November 11, 2009- Brazil Blackout!

Hey everybody. This week has been pretty good. We do the usual, walk a lot and teach a lot. Last night we had a Family Home Evening night in the house of one of the members. It is a single mom with a son and a daughter, but they had 4 or 5 friends each over. The lesson went great! The mom is a convert and I am not sure about the children. The son doesn't come to church because he lives with the dad in another city. So we played some games and taught a lesson, had some snacks, it was good. After that we took a bus to the center of Osasco to stay in the house of the Zone Leaders (today we the whole zone, met at the stake center and played soccer and ate pizza). We get there about 10:20 or so and about 10:30 the power goes out, that was pretty crazy, not that its a big deal here, we turned on flashlights and it was time for bed anyways, but we sat outside talking for a while and then went to bed, the blackout was all over about 4:30 this morning the power comes back and there was a portable fan by my feet and it was on, so I got very cold very quickly and woke up, moved the fan and went back to sleep for two hours. Soccer today went great, I really enjoyed playing and I played pretty well with and against the Brazilians. I scored a lot of goals. I didn't think I would get to send email because of the blackout, because some areas do not have internet access, but we found a internet shop that has internet. We have some good investigators that we are gong to visit tonight. I think that it will go pretty good. Also, we set a baptism date for Mara, one of our investigators. Its great to see how happy the gospel can make people and how happy all the recent converts are that live here. Its good to get the emails from all of you guys, thanks for all the love and support. Tomorrow is Zone conference, so I can recieve letters tomorrow if I have any waiting at the mission home. Also, next Thursday I can get letters too because it is our interviews with the Mission President that we have every transfer. The next transfer date is December 2nd, I am hoping that my companion and I both stay here in JD Velasco. We work well together and I really like it here. Oh, and I know that they say about Mexico don't drink the water, well here they said in the CTM don't drink the water or eat from street vendors. Well, I drank the water and ate from street venders and well, nothing happened, except that it was some of the best food I have ever had, ha. I drink mostly filtered water. We have 20 gallon jugs of water in our house for drinking. But some of the members don't have filtered water, and I drink it when we are there and I don't really taste a difference. I haven't gotten sick or felt sick or anything and many others drink the water, too, so I don't think its that big of a deal, yet I still bring my water bottle with me when I go places or stop by the church to get a drink, the water there is filtered. Well, my time is up for the week guys, I love you all very much! I hope and pray that all is well for you all and things continue to go great1
Love, Elder Chase Caldwell