Hey--

this week was good. we found a sweet little kid that we´re teaching. he´s actually 12, but he´s sweet. we taught him the other day and told him about Joseph Smith and then he prayed. then we saw him the other day and he was like, "ya, i prayed and I know that its true." so now he´s gonna get baptized. awesome.

this week i also had a division with elder myrrha. i learned a bunch from him. my comp and i split up and each went with the zone leaders for 2 days, and that was really helpful. elder myrrha is kinda weird, but at the same time, he´s an awesome missionary. we talked to so many people, and i swear we enter every house that we knock on.

here´s a story about the satan worshipper we accidently taught the other day: so, we were 5 for 7 with knocking on houses on friday. only 2 people had turned us down, and we didn´t wanna let our ratio go down. so we hit this one house and the people seemed cool but then said no. so, we ask them if there´s anyone else that lives there we can talk to, and they go to get the guy who lives in the house that´s in the back of the yard. he was super weird. i didn´t realize what he was wearing at first because i was too focused on his voice which was really high and feminine. he seemed gay and probably was, but that´s not important. the clothes he was wearing were all whiteand plain,and he had cords tied around his biceps and also a rope thing around his neck. i figured he was just part of some strange religion, which he was. elder myrrha asked him about it and if we could go inside and hear more about his religion, and then we´d tell him about ours.

So we go inside. at first everything just seems chill, but then as i looked around i start seeing all these weird statues of animals in that creepy egyptian style you see in movies. i didn´t understand a lot of what he said, but i felt the Spirit leave and i had no idea what was going on. it was crazy because you don´t realize how strong you have the Spirit and how sensitive you are to it until you feel it leave as quickly as it did. buuuut....so we´re listening to this guy, and i´m just going crazy-town because the only word that i understood that gave away what he really did was "umbanda," which is a type of macumba which is what satan worshippers do down here. that was the clue i had. i later found out that he had been explaining the different types of spirits that possess his body when he does his rituals. but then he proceeded to show us this home-made movie of people doing some sort of ritual. there were all these people dancing and wearing masks of animals and weird clothing and it was creepy. just imagine a toned-down, dehollywood-ized version of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. the Spirit was a thousand miles away from that creepy place and it felt like it. but then we left and that was good. said goodbye to the crazy man and the spirits that possess his soul.

other cool things that happened this week: we tried making açaí, which is the most delicious thing ever. its this fruit that only grows in brazil and you make this smoothie out of it which is awesome. so we were making that in the blender and elder maier was blending. he was stirring it with a spoon while it was blending, and accidently let go of the spoon. the blade attacked the spoon for a second, before breaking the side of the blender thing and there was a huge whole in the side of the blender. sweet, frozen açaí shot all of the table, but it was still delicious.

also, fun fact: the banks and postal service here are both going on strikes, starting the 24th of this month i think. everyone, by all means, keep sending letters and stuff. it may just sit in a wearhouse for a while until the strike ends and the mail-man is happy. but i will get it eventually so, its all good.

well, hope you guys had a good week. be good. love ya,

Elder Tasso