hey guys,

so this week has been classy i guess. everything is pretty much routine now, so i won´t have too many exciting stories for you. but i did start righting down funny things i could say in my planner, so you guys are still getting hooked up. here we go:

i got the worst haircut of my life last week. the barber spoke very little english, but i managed to tell him that i wanted it shaved a half inch everywhere. well, that didn´t happen. i got a quarter inch around the ears, half on the sides, and 3/4 on the top. and my hair is so curly that he couldnt get the calics out of my hair so i have this wave in my hair which is pretty awesome. and then he also missed a spot on the back of my head, and its growning into a jedi-braid. i´m not cutting it until i leave the ctm, and maybe longer. i´ll send you a pic when it´s longer.

this week has been really good, although everything is now fairly old. the portugues is coming, and everyweek i look back and can´t realize how much more i can say. i can teach a broken first lesson in portuguese, and can also street contact someone and say basic stuff which is awesome. we´re starting on the second lesson and that´s also super cool. we practice everything a bunch, and i love it. testifying of the Gospel over and over again is sweet.
my teachers are also super cool. we have two girls, and they´re really nice. irmã veroníca and irmã érika are both amazing. they both served missions and i´m super grateful for all they do.

we also got some brazilians in our room. they´re tight. one´s from recife and i think the other is from rio. the guy from rio, from what we understand, told us its super sketch sooo...... And they both love soccer. the first night, as they were unpacking, they both had brought 3 or 4 of their favorite soccer jerseys and cleats and all sorts of stuff. we talked about soccer for like 15 mins and they just told us about all the teams and players and everything. i can actually understand a lot of portuguese. i can probably understand about 45-50 percent of what people say as long as they speak slow, and if its about gospel related topics then i can understand even more because my gospel vocab is a lot better.

thursday was chicken nugget day. and it was amazing. i totally forgot what american food even tastes like, and even though i´m sure those nuggest are probably nasty, to me, they were the best. that´s almost all i ate that meal.

i´ve also been playing the piano in church. i´ve played for the last two sundays which has been kinda cool. anyway, just tell diane tiechert that´s what i´m doing (hahahaha) cause she told me so many times that´s what´d happen.

my companion, elder ekstrom, is also really cool. he is no longer constapated which is good. and he is also just a really nice person. he´s really fun to be around which is good. and i´m also super glad that he isn´t one of those missionaries that thinks he´s a rebel. we both love the gospel and are both excitied to prepare to preach and gospel and learn portuguese, which i´m very grateful for. anyway, that´s cool.

oh, and you know how i packed my dragon shirt? well i did, and i everyone thinks its awesome. we´ve had some discussions about dragons (i´ve pretty-much led them) so now i´m basically dragon-boy. ya.

so every night we have an hour of gym time, and we started to ball it up. when i got here i was horrible at basketball, and i´m still not good, but haha, i made a couple shots the other day, so that cool. my comp is really good though. he shoots from anywhere and makes them all so when we´re on the same team we´re basically unstoppable.

the weather here is also super humid. the first couple days, it was more like summer and it was unbearably hot but then it got a lot better and its cooled off a lot a lot. but whenever we play any sort of sports i sweat another couple pounds.

the candy is also super good here. maybe i´ll send you some. although i don´t what i can or cant´ mail. one missionary tried to send something to america, and he said it was like 50 reals, which is like 30 US, so i don´t know. if i can, i´ll send something funny.

anyway, i love you guys a bunch, but i´m not homesick at all anymore. so don´t worry about me. i´m doing fine, and i know this is where i should be. I love the gospel and the book of mormon. i know that it is the word of God, and i know that it was translated by Jospeh Smith, though the power of God. anyway, i gotta go, but i love ya. be good

Elder Tyler Tasso