Elder Devin Harris' Mission in Natal Brazil: Walking, Blisters, and ummm...chafing;)

So this week was really good, lots and lots of walking though! The first week I started to get blisters on the soles of my feet and the more I walked I was afraid that they would pop but instead they like pushed themselves up between my toes so they don´t really bother me as much. I know that´s weird but oh well. And I´ll tell you what, with all the walking and sweating, the chafing is real! Sorry for the details but you asked for it mom ;) Haha so to answer your questions, we don´t have buses here and as for why we don´t have bikes... I have asked myself that same question hundreds of times! A/C is pretty much nonexistent here. We have A/C in the chapel of the church building and some banks have it but other than that, nothing. Currais Novos is pretty modernized. Definitely a lot poorer than what we´re used to but the people here are amazing! My companion is determined to learn English because he says it will open up so many job opportunities when he gets home to Sao Paulo. So it helps a ton because we can kind of describe the language structure of both languages to each other. All of our investigators are so nice! We have one who´s name is S. She´s like 35 and says she´s not necessarily interested in joining our church but she loves learning about other religions. But she is the nicest lady! The first visit she asked me what kind of food I like and I just figured she was making small talk because I can barely speak Portuguese so I said pizza because Brazilians understand that and I don´t know the names of a lot of other foods in Portuguese. So the next time we came she had two pizzas made for us and sodas. It´s just their culture here to be nice. Hopefully we can help her feel the spirit and get her baptized. Some people will be kinda rude but it´s not too bad. So I have an experience to share. We received a reference of a young girl that was interested in going to church because she has friends that go so we stopped by and it was clear that her mom didn´t agree with our religion. She was trying to just prove us wrong throwing out really difficult questions that would be difficult to answer in English let alone Portuguese like about our Heavenly Mother and stuff like that so my companion was talking with her and I wasn´t sure of everything they were saying but you could tell that neither one of them wanted to budge and everything my comp would say, she would interrupt and there was just a lot of contention so I just chimed in and said, “Look we are not professors and we don´t have every answer but we have been called of God to teach what we know is true and that the gospel is perfect no matter what and told her that if she wanted, we would love to come back and teach her but if not we wouldn´t.” And I bore my testimony to her and everything just came out so naturally. By the time I finished she was silent. We thanked her and left and my companion looked at me and was like... That was perfect Portuguese, not even an accent or anything... And I was just like... Whoah, Haha it was so cool! I have noticed a huge improvement in my Portuguese these past few days. I can pray pretty much fluently. I´m still trying to get the hang of normal conversations though. Other than that we taught a lot of lessons out in the Bairros today, which is just the country/ farm part of town. It sucks cuz it´s a long way to walk out there but I love it out there cuz we get out of the city and it´s just nice, even though it´s super hot. It´s just that the sun here is so brutal! If there are clouds and a breeze it´s definitely doable but if it´s a clear day with no wind, you might as well just crawl in a hole and die... I´m starting to get a sexy missionary tan line goin on. Just forearms with half of my neck and a solid wrist watch tan line ;) So I should have mentioned this before but there is a member named M. and she is really nice. She feeds the missionaries almost every day! Going to her house reminds me of going to Grandma and Grandpa Ebmeyer’s because everything is centered around food and they have the ridiculously huge pans and ovens and everything haha. Anyways that was random but oh well. Well that´s about it for this week. Thanks for everything! I love you all, have a great week!

Elder Devin Harris

P.S. So this is super random but people here think I am huge! Like everyone I talk to the first thing they say is, “Wow you´re huge!” (In Portuguese ;)) and then I tell them I´m only 18 and they all think I´m lying to them haha. They think I´m like 25. I weigh about 205ish now. When I left the CTM I was about 210ish. I guess all that walking is paying off ;)