Oi from Iguatemi

Oi familia!

Tudo bem?!

It has been an amazing week for me.  New companion, new area, but this time around I´m still speaking the same language which is nice.  

My new area is Iguatemi.  It´s close to the temple here in Campinas, kind of in the hills above the city.  So far I love it.  It´s kind of the richer part of Campinas so everything is completely different.  No favelas, big houses, etc.  Kind of weird sometimes.  I had gotten used to the tiny houses and humble people of Vida Nova.  However, I love it here.  My new companion, Elder Carmongio is great.  He´s from Brasil, but lived for a while in Boston.  He actually was baptized in Boston when he was 18, moved back to Brazil, found a girlfriend, and then decided to serve a mission.  He´s the oldest missionary in the mission, 26 years old, but we get along great.  He´s a hard worker but relaxed, and I honestly just love being around him.  

With Elder Barbosa I was always stressed out because he had kind of given up on the area, but with Elder Carmongio, I know every day will be good.  I still come home exhausted, probably because everything here is a lot farther away from the house so we walk a lot more, and everything is hilly so we are constantly climbing up and down.  But all in all we are honestly following the spirit in all we do.  Instead of rushing to teaching appointments we take our time and look at every person in the streets, and if it feels right, we talk to them.  If we see a house we want to knock or feel like we should knock, we knock it.  Gone are the days of picking a bairro and knocking it till its dead.

We found a sweet couple last night.  Vanderson e Patricia.  Vanderson is so ready for the gospel.  We taught him the restoration, and he was finishing our sentences half the time without ever having heard it before.  Patricia was kind of quiet, but I´ve never felt the Spirit so strong before.  We´re praying he gets off work early enough tonight so the family can come to a family home evening with Eddy e Andrea.

One thing you all might find interesting cause it seems like you asked me before is that there are a lot more Japanese people here.  It´s kind of interesting to see the difference the from one side of the city to the other.  One of my favorite parts of the area is we can see the temple all lit up at night.  It´s kind of far away, but still beautiful, and gives me an extra boost to keep working.  Another nice thing is we actually have a nice church building.  It is super super nice, nicer then a lot in the usa, or maybe I had just gotten used to our not so nice building in Vida Nova,  who knows?

But anyways I´m loving the area, I love my companion, and I´m loving Brasil.  We live with another set of missionaries, Elder Souza from Paraguay and Elder Warlen from Brasil, so I get a lot of Portuguese practice and its coming along really quickly.  

Well I love you all and hope school and life and everything else is going good.  I´ll get around to taking and sending pictures one of these days.

Eu Amo Vocês

Evan