Week 14: One Very Very Hot Week

It´s been one very very hot week here in `T-3 A/B. I´m always amazed
when I walk out the front door, through the first massive metal gate,
passed the guard and through the other padlocked/spiked gate to
realize how much I´m already sweating in that 8 foot walk. Thankfully
a few days this week were a bit overcast, well and today its raining-
yay wet feet! But it´s H-Day so, can't be too upset. Once we finish
internet at his little cafe we are taking a stupid amount of chappas
to get to a KFC, then going bowling. It´s a bit of a splurge day
because Elder Burchett and I aren´t buying any food from the store
this week. We are doing a `coconut cleanse`. Yes, we are planning on
surviving off of just coconuts and water for a whole week.... We´ll
see how we do :)

I was able to go on a `Division` this week with the Zone Leaders. This
means I got up early, hopped on a chappa with some extra clothes in my
bag and went to a different city for a day and a night. I got to walk
around Liberdade with Elder Martins for a day. It is a really nice
area compared to ours--in terms of houses/money. It was cool to see a
different house, Elders (including my trainers trainer, and my old
friend Elder Dutra), teaching style.

Family update: David and Ana. They are a couple in the new part of our
area. They are both 19 and have a little (almost 1 year old) baby.
They live in a tiny 13´ x 13´ concrete block house without
electricity. We get there usually around 19:00 when he gets home from
work and read by candle light with them. They are working on getting
all the documents together to get married. It is super expensive for
them (1000+ Met, he maybe makes 2,000 Met a month), but they are doing
their best to slowly collect each of the documents, hopefully I will
be here once they can get married!

Bonus: Sidónia´s baptism will be on the 26th hopefully with one or two
others from our area and 2+ from Elder Brown/Mayeya´s area.

Random facts of the week:

1. I am convinced Elder Burchett and I are protected from falling
mangos. Its mango season which means they just fall out of the tree.
We sit under said trees during lessons whenever possible to enjoy the
shade. SOOOO many mangos have hit around us and our chairs, but never
us.
2. We rarely go into houses (1/3 maybe), most of the time we sit on
sketchy lawn chairs in the yard.
3. Everyone here loves trying to speak English. They pretty much only
know `Good morning teacher, How are you, What is your name, I am fine
how are you` though, so the conversation gets old fast. Elder Burchett
and I got permission this week to do a weekly English class though, so
we will be starting that in 2 weeks.

Send any questions my way:
Howell.Tanner@myldsmail.net

Until next week!

President and Sister Koch giving us a ride in the  mission van.   

The mission van is WAY more comfortable than a chappa :)

Mission AP's, Elder Burchett and myself.

Mango