Manaus

Olá familía. Well, it's been another week and I'm back. It went by pretty fast actually. It was nice to be done with the last wedding, we had more time to find people and teach. Though, it seems like the good ones come to us. We are on track for another wedding and baptisms before this transfer is over- only 3 weeks or so! The ex-bishop of our ward lives with his brother and sister and they have never really been interested in the church. But, they went to the wedding last week, stake conference and some other activities, and have decided that they will be getting married and baptised before this transfer is over. They don't want to take the chance that one of us gets transferred. They've already picked out who is going to baptize them and are making wedding plans. I love it when people come to us and tell us that they want to be baptized! I guess we'll see what happens with that, but these next few weeks could be a little busy.

Here's a story you might like. We have to fill up the font on Saturday before a Sunday baptism, because sometimes the buildings randomly loose water. So, like usual, we filled it up Sat night. We looked in the font during church the next day... and it was full of dead bugs. Lovely, huh? Just gotta love Manaus. But, we couldn't empty the font during church and we didn't have time to refill it. So, during priesthood, I changed into a macacão, a white baptism jumpsuit. (It actually translates to mean "big monkey" though...) I jumped into the font with a cup and started fishing out all the bugs. During all of priesthood, I was emptying dead ants and bugs from the font with a little cup. By the time priesthood was over, it was looking pretty good. Be happy you don't have to worry about fishing out a bunch of dead bugs with a little plastic cup.


Speaking of fishing/fish, these people have been holding out on me the 2 months I've been here. We usually don't get fed fish because they think it's poor people's food, but this week, I had some good fish. The little fish are annoying because they have a bunch of little bones that you could choke on and die, but they taste good. This week I ate tambaqui and pirarucu, they were so good! I've decided river fish are SO much better than sea fish. Tambaqui still have some bones, but they are pretty big and you don't really need to worry. But, pirarucu is so so so good. It's a 6 foot long massive river fish without bones. We had some kinda filet of pirarucu and fried pirarucu. It was so good. I don't know why they have been holding out on me. We also ate some sea fish, but it just wasn't so good. River fish beat sea fish, hands down.

Oh, so I am also addicted to another food here. Abacatada. This will sound gross, but it's legit. We make it every day in our house. It's a guacamole smoothie. You throw in half a guac with some ice, water, powdered milk (yes, we use powdered milk- we're too poor for the real thing and it works) and the ocassional banana. (And lots of sugar, of course.) It sounds gross, but they are so good. The guacs here are bigger than the ones in the US. But, yeah, abacatada, way good.

We had zone conference yesterday, it was good. President gave some training and a lesson about being better planners. It was cool to see some other missionaries. One of the guys I knew in the CTM, is off in the interior. He's got a picture with this fat sloth- just chillin. I can't wait to head off to some sweet interior...

Our power went out Monday night (which happens all the time) and we expected it to come back on in 5 minutes- like usual. It was out until 1am. We sat around with little candles, waiting. It was so hot that night and without fans- it's impossible to sleep. Finally, we went to bed, but it took a long time to fall asleep. Gotta love Manaus!

I got the package! Thank you! Peanut butter is so good. American candy has Brazilian candy beat. What was up with only pink starbursts? Did Callen eat all the other ones? Thank you, though, it's appreciated. Ideas for the next one (just saying): Cheez-its (not Cheese Nips, they're terrible) poptarts, any variety of M+Ms, American deoderant (the stuff here just doesn't work). Just some ideas if you are throwing one together. I'd love anything American. So, thanks!

The rainy season is coming. Some days it rains a lot, and other days it's still hotter than anything else. Last night it rained for 5 minutes and it was crazy. I think it might have even had Seattle beat, if that's possible. The alleyway to our house was like a river. I was out in the rain for- honestly- 20 seconds running to our house and I was drenched. I love it! It gets so hot here sometimes, the rain is just a nice break.

Well, I guess that's it for now, hope all is well, have a good week, and love you guys! Tchao!

-Elder Eric Stapley