eyebrow piercing, multiple tattoos and a light Clayton-esque beard. Everyone who sees him assumes he's either a pothead, womanizer or alcoholic, etc. But he's actually this way shy guy who doesn't like any of that stuff. Carnaval was this past week and we were pretty nervous about it, but he barely left his house. When we picked him up, he had shaved his beard (we didn't say anything about it) and when he came out of the interview with our Zone Leader all the piercings were gone (we hadn't mentioned them yet either). Incredible. He's getting baptized on Saturday and confirmed on Sunday. Yes! I don't think I'll be the one to baptize him, but we'll see.
Speaking of Carnaval, it actually wasn't bad here in Sete Lagoas. We're far enough inland and our apartment is kind of out of the way of the main drag that we didn't have any problem, really. I contacted a lot more drunk people this past week, but that was the only real difference. That and every morning after was absolutely dead. No one in the streets, everything closed. I've heard that missionaries serving in Rio and places closer to the ocean like that have to stay in their apartments for the whole week of Carnaval because it gets so crazy there- glad that's not me. I ran into one guy the other night who was so shocked and horrified that we didn't engage in promiscuous acts of random sexuality before marriage that he got up in my face and was grabbing my arm and telling me to "leave this life" or, in other words, "join the dark side," if you will. Also he so cleverly insisted that you have to "know the other side before you can shun it." We said the same applies to him. Then he invited us to his house later to "have some fun." Really sweet guy. I don't think he's interested in the church, though.
We only have 1 investigator that I personally contacted and invited to church and everything- Xisleine. Also, I still can't understand a word she says. We're trying to get her to stop smoking, and she's very receptive when we're actually there but we hear from inside sources that she lied to us and is really barely making an effort. Sad. We'll talk to her tomorrow I hope.
I've been doing a ton of divisions lately, and with Brazilians which is awesome because I learn so much more Portuguese that way. I went out with our Zone Leader last week Elder Vitório and it was amazing. He only has a month left, I can only hope to be as good as he is when I reach that point. There was a point where we were just walking around doing contacts until an appointment we had, and he did a contact with this girl who wasn't interested, asked for a referral, got nothing but "yeah, Maria, down the street" (everyone in Brazil is named Maria, by the way) and 20 minutes later we had met Maria, taught her some of the first lesson and she had accepted a baptismal date. Unfortunately, it wasn't my area so I don't get to see the progression of things. Only glimpses.
At our zone p-day today we got to watch Charly (in English) and then Narnia (in Portuguese). I had never seen Charly before- and I don't plan on ever seeing it again. Narnia, though, was amazing, as always. Love it. And being on a mission and watching it was also a neat experience- my understanding of the symbolism is deeper.
On Sundy I had fechuada for the first time in the field. For those of you unfamiliar with fechuada, it's beans and rice, of course, but with the beans is mixed in... basically whatever is handy. Just, anything. This one happened to be pig meat. But they waste no part. Some of the pieces that I got still had stubbly pig hairs on them. I'm told that this was mild; tolerable even, and that it gets pretty bad in some places. Another characteristic of fechuada is that it literally smells like poop. This one not so much, but it didn't smell great.
As far as the laundry situation goes, for one thing it's so humid here (did I mention that since I got here we haven't passed one day without rain?) that clothing hung out to dry literally never dries. I've been ironing things and/or hanging them behind the refrigerator the night before. Every night when I climb into bed, my sheets feel damp. It's gross and uncomfortable. Anyway, we have this machine that does basically what a washer does- you put your clothes in, it fills up with water (or rather, you fill it up with water from the hose connected to the sink), you dump some laundry soap in and it just starts chugging and gurgling. Then you just pull the stopper out, it drains, and you hang up your clothes. And then you put on your clothes and they smell worse then they did when you put them in. I haven't figured that one out yet, but we're buying different soap today to see if that helps.
On Monday I did a division with Elder dos Santos, an elder in our district, and he came to my area and my trainer went with his companion. This was my first time being alone. We had one appointment, and I thought I knew where it was. What I actually knew was what it looks like when you get there, not how to get there. We spent about an hour and a half walking around, asking directions, and doing contacts with the people we were asking directions from which isn't so bad except that the whole time we were looking for this womans house it was raining harder than I've ever seen, and it seemed endless. You couldn't see the streets because they were no longer streets, but rivers. I was walking on sidewalks through water that was halfway up to my knees. (My $35 Maine Sport umbrella broke, the fabric tore off of one of the spokes or whatever they're called. It's still functioning but that was just an unfortunate side-affect of the rain). We finally made it to the woman's house after traversing many waters, and she hadn't read or done anything that Elder Wilson and I talked to her about the day before. Awesome. So we read what we had asked her to read with her and then talked about prophets, Joseph Smith, the restoration, etc. and so that was nice...
That's all.
I love you all, thanks for your letters/emails I enjoyed them all! Thank you.
Love,
Elder Sisco
PS Note to the Hutchins from Amy: Dan said thanks a bunch for the email and just wanted to let you know that he can only email family, thus the reason he hasn't written back yet. But he can receive emails from anyone, so just use the email address on the right and send him a note!