Week 30

Hello everyone! I have so many cool things to tell you this week!

First of all, early in the week, my companion, Elder Oliveira, got a foot infection, so we went to the foot doctor two or three times and he couldn't walk for a few days. So, we did a lot of studying this week.  Nothing really exciting happened until Saturday. Our zone sang the Portuguese version of the hymn "Abide with me 'Tis Eventide" at a stake activity, and we had a few practices throughout the week for that, and that was pretty fun. 

On Sunday morning we were doing what we normally do, picking up investigators for church but no one was really feeling it. At one house we stopped by, there was a group of guys drinking next door (yes, at 8:30 in the morning). One of them started asking us questions, and as missionaries, that's what we do, so I started answering.  He asked us if we were from around here, and I said no, I'm an American, and my comp told them that he was Brazilian.  We went on our merry way to church, without any investigators. As we were turning onto the street where our chapel is, this guy runs up behind us with his hand under his shirt like he has a gun (he didn't) and starts yelling. It took me a minute to pick up on what was happening (I'm still new here) but I finally picked up that he wanted the cell phone. So he took it and ran off - in the very street of our chapel, people!  So we went a day without a cell phone. No worries, we picked up a new one at the mission office today. Anyway, we're pretty sure that guy was in the group that we saw earlier. We went to church and I gave a talk which was 100 times more scary than getting robbed, for the record haha! But I prepared for it, stood up and started, and before I knew it, 15 minutes had passed! 

Our prep day was a bit of an adventure too. We got up early to go to the foot doctor for Elder Oliveira again, and the bus took forever to pick us up, and the traffic downtown is really bad Monday mornings. After about an hour on the bus, we got to this street that was completely blocked off because a bunch of construction workers were starting a strike, so everyone had to get off the bus. We eventually found the foot doctor, 3 hours after Elder Oliveira´s appointment.

That's about it for this week....and I'm still loving it down here! Thanks so much for all of your thoughts and prayers! Have a great week!

Abraço,

Elder Poulson