Howdy!

Hello there!!!

Sorry it took so long to get this to you! Monday's are my pday now. It's been a very crazy week, we had an hour and a half flight to Porto Alegre and then a 5 hour drive to Santa Maria. We finally got there and that was where I called from. I was just saying that everything was good and that I made it! Pres. and Sis. Ribeiro are awesome! They are both great. The first night here was ridiculous! We slept in a very dirty garage on some dirty beds! Haha, I was pretty freaked out! But we had training the next morning which was good and I got my companion, Elder Heleno! He is awesome and loves to work and is a really great guy! Doesn't speak much English, but we work it out. 

After training we took a 3 hour bus ride to my first area, São Gabriel!! It is really great here! We got here around 930 and the apartment was tiny and pretty dirty. There are two other missionaries living with us, Elders Dean and Teixeira. But it was good to be there and I slept great that night! Thursday, I went out with Elder Dean and he showed me a lot of stuff and he explained it all to me because he can speak English. We had lunch with an awesome member family, they live in a one room house which is basically just a concrete box. It was really small, but they were so nice and inviting and the love the church and the missionaries! It was an awesome experience.

Friday was insane. We got permission to move to a much bigger and better apartment so we did, and as you can imagine the move wasn't very organized! We took everything and threw it into a truck and headed out. It's been crazy and a real pain to move in though! And we didn't get to do a lot of actual missionary work this weekend because of it. Yesterday was great! Church was fun and a lot of people talked at me and I just smile and understand a little bit of what they are saying. We then walked around and made some contacts and we taught a couple of lessons which were very neat. It was good to actually do what I've been preparing to do for two months now! I told myself that I would never miss the MTC but I do. I especially miss having 3 square meals a day. We always get lunch though and lots of it too! The members feed us every day!

I will attach some pics from the MTC and I only have a couple from here, but I will try and send those. This computer is having issues so I will get as much as I can to you! We are blessed to have a couple missionary live close by. Elder and Sister Phillipelli! They are super nice. I wish that I could talk more and I forgot to bring the address of the mailbox here, so I will do that next time! I love you all tons and tons and I hope that every thing is well! I am going to keep going, it's harder here than it was in the MTC for sure, but I can do it. I love you all so much and wish that I could see you and talk to you in person!

Tons of love,

Elder Stringer

Well hello there!!

Dearest Family!

It is most excellent to hear from you this fine afternoon! I love reading emails! I do believe that my departure date is Jan 22!!! Two weeks from today! I am so excited to get out there and do some work! I don't know if you could tell from my last email, but I am running out of things to say. Basically I have done some studying and a little more of that and I sleep a little bit every now and again too! I really do enjoy it here though, I've made lots of great friends and I've learned so much! It is great to hear that you all had fun over the holidays! I wish you all luck getting back into the swing of things. I think that winter is going to come really quickly and then the crazy thing is i will only have one more summer here. Its insane to think about. We had mission conference on Sunday and it was amazing! It was very spiritually uplifting! We also have cycled through another pair of Brazilian roommates  one more pair left to go. I will miss these guys, they just left this morning. I can't even imagine weather under 70 degrees right now, much less single digits!! Typically the coolest that we can get our classroom here is 75 degrees and it feels so good! The language is really coming along! During mission conference, I could understand almost all of what the speaker was saying! But I'm pretty sure that the accent is very different and they say different words down in Santa Maria.

I'm glad to hear that the jazz and cougs are winning! Their aren't a lot of jazz fans down here, so whenever we talk basketball I always end up having to defend them and that's not always easy to do! I also appreciate the movie quotes! It's great to hear about everyone receiving their mission calls! That's so exciting! I'm pretty sure that Tyler goes into the field this week and Hunter to the MTC, with Xander following next week! Those lucky ducks are on the 6 week schedule now! There are so few Americans here now! We are still the youngest district and we are on week 7! We have gotten only about 30 from Provo and 2 from home since I got here! I think that we are supposed to get 5 or so tomorrow and they may be joining in with our district, if this is the case I'm bummed because I will have to give up the best seat in our classroom to make room for them. We got to go to the temple again today! It was awesome! I can't believe that I will only be able to go one more time. And I don't think that I will go at all in the field. I'm not exactly sure, but from what I hear, I will fly to Porto Allegre and then take a bus to Santa Maria. That might be a long day! I don't know if you could tell, but I was really tired when I wrote my last email. I just read it again and it's kinda all over the place!

I always love hearing about what's going on up there! You guys are the best and I wish you all luck with work, school, Pocatello (hehe) and life in general! I love you guys tons and tons! You are the greatest family in the entire world!

Love,

Elder Stringer

Feliz Ano Novo!

Dear Family,

 

 

Happy New Year! It sounds like you all had a good one! We did too, the people here love to party! The city set an alarm for us at midnight, it was insane! Fireworks were shooting off everywhere! The whole sky was lit up! I didn't sleep much. We also got to watch a New Years Eve movie, The Emma Smith Story. It was pretty good and really nice to take a break from studying just to watch for a while. We also got to watch part of a talk that Elder Holland gave to some mission presidents. It was amazing to say the least! 

We got to go to the temple for the first time in 2 weeks today! It was great! I still am not sure, but I think that I am leaving a week early, which would mean that I would only have 2 more p days here!! As much as I love the MTC, I am ready to leave. I hope that Mason had fun in Hawaii. I can't believe that I was there a year ago! It doesn't feel like it was that long ago! Things are going well here though. I am so excited to watch the Hobbit and Les Mis when I get back! I think that there will be lots of movies that I will need to catch up on! 

New Year's Eve was the first time that we got churrasco here! It was also the first non breakfast meal that i didn't have beans and rice. I missed them actually! I really miss not going to Lava, I haven't been over Christmas for a couple of years so when I get back it's going to be awesome! I'm really tired basically most of the time here, I try to stay awake but it doesn't always work out. I wrote you all letters through missionties so I can't really think of what else I want to say. Oh yeah, I have been working on structuring sentences in Portuguese and as much as I love the gospel, I'm getting kind of tired structuring gospel sentences. I was wondering if you could send me some of your personal favorite movie quotes (like president Bill Pullman's famous speech) or something that I could structure. I know that it's kind of weird, but I think that it would spice things up a little bit. I love you guys so much and I even worry about you! You don't have to worry about me though, I'm doing fine. Before we know it, I will be in Santa Maria! And after that KC will be married! And then it will be Christmas again! And I think that some other important stuff will happen in between those events, but I can't really think right now. You guys are the most bestest and I miss you lots and I love you more and I am excited for the day when I can tell you about all the cool stuff that I am doing once I get in the mission field. Don't get me wrong, I like the MTC too.

 

I am very excited for 2013 and it is going to be a year that I will definitely never forget! 

 

I love you all soooooo much!!!! You seriously are the best!!! Seriously.

 

Love,

 

Elder Stringer