Monday October 13, 2014

No I havent seen blue yet and I'm in the state Rio not the city :P I'm about 4 hours north of the city and I'm in the most southern point of the mission (Zone wise at least) so I'll never actually make it to Rio the city. I would like to but we don't have that liberty. But yeah it's really good here, the people are super nice and the ward works super hard. All of the young women are always giving refrences for the missionaries. They don't really have any young women in our ward but the ward next to ours has a ton. We have all the young men though...they just don't do too much. But they are willing to do divisions :) Which is a huge relief. BEcause basically my companion is the pianist for the 2 wards. What ever activity that has piano he is there............and he is teaching piano lessons twice a week for 2 hours.....and we spend a lot of time sitting at the church.......and he (my companion) has lots of leg pains and foot pains.....so we don't really go anywhere or when we do we take the bus or these vans that are like buses here and we lose a lot of time waiting for them.....yeah we teach about one lesson per day...........................................................but its all good, things will get better. The sun is still shining and I'm marking tons of divisions so that I can leave and work and use the members a ton and it's going to be fun. Challenge accepted. Also we have 4 other companionships in our district that live about an hour away. But its all for the work and for the good of Zion ;) So I'm working a lot on patience and keeping a good, happy attitude. But I will not compromise the standards or mission rules. That's were the fun comes in. I follow the rules and Preach my Gospel :) 

But anyways it has been a really fun learning week. I've started to study the new testament in english because I really want to focus on  understanding the principles and applying them and becoming more like Christ. I'm not going super fast but I'm making my way. I'm on matthew 9 ANd there is so much to learn. Reading in english is so much clearer and it's like a whole new world, but I'm trying not to read too much in english because I teach in portuguese. BUt I am really enjoying studying the new testament and the teachings of Christ. I really liked matthew 4:4 " Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God"

Thats really tough about soccer but that probably is a good thing because coach west is a very tough coach and she always, always grabs freshman. Every year half her team is freshman. I've never understood why because they are usally injured or super tired by junior year. But if she keeps practicing and working hard she doesn't need to play this year, she could make it next or just skip high school and go straight to college :) 

As for flu shots, missionaries don't get shots or go to the doctor during the mission. You work and if you need something because you get sick then you go. Other than that you don't get the yearly shots or do yearly check-ups. So my last pendrive.....I think it has a virus as well because it's skipping talks that I put on for conference last week.......so I'm not to sure exactly what's going on and why music is so difficult and why I can't ever seem to listen to what I want. But Idk if you should send another memory card. The problem is that I might just give up on music and just sing myself. Memory cards are 30 reals here for 16 gb. Which would be 15 dollars. Which was the last memory card I had but I don't know how to avoid viruses because we always use lan-houses and dowloading conference and music from the churches youth site you somehow get viruses (probably because the computer itself) so maybe I'll buy another maybe not. I don't want to spend money because I would like to save it for when Ireally need it after the mission. And yes I would be super happy if courtney was there for christmas so that I can talk to her before she goes out to byu-I that would be nice.

Alrighty I love you all and miss you tons!

Elder Simonsen

ps. Dad: Still waiting for your email