Christmas Fun

Hello Everyone,

Its way close to Christmas but trust me, it doesn’t feel like it here. I’m sweating in an internet cafe in downtown Joao Pessoa right now. My dreams of a white Christmas have been rekindled because we are going to try and have a baptism on Christmas Day. We found out that Christmas for us will be a regular P day-meaning we have to go out and work after 6:00 pm. So, with the white baptismal clothing, I’m hoping for a white Christmas. I’m really looking forward to talking to the family; hopefully I will remember how to speak English because it’s been a long time since i had a conversation with anyone in English. This week was really good, I don’t have much time to write about it because my time is being cut short due to some confusion with the internet cafe and the district leader scheduling. Anyway, here are some details about the week. We baptized 2 young men, Leonardo who is hilarious and break dances and Yurie who hopefully won’t start smoking again... We had the baptism of a 27 year old man, Alexsandro, scheduled but it fell through because of his dad not allowing him to be baptized. Um....Alexsandro, you’re 27 I think you can make decisions for yourself. We are going to have to have a talk with him. He was already interviewed and everything so I don’t doubt that he will be baptized. Unfortunately I don’t have time to write more. I want to wish everyone a very
Feliz Natal! Remember that the happiest people in the world are those that love our Heavenly Father and love others as themselves.

Christmasly,

Elder Travis Jenson

Questions & Responses:

1. Most important question; How do we call you on Christmas? Do you know the time we call? How long do we get to talk?
Here is what you need to do. I don’t know how you call internationally to Brazil so you will have to look that up, if all else fails you can call information. You need to call at 10:30am Christmas Day and we get to talk for 50 minutes. I don’t know all of the codes and stuff to call internationally but that is the number of the house where you need to call. That number includes the area code 83. I hope that works out, unfortunately I’m not allowed to call before and give you more info. I will be waiting to receive your call!

2. Did you get the package from Lolette? Not yet.

3. What are you doing for p-day today?
We wasted the majority of our P-day looking for an open internet cafe so looks like we will be cleaning the house and shopping for groceries.

4. Best thing you cooked this week was? Pancakes.

5. What’s your favorite time of the day and why? It’s at about 4 o’ clock. Sunsets here are awesome.

Hello Everyone,

This week was really good. We started working more in a part of the area that has a lot of people that haven’t hear our message. Unlike the part of the area close to the chapel where nearly everyone has already been baptized and gone inactive. Me and my comp. have a little joke about that area, instead of O Jerusalem, its O Novaes. and then we make up silly things like ye who love to spend time in the church except on Sundays.´ Anyway, the part of the area where we are working is pretty far from our house and we have to walk a lot but we are having success there. We managed to bring a man and two young men to Stake Conference yesterday so that was really good.

Things are going pretty good with my companion. He admittedly doesn’t have a lot of patience but overall our companionship is good. It’s important that we don’t pass judgment on people because, for example, I found out yesterday something about my companion. 2 months into his mission he received news that his parents had separated and were getting a divorce. There are a lot of factors that contribute to the personality of a person so who are we to judge? I have been extremely blessed to have grown up in a nearly ideal family where the biggest difficulty I had was my dad constantly asking me ´hey what are you doin!?´. Ha-ha just kidding dad, love ya. Here’s a bit of a funny story. A girl in the ward asking me if I had 25 centavos that I could lend her and I jokingly asked, ´what are you, a beggar? ´ But instead of using the word beggar I accidentally used a word very close to beggar that means male prostitute. Woops. Ha-ha. Its ok I get away with it because I’m American. Oh, and last night we had a bandit break into our house. He made a mess in our kitchen and worst of all he got into our room climbed onto my bed and made it into a restroom. I’m in the process of dusting for paw-prints and interrogating the local stray cats for suspects. Ha-ha it looks like a cat snuck into our house through an open window during the day. So this week is going good so far, we are going to baptize a man, which is kind of a big deal because he can receive the priesthood and serve in higher callings in the church. The language is improving; I’m going to buy a Portuguese grammar book so I can learn to write better. Christmas is coming up and even though there is not even a shadow of a chance of having a white Christmas, I’m excited.

-Elder Travis Jenson

Questions:

1. Do people go running for exercise? Yes, but not here in João Pessoa.
2. Did you open your Christmas presents? No way, I don’t want to kill the surprise.
3. Are the Santa hats to small? You didn't have one on in the picture. No, they fit but I thought they looked better in the display. I’ll make sure to take pics with them on Christmas Day.
4. Are people more willing to listen because its Christmas time? No, a lot of people are traveling. Also, when people there in the U.S. think more about the Savior during Christmas, people here think about partying. It’s just the culture.
5. Can you print off the letters that we send you? I wanted to send a Christmas story but you would want to print it off so you don't spend all your time reading it. Awesome, i love Christmas stories. Yeah I can print stuff off.
6. How are things going with your companion? They’re going; my patience skills are getting a workout. Things are good right now because we have baptisms for this Sunday. Have a great week!

Hello Everyone!

First before I forget, friends that have sent me letters, sorry I haven’t responded yet. Sometimes it takes about a month for the letter to arrive. For example, I just received a letter that was sent at the beginning of October. I’ll definitely get back to you guys, I’ll write you a new year’s letter or predict what’s going to happen next month because that’s probably when you’ll receive it. :)

Well everyone, this week was a little difficult. We didn’t have baptisms and all our investigators who said they would come to church were not there when we passed by their houses in the morning. I really wish they would save us the trouble and say they don’t want to go to church but they people are so nice here they hardly ever say no when you invite them to church. So because of this my companion got pretty upset, I wasn’t too happy either but my comp. was blowing it out of proportion. But don’t worry things are good now.

I don’t really have that much to write about this week. Last night, I got a 30 minute lecture from an older brother in the ward about Brazilian history, American history (which was not at all accurate), and he told me all about the problems with kids these days. The members here are awesome. If you stop by any one of their houses at any time of day they will feed you and give you snacks even though they don’t have much to give. When the sisters in the ward cook a meal for us they go all out because they have faith that they are receiving blessings when they cook a meal for us.

I don’t know what else there is to say, we are working on finding the best place to work right now and trying to find more people to teach but its a little difficult. Overall, things are good right now,

Happy Holidays Everyone!

-Elder Travis Jenson

Questions:
What is your favorite thing to eat?
They have a thing here called tapioca which is hard to describe. It’s like a sweet taco with coconut and fruit inside. I’ll have to send you a picture because I learned how to make it.

1. Where is your companion from? Is he a convert? How many are in his family?
He’s from São Paulo, he was born into the church, he has 2 brothers I believe and everyone in his family is a member of the church.

2. The funniest thing that happened this week was?
Oh I don’t know. One time this week we were walking past a group of guys when my companion said, ´make a serious face, they have to respect you, so of course I started laughing and my companion got mad. I told him I don’t think making a serious face is going to gain the respect of anyone.

3. Have you had your suits cleaned yet? If not maybe you should think about doing that?
Suits plural? I only have one and I cleaned it before I left the CTM. I’ve used it twice since I’ve been in the mission field.

4. Are they starting to decorate for Christmas yet?
More or less, honestly most of the people are too poor to buy Christmas decorations.

5. What are some of the customs for Christmas in Brazil?
Party in the streets, that’s what they do for most holidays. Have a good week! Love ya a lot