week 31: Traveling and Arriving

1st week of 5th transfer

I'm here in Patos. (Uberlandia is the closest large city, I understand that the area is called Califórnia)

So the night before I left, the members in Hidrolandia had a little get together and we said bye to them. Then Tuesday morning, I went with Elder Burt to the bus station. We got there about 11:30am. Then I sat there...he left about 1pm but my bus wasn't leaving til about 7:30 at night, so there was 7 hours waiting in the bus station. I talked to all that passed by but basically, luckily the bus station...we can't leave our bags, we have to carry our bags around everywhere....but the bust station is basically a shopping mall, so there was a McDonalds and stuff. So I passed by there with some of the other elders. (Note from mom: He told me that he ordered a Big Mac, Fries and a McFlurry and it was sooooooo good. He hasn't had McDonalds food since the one time at their zone meeting a long time ago. But this was fresh and hot and delicious he said.) So finally at 7:30pm our bus left and it was an 8 hour bus ride because I'm in a new state now. I'm in Minas Gerais. So it's not Goiás any more. So yeah, 8 hours all night until 4 in the morning, is when we got here. I met my new companion. Got into the new apartment. The apartment is really nice too. Luckily it's on the 4th floor. It's got a great view. It's a little small but it's really clean and it doesn't have very many bugs. The only thing that kind of sucks is my bed. It's really broken. But it's not really that big of a deal. The apartment is really nice.

So my new companion is Elder Barroso. He's from the northeast of Brazil. He's really awesome too. We worked really hard this week because we are basically opening an area because the Elders that were here before us were transferred during an emergency transfer three weeks ago so there were only 2 Elders here and my companion basically doesn't know the area. He knows it a bit because they would pass through it a bit because he was working here with just his companion before, but the area was too large. But yeah, we are basically opening a new area. Trying to find new people to teach. So this area is very Catholic and very rich. So it's kind of difficult. But we've been able to find some new neighborhoods that are a bit better.

Things that I hate is that it's really hilly. We have to walk up a LOT of hills. My legs are really tired. 

But things that I like: There's this park in the center of the city of Patos, a big park with a pond and a forest basically. It's really cool. We are going to go take pictures there next week. We didn't have time this p-day because we slept a bunch. 

Other things that I like: Here in Minas Gerais, they have really good Pão de Queijo which is the Brazilian cheese bread. It's way better than it is in Goiás. So yeah that's awesome.

So that's my email for this week. We didn't have anybody in church this week. Oh yeah, I forgot to say, I did give a talk my first Sunday in church because here is a Branch and we meet in a little house and they needed somebody to talk so he asked me two days before so I had some time to prepare. But my companion also had to talk but he didn't get a warning until 10 minutes before the meeting. Haha. But my talk went well.

Spiritual thought: 

2 Nephi 32: 3 Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you, feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do.  

General Conference is coming up in these next few weeks, I want to challenge you all to prepare so that you can receive personal revelation. Really, the words of the Prophets are the words of Christ, and tell us all we need to do.
-- Elder Olson

saying goodbye in Hidrolandia

I will miss the members in Hidrolandia

New Elders, New area, Patos Minas Gerais

The view from our aparment

The Pão de Queijo is huge and delicious and the food is cheaper in Patos than Hidrolandia


Patos is outlines in red. It's about an 8 hour bus ride from Goiania up in the left corner and about 3 hours east of Uberlandia. We have to travel to Uberlandia for zone meeting this upcoming week