Good morning!
It's almost noon, and we just got here to do email. I just finished reading all of your emails. Thanks a bunch!
We've been having a pretty good week here. Transfers are coming up at the end of this month (28th) and we had like a mini-meeting with President yesterday. It looks like Elder Rodrigo is going to train his replacement this transfer and then I'll train mine in the next (in the middle of march). I'm kind of excited about this, and then again I'm kind of not excited about it. There are a lot of perks to being in the office that I'm sure I'll miss once I've left them. I'm sure there's tons of stuff that I probably am not even recognizing that I take for granted that I'll notice once I leave. But I've still got quite a bit of time left. It looks like I'll be leaving the office in the middle of April. Nothing is for sure yet, but that seems to be what President's leaning towards at the moment.
Last night I asked Elder Kent to cut my hair, because he said that he used to cut his brother's hair and that he was pretty good at it. Turns out, he's not. He was really nice and wanted to be helpful, so now I feel bad about paying to have someone fix the unfortunate job that he did. His companion Elder McArthur said he'd fix it for me. I'm just not sure who to trust anymore.
From what I can tell, the only cure now is time.
I got letters from both Mom and Amy this week, so thank you guys a bunch! I loved the Dave Barry cut out. I was laughing out loud in my office and Rodrigo thought I was weird.
Last night I did a division with Elder McArthur so that I could go interview his investigator to be baptized. He ended up not being home, and so I didn't interview anyone, but the division was still lots of fun. And while I was in his area working, Elder Rodrigo and Elder Kent found an amazing family in our area that all have dates for the first of February. We're going back to see them tonight. I'm excited to meet them.
This week I finally finished off all the food and goodies that I got from Christmas. I actually still have one box of Annie's left, but I'm saving it for a special occassion (namely, starvation).
Today we're going to play soccer with a bunch of our recent converts (Bahia's two sons, and Vinicius, the son of Andreia, if you guys remember the pictures of their baptisms that i sent) and the Assistents and some of their recent converts and some members. I'm stoked, I think it'll be lots of fun.
I just asked Rodrigo if anything interesting happened this week that I should tell my family, and he looked at me, looked at my hair, laughed and said "if you haven't told them about that yet, I think they should know."
Anyway, I can't really think of anything else that's very interesting that has happened. I'm sending pictures of us with the other missionaries in our ward and our old ward mission leader who just got back from his mission last year, and the other one is with him and his family that loves the missionaries.
Love,
Elder Sisco

On Saturday I did a division with Elder McArthur, one of the assistants from Rexburg, ID. That was a blast, and he had already passed in our area at the beginning of his mission so he knew where stuff was better than I did.
We found a family to teach, and they were very receptive. The lady even said that she had been looking for a church for them to go to. And they live right by the church, so it's perfect. They went with us to church on Sunday, and they both loved it. Even their four year old son loved primary. I went back with Elder Rodrigo on Sunday night with one of the members of the ward and we taught them an awesome first lesson, and invited them to be baptized on the 18th and they were really excited about it. Then we ended and prayed and as we were leaving Elder Rodrigo asked her, "by the way, how long have you guys been married?" And she was like, "we're not married, we're just 'together.'"
So that was unfortunate. We talked to the Bishop and he said that maybe we could work something out, but in Brazil the process of marrying someone is very drawn out. They make it very difficult for some reason. That's one of the reasons why a lot of people aren't married legally.
Last night we went to a family home evening at the Bishop's house. We were supposed to bring investigators but none of ours could go. The other two missionaries in our ward were also supposed to bring investigators but none of theirs could go either. So it ended up being just the Bishop's family and the missionaries playing games at his house. It was really fun, but not very productive as far as missionary work goes. At least we got to know the Bishop a little bit better.
-Elder Sisco

It is a new year!
Last night the fireworks at midnight woke us all up, so we gathered at the giant window at the front of our apartment to watch them all go off. It was cool because since we live so high up we could see the fireworks going off all over the city. Some so far away that they were just little silent explosions in the distance. Very cool.
We passed by President's house last night for cake, because it was Elder Kent's (the new assistant) birthday. We stayed and talked to his two sons and one of their wives for a bit, which was fun.
Our golden investigator and her mom are no longer golden. They stopped keeping the committments, and never even went to church. Tomorrow we're going to go there to get the Book of Mormon and other stuff that we loaned to them back. I'm a little sad, but have some other really good prospects.
The other day we were at a lady's house in the middle of a lesson when the doorbell rang. She went to see who it was, and when she opened it it was this homeless guy, and he said "Pedro died." And she said, "excuse me?" and he repeated, "Pedro died. Is Junior here?" (Junior is her husband) She said he was sleeping and that he couldn't attend the homeless man.
We decided we'd better find out what happened to Pedro, so we went out and walked down the steps of her apartment to the street with her and her son and the homeless guy, and sure enough, there lying on the sidewalk was Pedro, with three other homeless guys just sitting there next to his body looking around. Elder Rodrigo went over to see if he had a pulse, and he didn't. Then he called 192 (9-1-1) and within minutes an ambulance showed up.
A bunch of EMTs jumped out and started trying things to revive him, but the guys who were sitting down on the sidewalk said he had been dead for more than half an hour, so they didn't make much progress. Apparently Pedro drank so much that day that he just laid down and died afterwards. It was sad.
The other day we went over to a member's house and painted her living room. The walls were all peeling paint and stuff, so we were like "this needs to be scraped and sanded and stuff" but she just wanted us to slap the paint over it. So that's what we did. It didn't turn out that bad, but I imagine she'll be needing us to do it again pretty soon.
'Til next week,
Elder Sisco

Merry Christmas!

On Friday we got on the bus to go work in our area and there just seemed to be a lot of confusion. There was a lot of yelling and I just couldn't figure out what was going on. Then we got closer to the middle of the bus and saw that there was a very old man with a bible in his hand "preaching" to the crowded bus. He was actually just sort of yelling about how no one could stop him from preaching the gospel. Not his mom, not his son-in-law who is a sargeant in the army, not anyone on the bus, not the police, not even the Devil. I thought it was interesting that he did more yelling about how no one could stop him from preaching than he did actually preaching.
There was this heavy black woman who got up and started making fun of him and yelling "hallelujah!" and "praise Jesus!" and so he turned around and they started arguing. She said some things about his mom, I think, so he called her a fat cow. "Not even this fat cow can stop me from preaching the gospel!"
It was some good entertainment that we don't normally have the opportunity to watch on the daily trip to our area.
We had to pass right through the middle of it though to get to the back of the bus, and I was afraid he was going to drag us into it. Luckily I don't think he knew who we were.
On Sunday night we went to the First Presidency's Christmas Devotional at the stake center. We were standing out in front waiting for some people with an older woman who is a member of a different ward when this guy got off of the bus like a block away from the chapel. He was yelling and banging on all of the street signs as we walked down the road towards us. We didn't pay much attention to him until he started yelling louder and running towards us. The three of us turned around and ran towards the chapel entrance. We got in and slammed the door shut with him right behind us. When we closed the door he turned around and ran out and disappeared down the road. Some of the older priesthood holders got in their cars and went looking for him, but no one found him. It was weird.
Last week was our mission Christmas Party. We just played soccer all day, ate, and watched Dreamer which was actually a really good movie. Maybe I've just been so removed from media that anything is good to me now. But no, I think it really was good.
The lady that we helped last week didn't go to church again this week. We're having doubts about her; she's not committing to much. And it's difficult because we haven't been able to work in our area lately because of transfers. But we still have a lot of hope for her. Keep those prayers a-comin'.
Love,
Elder Sisco

On Sunday night at 8:00 we were getting ready to get the bus to go home, but we both still had a few contacts to do with people so we kind of just hung around on this corner waiting for people to pass. After 10 minutes of standing there, and only two people had passed, I looked at Elder Rodrigo and said, "why don't we just start walking that way and do our contacts on the way to the bus stop?" So we started walking that way.
We got to the top of a hill, and there was a taxi parked on the side of the road, and the guy was unloading a bunch of heavy things. We went over and asked if they needed help carrying anything, and this lady looked at us and said, "It was God that sent you." She and her 82 year old mother were standing there about to go look for someone to help carry a bunch of items for remodeling their house (like, a new toilet and sink) up to their third floor apartment.
We picked up as much as we could and started walking up the stairs to her apartment, and as we walked we explained who we are and mentioned some things about the church. Before we had reached the door, she was already crying and saying how she had been praying to God for guidance these last days.
So we went in and taught them the first lesson, and it was amazing. And the Spirit was very, very strong, and everyone cried again. And they accepted a baptismal date for the 21st of December. It's all very exciting.
Last friday, the assistents and us and President and Sister Frei all went out to lunch and to go bowling for Elder Hill's last PDay. In the first game I was in last place for the first four frames, and then started slowly coming back until the 10th frame when I was neck and neck with Elder Hill. I don't remember the numbers, but he pulled ahead of me in the last frame, and on my first bowl I knocked down seven pins.
At this point I was down by two and needed to nail all three to secure the game (see diagram).
I bowled to the left side, knocked down both pins on the left, and in sequence, knocked down the third pin on the right and was champion, ending up having bowled a 145, my best score ever, beating Elder Hill's 144.
It goes down as one of the greatest moments in sporting history.
President Frei said that he was impressed with my bowling skills.
In the second game I got creamed; but no one remembers the second game anyway.
This is the week that we are getting everything ready for transfers next week, so it's been pretty busy. But to make things easier for me, my computer crashed yesterday and I lost everything. We had to have a guy come spend all day fixing it and reinstalling windows and stuff. It was horrible. But now it's back and we're good to go.
Welp, that seems to be all for this week.
'Til next week,
Elder Sisco

Hello!
We had a baptism on Sunday. On Wednesday (before) they got a little unsure and unstable about it and so we invited them to fast with us about being baptized. Andrei (the mom) fasted with us for 24 hours and she said it was a marvelous experience and that she knew that she needed to be baptized on Sunday. And of course, with her lead, the two kids got baptized as well. It was really a testimony to me of the power of the fast. Other than them, at the moment, our area's not too hot. We've got a couple of good investigators but no one really firm.
At the baptism the second counselor of the bishopric conducted the meeting, all in all it was a great meeting and everyone loved it. It had the largest attendance of any of the baptisms this year.
This month the mission baptized 139 which is one away from tieing the record, and two from breaking it. President Frei is really pushing for us to have a "Miraculous Christmas" and so far we have been having one.
At a members house on Saturday, we ate cow tail. Not the delicious caramel candy, but the actual meat and bones from the cow's tail. The bones look like vertebrae (which I guess it actually is, isn't it?) and there's so little meat on it, it was difficult. What little meat I did eat was delicious, but definitely not worth the work to get at it. This was the same place that I ate at and then threw up everything after I got home. Luckily that didn't happen this time.
I guess that's all the news I've got for this week. Thanks for all the emails, I love you all.
-Elder Sisco

All is well here in the mission. On Saturday I made one year. Or maybe it was Friday. I'm really not sure. But regardless of the date, I now am a one year old missionary, which is awesome.

Last week we went to visit the wife of one of the members in our ward, who is not a member. She really likes the missionaries though, and she prepared a dinner for us. It was kind of like a Brazilian Chicken Noodle Soup, with lots of meat and other stuff in it. It was delicious.
When it started to get late, Adam (the member) said he would drive us home to our apartment. Midway through the car ride home, my stomach started complaining about some foreign intruders. They were having trouble working out their differences and by the time we got home war had been declared.
We got into the elevator and climbed the 18 floors to our apartment. By the time I finally entered the apartment, I knew what had to be done, but I danced a reluctant dance, doing everything within my power to avoid the inevitable.
Finally, I submitted myself to this horrible fate and released everything that I had just consumed to be free. Not yet satisfied, I discharged my lunch as well. Moments later, feeling alone and left out, my breakfast made a last minute daring escape.
For the first time in many years, I threw up.
You can imagine my concern when, three days later, they invited us back for dinner.

On Saturday night we had a Dessert Festival at our ward and Elder Rodrigo and I made Lemon Squares from a recipe that I got from Sister Frei. I couldn't find any powdered sugar at the supermarket, and we put in too much lemon. There were a lot left over at the end of the night, and we didn't even place in the competition.
The good news though is that the family we're teaching went and loved it. They're progressing well towards their baptism this Sunday.
There was actually an attendance of 85 people, 23 of whom were investigators, so that was excellent. It was a good activity.

'Til next week,
Elder Sisco