Oct 20, 2009 Week 7- proselyting in Sao Paulo!

olá todas!
so this week has been like super amazing and super sucky at the same time. and by this week, i mean the last week.
soo... with the good stuff.
We went proselyting last friday in downtown são paulo and it was just absolutely amazing/nutz! first off, our large van got stuck in traffic on the way there cuz there was some parade goin thru all the streets. we saw several crazy people all dressed all funny, one guy was wearin cardboard boxes for clothes! when we finally made it to like what i think was kinda like the city square, we went out and started lookin for people to talk to. after we prayed, seriously w/in like 2 minutes we saw this girl about our age sittin by herself on a ledge. and i was just like "Lets go talk to her!" so we did, and after we explained who we were and why we can barely talk we started talkin about the gospel to her. she was pretty interested so we coninued talkin to her and brought up the book of mormon and talked about prophets and stuff. after E. Ghormley bore his testimony i think she really felt thru the spirit that we were preaching the truth to her. she took the bom (book of mormon)and we said bye to her, and then later as we were walkin around, we saw her still sittin there, reading the bom! we were soo happy. so then i went to go write my testimony in my bom and this stinky old bum sat next to ghormz and started ramblin on about who knows what, long story short, he basically changed his entire wardrobe right there next to us. wierd. then he got into an argument with these teenagers that walked by, so we were like caught in the middle of this really awdward situation and we just casually slipped off. lol. this next experience was just simply awesome. we were walkin around in the park, away from that crazy bum argument, just talkin and smilin and stuff, and this skateboarder that looked about 22 or so just yells a hello to us, so we went to go talk to him, i said hello and how are ya doin and stuff to him, not expecting to get into much of a gospel oriented convo and he just started askin us what we were doin. we told him that we were missionaries for our church, and then asked if he´d like to hear a message from us. he gladly accepted and we just got into this awesome very mutual conversation. he was soo cool. he would ask us questions, and we would explain them the best we could and he would understand. and what else was crazy is that i was able to understand like at least 90% of what he said! soo... i then shared my testimony with him after talkin to him for about 10 to 15 minutes or so and then i gave him the book of mormon and some stuff to read in it, including moroni 10:3-5 and told him to pray about it and what we said to konw if it was true. he agreed to and then told us that when he first saw us, he recognized a spirit about us, he actually said he "saw our spirits" and that we just seemed soo happy and stuff. he said that he really felt something in his heart while talking to us and he kept looking to the sky and thanking God during our convo with him. he said "God bless you!" to us and we said the same to him, then he skated off as we said bye. then we watched him, and immediately he started sharing the bom with a girl that he went and sat by. ghormley and i just looked at eachother and were like, WHAT!!!??? so stoked, so we decided to go talk to him again and get his name. his name was jusei or something like that, and before we left he made sure to get out his backpack and show us his very marked up bible. it was soo cool. later, we look back at him again, and he had another skateboarder dude there along with the girl, and was still sharin the book of mormon. how incredible, we created a missionary! lol
then these two guys came up to us and started talking to us. the first guys name was kevin, and he happended to be a drug-runner from london that just got out of prison the day before and it happened to be his birthday too! and he was drunk, lol, para bens! i being the lucky one, got to talk to him, while ghormley got to talk to the friend he had just met and was supposedly going to go buy some food for. the friends name was Crisiano. and ghormley got to have an awesome in-depth convo with him. basically gave him the entire first lesson. cristiano was really feelin the spirit and askin lots of good questions and ghormley was really able to help him out. he gave cristiano our last bom and some stuff to read and he was immediately happy and started reading it.
soo, let me now tell ya the next chain of intersting events. while we were waitin for our van to come pick us up, elder burt and i joined 2 random guys juggling a soccer ball. it was way cool, our entire district and some random onlookers just kinda circled around us while we, and two like 40 yr old dudes all just juggled a soccerball. it was soo sick. first time i´ve juggled with a real ball since i´ve been here. anywho, as we were juggling, our teacher wasnt able to flag down our van so we had to wait there while he tried to make a loop around the block. so we waited there for many more minutes. as we were waiting there we saw 2 sets of drunk dudes both go up to a wall, different times, and starting to pee all over it. both times some street police saw them and tried to go up and talk to them. the first group did get caught and talked to and even got poked by some nightsticks. the second group saw the po po´s coming and just whip´d and zipped and ran away! haha. soo funny.
we ended up havin to walk about 2 km´s away to another point to meet the van cause he could not make it to us due to the parade. as we were walking there, ghormley and i being in the back of the line, a brazilian girl with a group of 3 other friends, all about our age approached me and asked me what we were doin and if i spoke portuguese. i responded that we were missionaries and that i could speak a little. another girl in the group that could speak english then asked us if we knew what was going on and if we wanted some beer. we responded with a no thank you and that we really had no clue what was going on. another girl told us that it was basically the equivalent to the thanksgiving in america. sooo... we finally made it to the meeting spot of the van and piled in. then the other district made it there too. however, there was a problem. their van was not able to make it there due to getting stuck in traffic. soo, another long story short, we piled 25 people into a van about the size of like a dodge sprinter. it was absolutely nuts, the vehicle is only meant to hold about 14 or 15. that trip kinda sucked back to the mtc.
soo, that was proselyting! what an experience!

so, what i failed to write in last weeks lack of an email is that we had lots of class. ladadadada, i got a hairwreck by the barber, ended up taking elder ellis´s trimmers and cutting and trimming it up myself to make it look better. cant really remember anything else distinct from 2 weeks ago. however, i think i caught the swine flu. i started feelin crappy saturday morning and have felt like that since then. our doctor wasnt in due to a heart-attack he suffered so our mish pres.´s wife checked out my throat and found that i had some pustules back there and said that i probably should take some antibiotics. i had a fever on monday morning and skipped class and slept for like 5 and a half hours thru lunch and all. we went to the são paulo temple today. and Elder Richard G. Scott is going to talk to us this friday. our departure date got bumped to next friday, so we´re here another week. lots of people were kinda complaining, but i´m alright with it. i get to hear and see an apostle talk, shake his hand. and hang with ghormley for another week. oh, one last thing. last sunday, ghormley was talking about his bro´s mish, and was talking about his bro´s training companion, and guess what his name was! Adam Wadsworth! i was like, No way dude! thats crazy, i know him, he was from roseburg, went to my ward, and i´m friends with his younger bro clayton who is serving in germany! small world.
anyway, love ya all! faça a diferença! paz ;)

-Elder Yuma