Spiderman: Enter The Brazilverse

(Editor's note: this email was originally going to be titled "Far From Home" in reference to the Spiderman film of the same name. The title has since been updated to account for recent events.)

Hoooooooooooooooooo boy folks. Buckle up. 

Prologue
In the beginning of the "Adjusting to Missionary Life" book, there is a stress chart with the colors green, yellow, orange, and red, green being "I can appropriately handle the stresses of missionary life and feel the spirit" and red being "God has abandoned me". If I were to track my day to day using that chart, it would probably look like an impressionistic painting. Or a synesthete's interpretation of Mars by Gustav Holst.

If you got that joke, you're a nerd.

But seriously, it has been a struggle. I probably cried more in the first two days of my being out in the mission field than I cried in the past like year. My MTC district was 100% carrying my mental for the last month. But we're chilling. Whenever I'm actually out on the streets, doing the work, I feel a lot better, and its pretty awesome to see myself concretely expanding in capability and faith. So, yeah. Philippians 4:13. We chilling.

I was originally going to compartmentalize this a little more with some of the struggles and good parts but that's too tough. Plus, struggles become successes! That's kind of the point of them. So, Imma just throw all my nonsense thoughts into a pot, everything all together- 'sweet and sour', if you will.

Also, I promise I'll get to the Spiderman thing.

'Sweet and sour', if you will
The food outside of the CTM is delicious. I don't know how they manage to make rice, beans, and meat so good every meal but it's honestly amazing. Also, the salads here are delicious. I liked salads before but there's just something about the vegetables here that is so good. Also, the people here are just insanely generous regardless of their circumstances. The cleanest, nicest building I've walked into besides the Church was a homeless shelter where we taught a lesson to three kind old men, and they gave us bananas afterwards. Literally everybody is leaping to share and love us; the love of Christ is thick here.

And it's a huge problem. 

See, the culture here is such that its rude to refuse/not eat all the food given to you cuz it means you thought it was bad. But I just... can't eat that much. Not only am I trying to be a little less unhealthy, but I just physically cannot eat like 5 meals a day. I never thought I would be literally praying to be able to eat more food, but here we are. For example: yesterday, we stopped by a member's house to help her move a couch. So, she sits us down at her table and gives us some stuff to make sandwiches. Awesome. Little snack before the job. Then, she gives us soda; it's delicious. Then, she cooks up a batch of french fries. They're delicious. I'm full. Then, she tells us to eat another sandwich, which I am able to politely refuse because she literally just put down another batch of french fries. Ok; I can stuff myself a little bit for the sake of manners. Then, she makes ANOTHER BATCH OF FRENCH FRIES. I feel sick. I help move the couch.

Then, 30 minutes later, we went to another member's house for dinner.

As much as I'm complaining, I do really appreciate the kindness and love in this city. It's like if New York was filled with kindly hobbits instead of people from New York. And if New York had 25 million inhabitants. And was built over a ton of hilly jungle. And also if hobbits were brazilians. That's exactly what it would be like.

My companion and trainer, Elder Monteiro, is the goat. He's hilarious and a great missionary, which is good because he has to carry everything we do lol. He's helping me learn a ton of portuguese. And, speaking of portuguese, hoooooooo boy. It is a struggle. Initially, I literally could not understand anything. It's awesome though, cuz now I can pick out some words and extrapolate meaning from context, save for a few key details like: Who are we talking about? When did this happen? What happened? But seriously, the Portuguese will get there. It'll take time, but I might even be able to hold a conversation in 2 years.

The Origin Story
Ok folks- "Let's do this one more time."

So there's this family of recent converts who are awesome. We've gone there quite a bit to help teach their son Igor, cuz he doesn't really understand/like reading the Book of Mormon. It's a whole thing. He's super cool. But anyways, we go over there this one time and I'm talking about Alma 44 and the Stripling Warriors in my ratchet portuguese and the mom brings me and my companion some herbal tea. It's delicious; I ask her what plant she used to make it but accidentally ask her how to make herbal tea in general so they give me a whole lesson in making tea before we figure out the misunderstanding, then she brings me out to her garden and shows me the plant she used to make it. I didn't understand the name but it's all good. We go back in, keep talking with my boy Igor, and then the mom goes to make us some sweet rice. Then, she says (in portuguese; translation provided by Bonneville Distribution) to my companion: "Oh! You'll never believe this!"

My companions says "What?"

She goes "Look what is in this water bucket!"

And there, floating in the water (specifically, the water which was used to make the tea I just drank) was a spider the size of my hand.

So no, I didn't get bitten by a spider. I just drank dead spider water.

My companion hasn't let me forget it; he keeps pointing out whenever there's a spider on the road or in the house. It's kind of cool though because, for some reason, I don't need my glasses anymore. Also, the keys on this keyboard are really sticky lol. The only sad part is that the whole 'hanging upside down in an alley and kissing a cute redhead' thing is probably going to have to wait until after the mission.

Finale
Alrighty I could probably write for another hour about everything that's happened but that's what next week's P-day is for! By the way, my P-days are Monday now. I'm really doing well and I can tell that this is going to be a crazy good experience for learning and growing which I'm really looking forward to. Love you all!

God is good,
Elder Ebbert




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