Hello, I'm thrilled that everything is well. It was fun to see the pictures that Amy sent of... Samuel? From what I understand, this is pretty much final? Samuel Henry? If you really loved him, you'd name him Sten, but I guess it's too late for that. Sam is good too.
I might turn senior here this next transfer. If not the next one, the one after that. There are a ton of elders leaving and very few greenies coming in the next 2 transfers so there are going to be a lot of changes in leadership and a lot of people are going to be bumped up a lot earlier than they expected. I'm a little concerned about that.
Unfortunately, I don't walk with my camera anymore because I don't want to get robbed. In sete Lagoas I didn't really worry about it, but here it's a bit of a different story. It's a real, live city, with real, live ghettos and criminals. So yeah, you understand. But next week I'll try to remember to send pictures. Speaking of "home" I live in the best apartment in the mission. We live on the 18th floor of this sweet apartment building (so that means no cockroaches and no mice or rats). Also, it's the only house in the mission that has a real washing machine instead of the box thing that just churns water. Laundry here is so easy... Food in the city is a little bit more expensive; actually, everything is more expensive. Buses are R$2.10 instead of R$1.60 which stinks. But it's cool to be here; I've never lived in a real city-city before, so I'm enjoying it for now. I imagine it will get old soon.Yesterday we ate at Subway in the food court of this mall in the middle of the city. I walked into the mall after 5 months (by the way, I turned 5 months in the mission yesterday) of being cast out of civilization- it was like the twighlight zone. And then Subway! I can't believe it exists here. It was soooo gooood. President and Sister Frei also happened to be eating lunch there.The new area is interesting. When I was in Sete Lagoas everyone told me how blessed I was to have started my mission there because of how flat it is. I wasn't too phased. Then I got to Belo Horizonte. It's unbelievable. I'm so tired. There is no flat part in any part of this city; you're either going up or down. Some of these hills are just... sinister. I'm surprised that cars are able to make it up them. I can literally be walking and reach out my hand to touch the ground without bending over.When we leave the house, we walk 5 minutes to the bus stop, and then wait for the bus, and then it's about a 20 minute bus ride to get to our area, and then we walk to wherever our first appointment is from there. The neighborhood where we're working right now is mostly ghetto. It's called "Hill of the Rocks" in Portuguese. Fun place.The other night we were walking to the bus stop and I saw these two girls just beating each other, and there was a crowd of people standing around just watching them. We didn't stick around to see who won. We have some prospective baptisms though; the work is going well, especially since we're just opening up this area. I'm afraid that when Elder Alfaro leaves, I'm gonna be way lost. Since he's going home at the end of this transfer, there's a pretty good chance that I'll stay. It's not 100% sure that our area is going to stay open for more than this transfer. We'll see how it goes. The Center of the city is easy to navigate because it's just a big grid, but when you get out of the center and into places where people just started building houses on top of houses without thinking and just putting roads wherever, the map looks like a plate of spaghetti. There's not even room to put the names of the streets. Yep, so I'm loving it.
Much Love,
Elder Sisco

I have been transfered! I am now writing to you from my new area, Belo Horizonte Oeste. It's sweet. My companion Elder Alfaro and I are opening this area. Since we're opening the area, we don't have a house, so I'll be living in an apartment with the Assisstants and the Office Elders (six of us all together) and so that's going to be way cool. My ward is the same ward that President Frei attends. I'm a little concerned about that but hopefully it'll be fine. I'll get to know him better and that'll be neat.
Elder Alfaro is going home at the end of this transfer, but he promises that he's not "trunky" (remember, a person who only thinks about home and doesn't work?). I hope not. I imagine it may be difficult having a comp who's going home, but we'll see. Shouldn't be too bad. Plus, he's an awesome missionary and everyone loves him. He worked in the office for a year and month.
Yep, so that is the great news. I'm here in the city, at the heart of the mission; I feel good.
And living with the assistants will be way cool.
I heard that you guys (mom and pop) got called to serve in the temple! That's amazing! What a blessing it will be for you to be serving in the Lord's house. Think about how few people have this opportunity. There are only 120 temples in the world. Of 13,000,000 members how many of them get to be temple workers?? Very few. The people here, like I've said before, make HUGE sacrifices to go the temple. I'm so glad that you guys are going to be able to take advantage of this marvelous opportunity to serve.
I caught a nasty cold yesterday and am still feeling it today. Yesterday walking in the street, even in peoples houses, snot just kept coming and coming out of my nose like it was water. I could barely keep my eyes open. It was rather miserable. I carried in my backpack and used an entire roll of toilet paper yesterday, just blowing my nose. My body aches, my head hurts and my throat is sore (slept with the fan on; not intelligent). But I bought some drugs and am at least able to keep the snot inside my face rather than on.
I got 2 letters from mom and one from Amy today at the transfer meeting. Also, one from Jason which was neat. He's doing really well.
I have to run, unfortunately, I spent too much time reading your letters- next week I will respond to all the questions; sorry but my time is running out and I have no more money.
Much love,
Elder Sisco

As per your question, my favorite scripture is John 21:15. Speaking of scriptures, someone showed me this scripture in the Book of Mormon- Alma 43:19. I love to picture Mormon there carving away at the gold plates, and he looks back at what he's written and just sighs... "aw, man..." Too bad there's no backspace on gold plates.
It took me 20 minutes to remember the word "inconvenience" today. I heard that the apostles get very upset with missionaries who come back from foreign lands having forgotten their native tongue. I do not want to be one of those people, but it's difficult living in a house with 3 Brazilians. All I have is James E Talmage. And I don't talk back to him.
i'm excited about the baby. Yep. So just 7 more days, eh? I'm excited.
This Sunday I gave my first talk in a Brazilian church. I talked about Temples and Eternal Families, because there's going to be a caravan going to the temple in São Paulo this Wednesday-Saturday (did you know all the temples in Brazil have hotel-type things on the grounds because there are only 6 temples [4 dedicated as of April] and so people have to travel such long distances to go there it's a few days worth of travel).
Today was our Zone P-Day and so the whole zone was here (26 people. Biggest zone in the mission. I love Sete Lagoas.). We had a Soccer Tournament- Every district was a team. My district got destroyed. But later, our team was reformed and I ended up going to the championship... but then we lost, 3-0. Disappointing. But people said I was the best American- not that that's saying much, but I'll take what I can get. I owe it to all my gym class days in Paraguay. And probably some to Pop's days of coaching when I was like, 9.
After that, we went to a Churrasco (if you'll remember, that would be Asado in Spanish, or... Barbecue in English, only not really, way better). They have every kind of meat you could ever imagine, and it's all cooked amazingly and it's that kind of melt-in-your-mouth meat. So good. All you can eat, and it was only like, $6.
Conference was awesome. I only saw the last talk on Saturday morning, and half of Saturday night. And then Sunday morning (because of the time difference), Priesthood was in Portuguese (they didn't have a special English room like all the other sessions). I understood, but not well enough to keep my attention. Both Sunday sessions, though: Awesome. I missed Jeffery R. Holland's talk. I walked in during his testimony. The other elders said it was the talk of the century. I guess I'll have to wait for the Ensign. Everything was good though. It's fun to feel that great confirming spirit there. There's no way you can go to general conference and not know that these men are truly inspired of God. That they stand as witnesses to the world that Jesus is the Christ and he stands at the head of the church. Even in Portuguese, the Spirit is super strong.
Yesterday I was walking down the street and this guy passed by me with a small tin can in his hand and offered me cocaine. I declined, but extended an invitation to hear our message in his house. He declined.
I can't think of anything else that's interesting. Next week I'll probably send photos.
Love you all. I'm praying for you, of course. Thanks for your prayers- keep 'em coming.
-Elder Sisco

This week we had a baptism. It was good. I don't remember if I told you about her a few weeks ago, but when I was with Wilson, we were teaching her and everything was going great until one day she decided that our equilibrium was off and she didn't want to see us anymore. But, the day we had interviews with President Frei she happened to stop in at the church and talk to him, and then she talked to one of the elders that was there, and said that we could go talk to her again. And when we showed up at her house she was like "I decided I want to get baptized." I feel like I've already told you all this. Anyway, she got baptized, and I'm pretty sure she's gonna stay way firm in the church.
I've had to listen to the same piece of crap EFY CD every day for the past 3 weeks. It's ridiculous. I hate trashy church produced pop music. We shouldn't even be allowed to listen to it. It's about as spiritually enriching as Lucky Charms is nourishing to the body. My favorite song is the classic "I Almost Sold My Birthright for a Mess of Pottage." Timeless.
I'm super excited for conference this weekend. From what I hear, Sete Lagoas is President Frei's favorite area in the mission. He opened the city when he was on his mission, so that might have something to do with it. And so he usually comes up here for conference, and when he comes they set up a special room for the American missionaries and him to watch conference in English. I've got my fingers crossed. Conference won't be nearly as spiritual if I only understand like, 2/3 of the things that they say; and I imagine I'd probably get caught up on the fact that what they're saying with their lips isn't what's coming out of the speakers.
My Portuguese is way better though. A lot of the Elders compliment me, which is good because they're the ones who know. I still get a lot of "I don't even know what you're trying to say" in lessons and in the street and such but in general it's way better.
Well, that's all I've got.
Much love,
Elder Sisco