Merry Christmas from Brazil

Pics: Christmas Card with Elder Schoen, and Going Away Party in Sao Roque

Also, general news and excitement for all...MONTLAKE JAKE is coming back to UW! Woot. THat is all.
Thank bishop garrick for the awesome email, it really is awesome being able to hear from him. Let him know that he has been a great help for me in my life.

Letters being sent out today
Dale, Kaelene Schoen, Jason, Lauren

Onnnnnnnnnnnnn to the week
So, i am getting more and more used to my new area. It is still different than sao roque, but yeah, getting used to it. Unfortunately, we havent been having a whole lot of success recently in finding new families to teach...just a lot of knocking doors (bleh) and having a hard time finding people interested in the gospel. However, there are lots of good things happening in the other areas of the zone. We have lots of good elders that are starting to see success after some hard droughts.
However, we are teaching some good people, one person in particular (Fatima) is super excited for her baptismal date on the 26th. It is going to be super cool...there is going to be a ward xmas party out at a church campground and the baptism might happen there! Unfortunately Elder MOsiah and I cant go since the place is outside of mission boundaries.

Also, one of the other cool things is that we had a zone activity today playing soccer in one of the local squares. A bunch of the local kids came and played with us too. So, yeah, im not terrible at soccer, but ive figured that my strength is on the back half, defensive part of the field...it is crazy how agile these brasilians are with the ball! It is nutty....oh well, no matter how agile you are it doesnt mean you can win a collision with a six foot two American...haha
I am super excited for Christmas next week....just so excited! I just cant stop thinking about it.

other funny story
so....last week I went to downtown sao paulo and I bought a soccer jersey and a camera case to protect my camera. Well, that night I was digging around in my bag to be able to put my camera in the protective case, and the camera fell out of the bag onto the hard concrete...and isnt working right now. But, a member is taking it to a fixing shop this week so there shouldn't be any problem...if there is, i will go back next week and buy a new camera. I just thought it was ironic..I broke the camera in the moment that i was trying to protect it.
love ya!


Miss you all and love ya!

Bryan