A week of "firsts"

Hello! haha! the pictures of thanksgiving absolutely cracked me up. freaking pheobe! our little turkey.

Yes i bought a hamock for only 23 hais which is like 12 bucks.. not to bad and i love it! keeps me away from the  bugs and what not! so cool about matt going to the temple and sui and nancy im excited to hear about them! and i have to take a taxi into the city to get internet to email. im just in a little internet computer place in the city

so i forgot my planner at the house, everyweek i make a little note of something ill tell you but i forgot it so sorry! but this week was good! everyweek flies by its weird but this week we had to try to visit ever inactive member and it was a a tonnn of walking! haha Our area is huge! but my body is holding up great.  so nothing too exciting happened this week because we just were trying to get people back to church or trying to see there situation.

my portuguese is getting better and better everyday. the people here at first were soo hard to understand because they talk funny. haha they just say stuff funny and even to me who doesnt speak portuguese sounds funny! all the people south make fun of them. its like west virgina or some other funny state with thick accents. but every day i understand more and more and its awesome i love it.

this week was a lot of firsts here.. so i officially have a gnarly farmers tan and its already gross, cant wait to see it in 2 years haha. it just looks like a wetsuit tan line ya know? so another first, i saw my first big spider. i was helping someone move and i was carying this box that was full of tiles so it was heavy and fragile. all of a sudden a freaking huuuggee spider ran around from the bottom of the box and on the top! this thing was soo big. and i couldnt just drop the box because everything would have broken. so finally i get the box to the ground and the spider took off. nobody wanted to smash it because it woulda just gotten all over their shoes and stuff. too funny.

Every house here basically if its not in the favela has an electric fence on top of the wall securing the house so nobody can hop the fence. ive been soo tempted since the first time i saw one to touch it but figured that would be a dumb idea, and it is still a dumb idea. haha but it finally wore on me and i touched it and got zapped! almost became a real brazilian missionary (you're not a real missionary here until you accidently go "you know what" in your pants) but i almost became a real missionary not even because of the food haha. i dont think ill be touching any more electric fences.

Another first. had my first meal that was difficult to put down. the situation and everything was just ahh. haha eating lunch at a members house, with cats all over the house too. they made some chicken and then pulled out this dish out of the oven and it just smelt ransid! it was a pasta with fish kinda like sardines just literally smashed up into the pasta with like the juice and just straight raw nasty fish. gomez (his companion) wouldnt touch it but i figured hey why not try it. so with cats on the table that we were eating on and everything i tried the dish and gosh i was soo close to losing it! it was the nastiest thing ever and i barely ate anything else after because all i could smell was the fish. it was rough but worth it, right?

Elder Taylor rockin in the hammock!

oh so my hamock is wonderful by the way! first night i was sleeping in it i woke up with a gnarly pain in my stomach and was sweating and all that good stuff. haha i thought i was gonna die for a little bit, not really but i wasnt feeling good! and after about 3 hours of this during the night finally my body was getting ready to get rid of what was making my stomach hurt. i wasnt quite sure what end it was gonna come out but finally it came out and then for the next couple hours that was my situation in the bathroom. all in time for the alarm to go off in the morning. with some good prayers and pepto bismal i felt awesome but just had no energy for the day and i was fine. thats another first too, my first sick time of brazil.

a funny little story, i was walking behing this little cement soccer field and a ball came rolling by. so naturally i ran after the ball and grabed it and i just threw it all the way to the field. haha it was kinda an awkward silence and i was like what did i do. they thought it was the weirdest thing that instead of kicking the ball i threw it. it was too funny and they didnt know how to throw the ball far at all so they were amazed, when in the US it wouldnt have been anything special. we were walking by the field again later and the people had me throw the ball again to show their friends who didnt see it the first time. brasileitos are too funny.

so aside from all the awesome firsts, my testimony of the power of the scriptures have grown so much its unreal. every morning i am so excited to just learn more and read more about this perfect gospel. i just want to know everything and its really so fun. i have said this many times but i never thought that i would like reading and have such a desire to learn about something as i do now and for the rest of my life. its amazing. 2 nefi capitulo 32 versiculos 3-5 talking about feasting upon the words of Christ. how we have all the answers to any questions right in front of us. what a blessing to have the bible and then on top of that the book of mormon which contains the fulness of the the gospel of Jesus Cristo. we have all these words that Heavenly Father gave to us and all we have to do is read, study, ponder, and apply and our lives just become instantly better. i heard this saying i really like, if you want to talk to God, Pray. if you want God to talk to you, read the scriptures. so true i know that answers to prayers and direction to life can be found in the book of mormon. it can help us no matter our situation.

im excited to read your emails that i took pictures of (he doesn't have enough time to email us and the Mission President and read ours so he takes pictures of it with his camera then reads it later!), i love you all a ton and am so thankful for your examples,
love
Elder Taylor