Among the Gaúchos: Birthday!!! and Becoming a Gaúcho

First off I got my package last week thank yall so much! I’m trying to make the goodies last, haha. I got Easter for my birthday week- good stuff. Funny stories this week: so one night Elder Usieda woke up and apparently I was counting in Portuguese which I was kind of proud that my subconscious is trying to speak Portuguese. Also one day our land lord dude was cleaning the water tank on our roof or something like that and he did it wrong, so water started to flow down the side of the house and we could see it going down the window and then water started coming out of the light sockets and that was crazy but he got it all fixed up now (at least we hope haha).

This past Thursday was the day of becoming a Gaúcho! We ate lunch at a member’s house and I had my first real churrasco! (shoo-HA-sco) which is the Brasilian meat on a spit that you would get at a Brasilian steak house, and like everyone here has a thing to cook the churrasco in and it’s a big gaúcho thing and I finally got to eat at one! It was super good and then later that day I had my first chimarrão (shim-uh-how)(nasal on the how). So for chimarrão you have this special cup and a special straw and you put in this herb that they use and you pour in hot water with the herb and then there is a filter at the bottom of the straw that you suck the hot water through and literally everyone here drinks it all the time and its a gaúcho trade mark so I had to try it and... it was awful! hahaha goodness I just didn’t like it at all ughhh it was just bitter hot water with a bad smell to me but the love it (like last week there was a national chimarrão day or something) so now at least I can say that I’ve tried it and I’m that much closer to being a Gaúcho, haha, sort of.

And then Domingo was my BIRTHDAY!!! yayayayay 20 years woohoo! And it’s kind of funny because everyone here thinks I’m at least 22 or 26 or something. Anyway lots of people sang happy birthday to me, Elder McCutcheon and the other elders when I got up, our entire district called and sang parabéns (Brasilian happy birthday) and Elder Fávero my first companion called and sang with the missionaries at his house and so that was good. And on that beautiful Sunday morning... it was raining, joy, and here when it rains like no one comes to church so we had about 30 people instead of the normal 70ish rough, but it was all good. So the other missionaries decided to play a joke on me too, they told me that our lunch had fallen through and it was already Sunday so we couldn’t buy anything and practically nobody was at church including Irma Iara who would have helped us out and made us lunch for sure. But they said we still had some beans and rice at the house so we were going to have that and they were like telling everyone at church that lunch fell through so I started to really believe it. Then as we were walking home in the rain and I was thinking of how to rig a makeshift birthday cake out of some cookies I had, we passed by Irma Iara’s house and she had everything prepared for lunch (which was really great after fasting which here in Brasil since lunch is the big meal we fast from the end of lunch on Saturday till lunch on Sunday) and lunch at Irma Iara´s house is always the best. We even had a cake with candles that said 20 and they sang parabéns for me and it was just a big blessing and a great birthday "surprise" haha. So today here in the centro of Santa Maria I’ll get like a Brasil soccer jersey or something gaúcho-y for a present woohoo!

Birthday lunch at Irma Iara's house

Anyway, work with Elder Usieda is coming, I definitely feel that I am progressing as a missionary and we are working better together but still things can be kind of stressful when we both feel that we are trying our hardest and all of our plans fall through and all of our investigators and just complicated and we don’t "see" results but all we can do it keep moving forward with faith!

So here I am in Brasil a little bit older and a little bit wiser (I hope haha) love you all so much and I just heard from some other missionaries that Ive got a bunch of letters at the post office! Love you all so much and I can’t wait to talk with the family this Sunday YEA!!!

Love Elder Pierce

Lots of pics: