(Link to photos --> CLICK HERE!)

Hello everyone!
It has been a LONG time since I have written, but this post won’t be the monster that it should probably be. I have four days left here in Fortaleza and then it is off to two weeks of adventuring. It is even worse than last time; there is now 14 pages of journal single-spaced since my last post.
Let’s see, on November 8th, we went on splits with some of the Elder’s from the office. There were three of them, they had one appointment and some referals to look up. I went with Elder Dustin Olsen (Chantelle if you read these posts, yes, this is the same Dustin Olsen you went to High School with, he says hi!) while Hector went with the other two Elders. They had some people call in wanting a copy of the Book of Mormon.
I really enjoyed the time going out to the appointment and coming back because we had so much in common to talk about. Our apartment can be too quite some times. When we got there we talked to a couple. The man is a member and is living with his “wife”. They are trying to get married but when you are poor it can be difficult, so the mission is going to help them out. They are really excited. She wants to get baptized, and will be (when they are married and not living together out of wedlock). She has as strong testimony of our Savior; we talked to her about faith in Christ, and living His gospel. We also taught her about fasting. Oh how I wished I were a missionary again. I could feel the comfort of the Spirit as we taught and could remember the joy of dedicating myself to the Lord full-time. There is nothing like it.

That weekend we took our first real big vacation. We went out the absolutely incredible paradise resort town of Jericoacoara. All the pictures on this post come from the trip. It is like waking up every morning in a post card. Everything was picturesque. My pictures I put up on facebook (link above) can very ineptly give you a sense of what it was like. On the dune buggy ride we took in the morning there were a couple of times where I closed my eyes because of sand (everyone else was smart enough to have sunglasses. I think I was the only one in the entire city to not have them) and would think, "am I really cruising along a tropical beach in a buggy on some random place halfway across the world?" Opening my eyes could only bring a grin. It was pretty neat. On the trip we saw seahorses, nearly extinct yellow crabs, crossed a river on a ferry, kayaked in a fresh water lagoon, made new friends (Marcio, Lia, and Claudia), and went to the spot where a city once stood. They had built it upon the sand. Silly Brazilians, we learn not to do that in primary. “The wise man built his house upon the rock, and the foolish man…” you know the rest.
That night after one of the most fabulous dinners ever we watched the sun set over the ocean from the top or a snowy white dune. There even was a couple galloping by on horseback along the beach at sunset—straight out of a fantasy book. There was a group praticing capoeira on the beach and walking back into town we were surrounded by music and light. It was a fabulous weekend, in a more relaxing indulgent way. It was a wonderful break though by the end of the second day I was itching to get home and get back to work. If I had the chance now between Jericoacoara again and missionary splits I would choose the latter in a heartbeat.
I have discovered Bonbons here. The hazelnut chocolate ones covered in milk or white chocolate are to die for. We use Bonbons to motivate our students to achieve their goals.

In institute the next week, Natália told me a wonderful story. She said Brother Carboni, who is the institute president in another stake, had a daughter that past away. Even with the truths of the gospel he was really struggling with this and hadn’t found a way to reconcile his feelings. Later he had the opportunity to go to Salt Lake City to go to General Conference. After the conference he had the opportunity to be in the presence of the prophet Gordon B. Hinckley with some others. With out brother Carboni ever saying anything to President Hinckley, President Hinckley turned to brother Carboni and said, “please be at peace about your daughter, she is happily teaching the gospel in the spirit world right now”. The Lord works in wonderful ways.

The next weekend we went to the fish market in the morning and bartered for all sorts of fish we had never seen before; big fish, small fish, (red fish, blue fish jk), fish with teeth, squid and more. We had them fry up several different kinds of fish and a bunch of shrimp for us. We ate until we couldn’t eat anymore and on the way home gave the leftovers to a starving little boy. It was a good morning.
In the evening we went to a rock concert (that wasn’t so hot at first) and stayed for the first couple of bands. It started with a bad 50’s rock cover band and moved on to what Hector called “butt rock”. It was a Brazilian attempt at Metallica...not so good. However, in the evening there was a great young band that had a sound that was a mix between Coldplay and Radiohead, and after that there was a Brazilian Singer (girl) who sang beautifully to much more traditional Brazilian sounds and rhythms. So it ended well.

I am going to leave it there for now. It has been a truly wonderful time here in Brazil and I feel like I was able to really immerse myself in the culture and make a difference too. Above all I feel like I drew closer to my Savior during this time, which was largely my intent for coming out here. I can say even more strongly that I know that God lives, and I know His Son lives and loves me. He loved me and each one of us enough to die for us. I am thankful for a merciful God that has given us the truths of the gospel, and has given us scripture that we might learn to mold our lives to His principles. As Alma “I would not that ye think I know of myself, but of God”. I am grateful for a Father in Heaven who has given me the Spirit so that I might know these things, as I know now, with all certainty of heart. See you all when I get back in less than three weeks!
Yours truly, Jason

Teaching, football games, cockroaches, and so much more!

Much more photos at --> http://byu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2147004&id=17821729

Once again I must start with, "where to begin!". We have been extraordinarily busy as of late so I have failed to get my posts up. I have been really good with my journal writing however so I should be able to find something good to put up… let me see…
I could talk about teaching, North Shopping, the beach house, the football game, Catholic mass, cockroaches, “Halloween”, the library, the dance and so much more.

Teaching
As always I like to talk about the highlight of my time here-teaching. Unfortunately they changed the format a little this last week and so Hector and I are teaching together again. Because we are both used to teaching this our own way and teaching the whole time on our own, you feel kind of lazy just listening half the time, and you butt heads a little over how to teach the class. It has been good though and we try to always start our turn to talk confirming what the other just finished saying.
I feel like we have gotten through better to this and the last group the importance of really doing your contacts and putting yourself out on a limb. We brought Bonbons in as a reward for those who actually called people on their list the day before. When I feel like we are really helping it justifies all my time down here. I pray that we can continue to increase the effect we are having on them each week. I ONLY HAVE THREE MORE WEEKS OF TEACHING LEFT! Sad thought, I will really miss the employment center and all the wonderful people that work there. I need to take pictures of them.

Bus Ride and English class (Journal entry November 7, 2007)
On Wednesday we “left for Bom Jardim where João [a volunteer at the center] teaches his English class to help one last time. The bus ride there was so crazy. It felt like some gross “mosh” pit dance party, with everyone completely packed together. We weren’t able to get seats and I had to stand with my back to the isle hanging over a lady for dear life. She at least offered to hold my history book so I could use two hands. You don’t understand how crazy it is until you have ridden a bus in South America in a big city. There are no laws, or if there are they are not enforced, on how many people can be on a bus. It is truly like a clown car. Whenever you think it is impossible to cram more people on the number doubles. I have watched people hang from the bus entrances as it starts to pull away and let the doors smash them into the bus. It has really tested my flexibility. Honestly, I used to be a little claustrophobic and at times I have to suppress a little bit of panic. There were at least two times I was sure if I jumped I wouldn’t hit the floor again. This is not to mention that fact that you have people squeezing themselves by you all the time because you have to exit in the front (you get on in the back). There were a few times when girls needed to squeeze by and had it been by choice I would feel compelled to go home and spend the night repenting. I think after one ride I could be the definitive author on “101 Ways to Invade Someone’s Personal Space”.
The lesson went well. We helped them by having them ask questions in English and then reply in English while João translated for them. The bus ride on the way home was pretty normal except the two prostitutes that got on. I just buried myself in my book and read most of the way home as the bus was nearly empty.”

Soccer Game (Warning: Partly Man Story!)
The soccer game was another great experience. I wrote in my joural:
“It was a lot of fun and I took good pictures. Hector on the way to the game started to feel the way I did when I woke up and really needed to use the bathroom. After Simplicio asked a vendor for some napkins to use as toilet paper for Hector, he went into the bathroom for a little while and came back out. Too quickly I thought. I found out later he hadn’t gone; it was too gross. Turns out he couldn’t wait any longer a little into the game so he said he was going to the bathroom and I wanted to get a drink so I followed. Once he had gone in I decided to take a peek into the “bathroom”. I have never seen something so gross. There was an inch of “water” on the floor, the sinks didn’t work, there was no toilet paper, most of the doors were broken or missing and there were no seats on the toilets. The “water” was verified as being more when Hector and I looked into another bathroom to see if it had working sinks to see one man relieving himself on the wall and another under the sink. THE TOILET IS ABOUT 2 FEET AWAY! WHY AREN’T YOU USING IT?!?! They were probably drunk.
Ceará won the game 3 to 0 and it was a good time all in all…”

Le Cucaracha! (A continuation of the same days journal)
“…However when I got home and started writing this journal entry I saw something moving in my bathroom. IT WAS A COCKROACH! Oh, and not just any cockroach, one about 3 inches long. I scrambled for a shoe after I had jumped on top of my bed in a time span I was sure defined the laws of physics. When I got back I couldn’t see it anywhere. I knew it had to have climbed under the sink cabinets. The problem is my bathroom is barely double the size of an airplane bathroom and putting my head somewhere where I could actually see under the sink (if it was there) would mean sticking my face only a couple inches from from the cabinet edge.
Sure enough, as soon as I poked my head under it was about a foot from my face. Once again defining all of Newton’s laws I was back up on my feet and fetching the broom. I swept under and threw it to the back corner. I tried killing it with the end of the broom with no success and when I went to find something new to kill it with it was gone. I couldn’t find it anywhere! I shut the door to the bathroom, so I don’t know where it went. I am paranoid now. You can say all sorts of great things about Brazil, but until they fix the cockroach problem it is not for me. :)jk I have the bathroom quarantined now, and the light is being left on because they don’t like light. I plugged the hole I think they could be coming out of.”
Since then I have become a master hunter with poison traps around the house. My kill count in my bathroom alone is at 4 now.

The Rest
Halloween was actually pretty anticlimactic, the dance was awesome but I don’t have time to talk about it now, the Catholic Mass “of All Saints” will have to be in my next posts, and the library experience actually turned out to be a very deeply moving and perspective changing experience so I will have to remember to include it in the next post. For now, I have to take off because we have missionary splits in an hour. Love ya all!