Red, White & Blue

It was a Happy Fourth of July here...we celebrated here by wearing red and blue ties, drawing an American Flag, singing the National Anthem, and just being proud of America on that Sunday. It was pretty fun. Elder Whitesides and I even sang the National Anthem at someone's house tht night. Unfortunately, there was nothing else of Americanness. I wish I could have seen some fun parade and more red, white and blue. Brazil does have a kind of Independance Day, but it isn't as widely celebrated...most people are just excited to have a day off of work. Not like it is a World Cup game or anything.
Speaking of the World Cup, Brazil is out of the World Cup! People were oh so sad here about it. The people on the streets were in terrible moods for the rest of the day...imagine being in the bad mood and hearing the Mormons knocking at your door. Oh well, we still had some success thought, marking a baptism date with an awesome couple that we were able to find out in Sorocaba on division.
Onnnnnn to the week.
Well, the past seven days have been full of roller coasters and unexpected things in the work. Elder Parsons and I have been getting our frequent-busrider miles as we constantly travel around doing our divisions. Last week we spent the weekend out in Sorocaba, in the Cerrado and Barcelona areas. The Cerrado day was very interesting, as that was the day the Brazil was lost and thrown out of the World Cup. It was nuts. During the game people were just screaming, loving life, so excited for Brazil to win and go on to the semis...however, those Dutch had another idea. That made the work extra fun, as I mentioned above, as people were extra irritable all day. When I would talk to people on the street they would just be like "look, today isn't a good day, just leave me alone" and would look at mee with a crazy look like they wanted to hit me just for looking like a Dutch person...stupid white skin! The next day was just a little bit better, but everyone was still in a general state of depression. The thing that got everybody happy again was that Argentina was CLOBBERED by Germany. Bazil hates Argentina like UW hates UO. Even worse...so much worse. It was a fun day though. I was able to go out with a Brazilian the first day, and an American the other.
During this week we also had our Mission Council, the time when all the Zone Leaders come to President's house and we have a meeting about the affairs of the mission, about where things are going, what needs to be changed, improved, etc. We talk a lot about teaching with the Holy Ghost through a few key things 1) Testifiying and sharing spiritiual experiences 2) Using the scriptures 3) Asking good questions and inviting people to participate in the lesson. 4) Help investigators make and keep commitments. All the zone leaders will be teaching about this at Zone Conference. The council was also lots of fun because Sister Cooley made cinamon rolls. and we took some fun pictures with the missionaries that are leaving the mission...OH TRUNKEZA!
In other news, I am fighting the trunky bug as most of my mission friends are going home, including two companions of mine (Elder Perry and Elder Parsons). The only companion of mine that is still going to be on the mission at that time will be Elder Schoen. Crazy.

Anyway, just trying to keep going hard at full tilt.