Another week flies by...

Well hey fam! How's everyone doing? How was the 4th of July? It was weird not seeing anyone celebrate it or anything down here. I guess I really am on the other side of the world lol.

So I gotta make this fast (as always) but here goes:

• So, we were coming back from the temple last wednesday and the bus was SUPER cramped. Seriously, I felt like cattle on a box car. There wasn't room to even breathe. Well, my comp hadn't been feeling well all day and after an hour or so in these super-cramped space he looks at me and tells me that he isn't feeling too great. Well, the bus was a kind that only stops at the terminals so it wasn't going to stop for another fifteen minutes of so so I kinda just had to look at him and tell him to hold on until we got off at the next terminal. Well, his situation got worse and worse, and pretty soon he looked like a zombie: he was pale and sweating and his eyes rolled up in his head and then he just lost it. He dry-heaved once and then he totally tossed his cookies. Yup, it was epic. Just one problem: remember that the bus was super cramped? So when he tossed it he puked ALL OVER THE WOMAN IN FRONT OF HIM!!!!! Yeah!!!! So she just looked at me like, "I cannot believe that this just happened" and I had to try to help clean her up, get my companion to a chair (which, surprisingly, the other person in front of him left the seat, since it was so close to the puke) and try to help him out (I'm pretty sure he passed out) and try to keep from slipping in the puke because the crazy Curitiba bus drivers drive like wombats (I remember how mom always says that lol). So yeah, it was definitely a bus drive that I will never forget lol.
• Also, this sunday was his birthday. As all the RMs know, the first birthday on the mish is pretty difficult, so I planned with our landlady, Dona Maria, and we had a special birthday surprise waiting for him when we got home! She made this wicked good cake and we sang and ate cake and it helped him with all the homesickness (I hope)
• We also had a division with the LZs and it went over so they had to sleep in our house (Actually, I think it was the third or fourth time that that has happened, we live pretty far away and interviews always go over) So, this is what happens when you have a bunch of tired missionaries in a house for only 2 missinoaries lol.
• I gotta run, sorry that my emails are getting shorter and shorter, I really don't plan in it being like this. But here's some pics to make it up! (I hope)

Love you all!!!! The work is true!!!!!

-Elder Marx

I love to see the temple! I'm going there today!!!

Hey fam! I know that this email is a lot earlier than I usually send but we're going to have to leave pretty soon to go to the temple so I'm writing now! How's everyone doing? How's life? Its getting pretty dang cold now- like cold cold. It snowed in a couple parts of the state, which is a pretty big deal here. So yeah, we have no heating, no hot water other than the electric showerhead so we're having lots of fun. It could be worse, the missionaries from the northeast are really suffering. They've literally never experienced anything like this and where they're from they don't even sell jackets or coats so they showed up here with only hot-weather gear. Those of us who have a little extra are sharing with them to keep them from freezing...

So this week was a good week, we worked, we walked, we taught, and did all sorts of missionary things like that. We actually had a pretty sweet FHE this monday. There's this super awesome member family here that is always helping us and they always have a FHE monday night where they invite our recent converts and our investigators and people that they want us to teach. Yeah like I said, they're awesome. But so we never really have an opportunity to help out- they insist on doing everything and have us just share a message and the activity... So this week I looked at them and said, "You always do everything. This week I'm going to make American Pancakes for everyone to try!" They readily agreed and so I showed up and started making them. I started off mkaing a triple-batch but then more people showed up and I realized that we would need more. So I whipped up another double batch. Then another double batch. I made a lot of pancakes. I seriously think I made well more than a hundred. I had 5 burners going at the same time cooking 5 pancakes at the same time lol. It was pretty sweet actually. All the members were seriously impressed and they all loved my pancakes and insisted on copying the recipie so they can do it for themselves. They also loved the maple flavor; I made a double batch of maple syrup and it almost ran out lol.
 
Funny story, so the syrup got cold so I threw it in a pot on the stove to get it hot again and then kept cooking pancakes. I turned around and saw a boy who was about 11 years old. He decided that he didn't want to wait for the syrup to get hot so he grabbed my bottle of mapeline and dumped like half the bottle over his pancake. As you can imagine- pure mapeline doesn't taste good at all... His expression was priceless... But yeah, everyone loved the pancakes, I literally spent about 2 hours cooking all of them but it was a huge success and everyone will probably start cooking their own now...

But yeah, that's about all I have time to type about now, I gotta send an email off to President and then run to the house of the Lord!!!! I love you all!!! The Church is true!!!!!!!
 PS. Picture time!!!!!
 

June 22

...So how's everyone doing? How's summer? Its actually really weird for me to accept that its summer on the other side of the world. Its chilly and rainy here. I don't really get cold all the often, de vez enquanto a noite. Its kinda funny however, it gets down to like 50 degrees at the most here but the brazilians act like they're all going to fall over dead because of the cold. Especially those from the northeast of Brasil, like Recife, Fortaleza, and Bahia. There its pure tropical and doesn't get below 40* Celsius. Then they show up here and they just suffer. Like I see them in sweaters and scarves and gloves and I'm walking around in just a short-sleeve shirt without any problems. Its pretty funny lol. People ask me why I'm not cold and I just point to the ground and ask if there's snow or ice on the ground. They just look at me confused and say no. I then reply that if there's not ice on the ground its not cold. These people would straight up die if they went to Utah in the winter lol.

So this week... nothing really exciting happened... It was another week of work. Which means that it was a great week!!! But I don't really have anything all that exciting to type about. We're working hard trying to help our investigators keep their commitments and get ready to be baptized. We're preparing an man named A to be baptized soon, he's the one I talked about a couple weeks ago that just showed up at church saying that this is his foundation and he can't keep going on without it. He's doing well, we've taught him the Word of Wisdom and we're helping him get ready to be baptized. He's still not really sure if he's going to be ready but we're working with him to help strengthen his testimony and his confidence. We also have a few other people that we're working hard trying to help get ready to be baptized as well, so within the next couple weeks you'll get another email saying with photos of another baptism!!! (I love to baptize!!!!!!)
So what else... Hmm... Ahhh!!! I was writing my letter to President and I didn't see how much time I have spent!! Gotta Run!!! Sorry!!! Here's some pics to make up for it!


Gotta run! Love you all!!!