No Maceio

Well Folks, E ai! Tudo Bem? Beleza? Ai POIS!
  Let me just start off by saying for an instant humbling experience--> Send your 

kid to Brasil.  But i´ll get back to that.  As a preface to this letter i´m just 

going to admit that i know i´ll acidentally leave a whole bunch i want to tell 

you out because there is just so much to say.
  For starts this week my companion just couldn´t seem to get up at 6:30 like 

we´re supose to.  I think this happened like the first three days i was here. 

But then magically, on that thrid day, i went to shower and when i got out my 

clock had some how moved and hour back...interesting.  I had been waking us up 

at 5:30 each day because maceió does do day light saving, oops.  Regardless i 

have continued to wake up at this time because thats about what time the sun 

decides to wake up everyday :-(
  Question: What is the best fresh fruit? Answer? I have no idea, i havn´t even 

come close to trying them all yet, but manga is dang good and easily holds a 

spot in the top ten.
  Ok, so i know more about my companion now.  He´s 23, from Campinous (a beautiful 

city of 4 million, with a gorgeous temple.  I think i´ve mentioned that before) 

and has about 3 months left on his mission.  I slowly discovered he speaks a 

little english over the course of this week, prolly a little less engliosh than 

i speak portuguese.  The first day i could prolly count on one hand the amount 

of things i  attempted to say; how are you, what time is it, wafers are better, 

and...what time is it.  But the next day i couldn´t handle the silence any long 

(come on, you know me)  And although its still very hard to have a personality 

in portguese i did the best i could.  At that point alot of the things he said 

i just ansered with a head nod and gruntish thing.  Now i can understand most 

of the things he says, however (and Duerden noticed this too) when other people 

turn and talk to me i miss the content completely.  Its weird because i can 

follow the general idea of the conversation their having with my companion but 

then they go ahead and turn to me, mutter to words, and i´m completely lost. 

I tihnk i missed the question ´´were are you from´´ atleast 20 times this week. 

NOT MY FAULT tho, the dialect up here makes all the de´s and di´s and ti´s and 

te´s hard constenents.  So i was constantly turn to my companion with 

the, ´´uh..what´´ face, and he mutter the question to me in english.  he can 

now say the phase Where are you from with a perfect american accent.
  Futebul is something else up here.  P-days are way chill as we hang out in 

the Centrol with other missionaries and then have ward futebol that night.  I 

didn´t play last week tho, instead Skowsen grabbed my frisbee and i ended up 

playing that with a whole bunch of little kids, all of which wern´t half bad 

by the end.  I don´t think i will ever get tired of a Brasilian child tugging 

on my sleeve saying ´´èlder, élder!´´  Each Saturday morning we have soccer 

for all the YM and younger childern (we pretty much invite all of Maceió to 

play throughout the week)  Some how i got stuck in a few monkey in the middle 

games just in the parking lot where the little childern play, i hardly even 

made it to the real court.  Their favorite phrase that day was ´´Élder, O Que 

é isso?´´  I did manage to score tho once i got one the real court and all the 

kids went nuts, lol hurray i managed to score on an 8th grader!!!  Last night 

was a different story however (we had ZC yesterday so p-day was pushed back to 

today)  That was the night all the MEN get together to play.  We all drew 

tokens and i think i lucked out as i ended up on the team with a true goalie 

(he was amazing)  Lets be honest i don´t think they were to happy to have the 

American on their team but psh didn´t matter we held our own and won 4 consecutive 

games finally losing in the 5th round.  The time flew and as i went in to play 

again (7th round) everyone started talkiong and waving at me...apparently it 

was almost past my bed time :-(
  Our appartment is pretty night i think.  We clean it pretty well every week, 

which means we sweep the mountain of dust that collects from all parts of the 

earth (we live on a very uneven dirt road) as well as theroughly mop the place. 

Even still u´ve seem some rather exciting living creatures.  My favorite would 

def halfta go to the lizard i saw on our door last night, and my least favorite 

being the spider in our bathroon shower i´ve named Frank.  There is certainly 

more room than a Missionary could use, tho we´ve found ways to spread out our 

stuff.  As i´ve a justed to it, and grown to be able to call it home for now, i 

believe i have only about 3 complaints; No hot water (or drinkable water from 

the tap), Our toilet doesn´t have a seat...only the bowl (you do the math) and 

something smells horrible out side the windows facing north.  But thats easily 

solved cause we just keep those windows closed, and i don´t need hot showers in 

Brasil anywayz, tho it might be nice to have in the next appartment.  The best 

part is when i practically have to jump over the toilet to get to the shower 

cause there is such little space, pretty funny. We have a blender by the way, 

so that pretty much makes my life, along with the terquiose colored tootsie 

pop i had this morning.  What flavor is that? ps Thank you Mrs Kia
  Well the first and prolly best thing i can remember this week was our lunch 

appointment with a member.  We have lunch pretty much every day with the members 

(which is excellent, rice and beans!!! always!!!) and sense both me and my 

companion are new to the area its a wild goose hunt each day going from one 

memebers house to the next trying to find someone who know´s where the people 

who have lunch for us live.  Does that make sense?  Well as we finally found 

someone who knew that first day we followed her down the street.  Suddenly she 

stopped and turned into this small allyway between to buildings.  It didn´t go 

very far but suddenly opened up into this massive hole in the earth (like and 

open pit mine) that just has homes and homes stacked up upon eachother, the 

´´Grota´´ in English i suppose the only real translation is slum, but i don´t 

like that because the people here carry such a different ora about them.  And 

for the record our ward takes in 2 of the massive Grotas within it boundries. 

Well back to the story, stairs are a joke here, if your super lucky there will 

be some concrete ones, but half the time its just carved out dirt thats slowy 

eroding, and most of the time its just a straight drop pretty much (i´ve decided 

to buy brown showes the next time that becomes nessicary btw, because thats 

pretty much the color these have turned)  So as i jump from place to place 

we finally make our way down to one of these homes.  Now lets be honest, i 

didn´t even know we were there for lunch, i was still just following my companion 

around blindly at this point.  The home had one room truely, well 1/2.  A kitchen 

about the size of our kitchen...bathroom and an ajcent room that was just a 

little bigger.  As we entered and said our hello´s the lady of the house grabbed 

some cushions for us to sit on the floor, then, to my suprise, she came back with 

to plates of food.  I was blown away that these people who seemed to have nothing 

would be able to voulenteer to feed the missionaries.  But there we were and i 

ate my first meal right on that floor with my comp.  When we finished we stood 

up and my comp leaned over and said ´´do you have a message for us´´  uh...what? 

do i know portuguese?  Didn´t matter i ended up sharing a short, very short 

message on faith.  I read a scripture and bore my testimony pretty much.  It was 

a wonderfully uplifting experience.
  The rest of the meals that week were in pretty average homes, for Maceió that 

is.  Everytime i have been told to eat more, and i have to tell them there is 

no room left in my body anywhere for more.  
  We had to, random in my opinion acts of service this week.  The first was with 

am investigator (who reminds me alot of Penny ;-) who had us rearange her bed 

room furnature- a bed and a cabnet.  This was difficult because the two items 

hardly fit in the room in the first place.  We were with the ZL´s for this and 

what ended up happening was two ppl lifted the bed and the other two slide the 

couch under it.  A few days later we stop by for one of our scheduled 

appointments with her to teach a lesson and apparently she´d forgotten and 

wasn´t home, sad day.  Then the other day me and my comp refinished a windowsil 

and a few walls in another members appartment.  The Grinch was on in the 

background, and let me just say thats a horrible movie to watch while trying 

to learn a languege, WHICH WORDS ARE REAL?
  We visit with alot of members seeing which need help and stuff.  Usually at 

night when its not the best time to just be walking around tracting.  One family 

is having hard timesas there son has gotten into alot of trouble.  Though i 

only could catch bits and pieces of some of the most rapid cpnversing ever, 

the mother crying through out the entire thing was enough to convince me of 

the seriousness of the situation.  Its amazing how much can be expressed just 

from body languege.  I kno we hear that all the time but it takes on an even 

bigger meaning when thats nearly all you can understand.  We left that home 

with a very positive spirit as my companion was able to relate a story and 

share some scriptures from 3 Nephi.  As we walked home i tihnk the only words 

muttered for a while were ´´Drugs will destroy a family´´
  On a more positive note sunday was excellent.  Our ward (and area) is called 

Bariloche.  All the talks were about the same length and no one seems nervous 

or rushed as the speak.  Also we were able to bring that investigator i talked 

about before with us.
  The night before there was a baptism for someone in our ZLs ward and ELDER 

HOLMES got to do the baptism as him and his companion came up for the cerimony. 

He was a little taken back when asked, but managed just fine.  It was great. 

Our Zone Leaders are way great, like if i can be half the missionary that either 

E Kartchner or E Guerra are i will be very satisfied, but i´m shooting to be 

double ;-) They have a second story appartment that i would kill for with a 

constant breeze.  Past missionaries have had some fun with chalk on the walls 

and it looks pretty cool.  E kartchner holds the record with a former companion 

at 150 bananas eatin in 5 days (don´t worry, i´ll break it)
  O yeah, my birthday was this week, i used mom´s poppyseed mix to make myself a 

kinda cake, i tohught that was pretty cute.  And then the Presidents wife called 

and they sung happy b-day to me.  I appriciated the Grandparents cards and Ashley 

P´s card, and then went to work.  Later that day we were with the ZLs and, as the 

were talking about who knows what in portuguese, E kartchner suddenly turned to 

me with a big grin and was like ´´So i hear from your companion hear that you 

got a call from Sis Beynon this morning.  Got some health problems eh?´´  What? 

(totally caught off gaurd) Oh..lol No, its my birthday.  They went nuts and 

later on that night swung past our appartment to sing to me.  It was pretty great. 

A kid on the street randomly asked me how old i was that day and i got to tell him 

20 AS OF TODAY.
  Well yesterday was Zone Conferance and that was AWESOME.  I got to see Skowsen 

Whitehead Duerden and Holmes and reciepe for instan laughter and smiles.  As we 

all first gathered around the comment, ´´man you look so different´´ kept coming 

up towards one another.  Then we all realized, omgosh we´ve all finally been 

working outside in the sun.  No Wonder!  We wern´t our pale CTMselves.  We were 

so giddy, but the entire conferense was very uplifting, I even said the opening 

prayer- IN PORTUGUESE!  Its amazing how much easier it is for me to understand 

whats going on when the topics are gosspil related.
  Not to much else has been going on other than that.  Danny Freiberger keep 

pushing algon for that eagle scout.  Getting it out of the way before High School 

is such a blessing.  Shelly goodluck with everything your doing.  PNH Congrats on

a 44-0 victory on Halloween. I hope you can keep it up!  Im interested to know 

where Haylay P is living now with a newly elected President.  its amazing how 

many people keep up with that down here.  I get asked my opinion on Obama each 

day, and my response, well, i don´t really have one.  I would say on average 

people down here know more about American politics than the average American tho.
  Well (as kristi lee would say, i love the way you write your leters sis) 

thats my week in a nut shell.  I appriciate all your letters.  Im sure as soon 

as i end this email i´ll think of more to tell you, but thats all i have for now. 

Write me bunches about your lives and remember to pray and that your in my prayers. 

3 NEPHI 18:21!/Mosiah 4:15
 
Walking more than Ever,
E Neuberger
 
PS I´ll try to send pics next week, but at the moment i don´t have a great way to 

upload pics cause i don´t wanna carry my camera around sucha high crime town. 

Fam maybe you can send me one of those card readers we have sitting around?
 
PSS Alot of you, kinda a suprising amount of you. have asked what the big 

flash/bang was at the CTM.  To be honest we never found out.  We had the privlage 

of attending the temple that day which cut our p-day time in half and never had a 

chance to check it out.  The Brazies say it was just a firework. But theres no 

way thats right.  The thing never even left the ground.  I tihnk it was much 

closer to the fashion of a pipe bomb or flash grenade.  The amount of smoke we 

saw pour out of there was way more than any firework could have safely produced 

on the ground.  PSSS Polica here are like military, wish the inforced more, just 

kidding.  
 
I LOVE MACEIÓ