Among the Gaúchos: "Não Fez Frio Ainda" and The Maria Contact

"A day in the life..."- Santa Maria, Brasil

7/14/2014

Oi everyone back home I hope your summers going great! And here it feels like summer is coming early, haha. When I first arrived in Santa Maria everyone one would say "Só espera vai fazer muito frio" (just wait it will be very cold) and then when it was starting to get cold everyone said "Só espera não fez frio ainda" (just wait it hasn't been cold yet). But now it’s getting almost hot during the day and every one is saying that it didn't even get that cold and that the cold already passed, so much for that "gaúcho winter" I was promised but we've still got another month I guess of winter so we´ll see.

Elder Usieda (who is feeling much better) and I had a funny experience while we were making some contacts batendo portas (hitting doors) this past week. Here in Santa Maria there are a lot of women with the name Maria. So he decided that we would try and talk with this one lady and he said "Good afternoon, we are missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ and we are looking for someone named Maria who lives on this street do you know where she lives?" and the lady thought for a moment and then directed us to a house a little ways down the street where Maria lived. It was too funny because it was just an idea because there were so many Marias to try and find one and it worked! So we went over to Maria´s house and spoke with this elderly lady. And we said "Hello we are looking for a woman named Maria" and she asked the last name and so we were like "uhhh... we don’t know the last name" then she said "Maria da Silva?" and we said "yup that’s it" and she said that it was her and then "who sent you?" so we told her it was the other lady from up the street (which was true, haha) anyway we gave a quick lesson to her and her husband and we have a new trick in our bag that worked out pretty well haha the Maria Contact.

And I have to comment on the vergonha (shame) that was the Brasilian Soccer team, wow 7-1 we could hear literal sobs as we walked through the streets that night from kids crying that Brasil had lost. A funny point is that I to a Brasilian look like a German haha we had to "be careful in the street" haha (joke). And now with Germany (Alemanha here in Brasil, weird name) as champion we can get back to normal so that’s good. And we had a Birthday party for the grandson of a senhora in our ward and we ate cake and it was super good :)singing happy birthday for Bernardo (the 2 yr old little boy) everyone claps while singing the happy birthday song