Life In Brazil

Elder Schwartz's Corinthian Blanket on the left

Dear Everyone!

Another great week!  I'm glad to hear that everything is going well with everyone, and that all is well at home.  It sounds like my brothers are doing big things!  Nate had a baptism and Phil on the cover of an Americorp magazine!  I'm diggin the headband Phil! 

I know, I know, I'm the worst because I've been leaving out all of the sweet details of Brazil and my daily life.  So, this week I'll give it to you.  Firstly, Elder Watt and I live in a small apartment building in a pretty nice middle class neighborhood.  Our area has a range of income classes; we have a part of our area that is a favela (slum), and a part of our area that is pretty much like the USA, but with vigilantes instead of police, because the police don't really do much.  We walk everywhere in our area, and we usually only take the bus and metro when we are going to a district meeting, or the mission office, or somewhere else.  Fun Fact:  My mission is the second smallest mission in the world besides temple square, (which personally I don't think is a mission because they don't proselyte, but that's just me).  Our ward has a good share of active members; we have an awesome ward mission leader, and an awesome bishopric!  We also have members feed us for lunch almost every day, so I get a good authentic brazillian meal every day.  In Brazil, lunch is the biggest meal of the day.  Usually for breakfast, we have bread or something small, and they don't usually have dinner until 8 or 9 at night.  Every meal, it is usuallly rice, beans, and some sort of meat, and maybe a salad.  That's pretty much what we have every day and I love it!  I don't think I'll get sick of it for these next two years!  The people of Brazil are all so awesome!  They are so friendly and hospitable, and so many people are willing to hear our message.  I love the Brazillians!

I don't have much more time but I will try to give an update on the work here.  We unfortunately didn't have a baptism this week as we had planned with Alan, because his dad wouldn't let him be baptized.  We plan on talking to his dad this week and hopefully will be able to set a date for this Saturday.  We are also planning on Joel this Saturday and if everything goes right, we might be baptizing a woman named Ana this weekend as well.  Erica and Carlos are going to be getting married on the 17th, so we planned with them to have a baptism the next day.  That's pretty much the significant progress this week.  It was kind of a weird week because on Tuesday we had to go the Policia Federal and become officially legal to be in Brazil, and that took up the whole day.  And on Wednesday I got to go on Divisions (splits) with one of our Zone Leaders, Elder Dutson, and work with him in his area.  It was awesome, he leaves at the end of this month and he helped me out and taught me how important it is to stay consistent with everything I do:  the language, scripture study, practicing, because we can always improve and always get better. 

Well that's it for this week! Until next time!

Elder Schwartz

Here's the mission office address where people can send letters/packages:

Elder Andrew Schwartz

Rua Dr. Luiz da Rocha Miranda

159, 8 Andar

Parque Jaabaquara

04344 - 010

São Paulo - SP;Brazil  

If you send a package, here's a few requests (Put on stickers of the Virgin Mary on the outside of the package for safety). Hi-Chews, Jolly Ranchers, Swedish Fish, and Twisslers are candy that are hard to come by here in Brazil.  Also they don't have peanut butter so that would be nice to send. 

Phil with the headband.....