Lots of pictures!

July 28, 2014
One of the families I was teaching in Montese, and our stake president

Oi... Looks like vacation was fun.. We don’t really get vacation here.. but it’s ok, one day I’ll get to go on vacation again, haha.  I also thought it was funny that May couldn't golf since no one uses left handed clubs...except her and Dan Jeon.  Cole is lookin’ pretty tall these days, but I never trust the photos because he always tries to do something to make himself look taller when someone’s taking a picture. 

I cleaned the bathroom like.. really clean today... and I was thinking about all the times you cleaned the house over the years to keep it so clean.. I don’t know why you never asked Cole to get on his knees and scrub the toilet.. but I guess there’s still some time for him to learn. 

I always get excited Wednesday morning to see if my packages have arrived yet or not, because Wednesday morning we meet with our zone and the zone leaders bring all the packages for our zone that arrived in the mission home that week. Hopefully this is the week :) however, usually the only thing we receive is Books of Mormon and missionary pamphlets haha. So my new apartment is super nice.. it's really clean and everything’s new.. The only problem is that my fan doesn’t work... but you can't ask for too much right?
We set our fans on our suitcases because the bases of the fans are broken
O and this week we got a new Ward Mission leader.. like yesterday.. and he’s already fixing things up. He talked with the ward missionaries and we’re going to meet with them on Sunday to "train" them. And every Sunday now we’re going to have a missionary moment in the sacrament meeting where someone will have given a Book of Mormon to someone that week, and they will bear their testimony about how it was and invite someone else to hand out a Book of Mormon the next week... and it will be like that every week. We were starting to do this in my other ward in Montese, but I got transferred so hopefully it goes well here. 

We met an investigator this week as well that said he already knows the church is true, he has been going to church in the other ward for 2 weeks in my first area’s ward... but he’s going to start going to our ward here.. and he’s going to get married in August.. and he’s going to start feeding us 4 missionaries lunch haha. I’ve never seen an investigator "tão eleito" in my life haha. So on Sundays we have like 120 I think at church... it’s pretty good here...
Church building in Montese

Church building in Montese

Things are going good. I’ll send you pictures since I wasn’t able to last week. Hope you guys get home all right.  Have a good week. Love you guys.
-Élder Udy

Decorated street during the World Cup...I have to hide my camera behind my companion when I take the picture or I'll get robbed.

Street decoration during the World Cup

Birthday cake we bought for Elder G's birthday that was in the same week as mine

Baptism last Saturday

2 of the missionaries I'm living with

Festiva Julina activity

Festiva Julina activity


They brought out a huge cake...

July 21, 2014
          
           Hey family, sounds like the vacation's been fun so far. I thought it was funny how dad got another ticket.. he's always been good at that. I thought it was funny too that they ended up in Akron when you fell asleep haha. By the pictures it looks like Cole's taller than Jackson now. And it looks like it was pretty hot there. I know how you feel, haha. My fans kinda broken so it only spins like half speed... and I always point it towards me when I go to sleep, but it spins away from me after like 5 minutes. These fans are really annoying, haha. There's always something wrong with them.
          So I'm liking the new area... I'm not sure how it always happens that my ward never has a ward mission leader haha, but we talked with our stake president and he said they'll get us a ward mission leader. He said that the Bishops had a fireside with Elder Neil L Anderson and he told them that the Ward Mission Leader should be the best Man that the ward has, so we're excited to see what happens. 
          So this week on my birthday one of the families made a surprise cake for me. We were walking down the road on my birthday and we ran into one of the members here that told us that his sister wanted to talk to us. A little confused we decided to go to their house to see what it was. As we got closer we ran into another member of the family that told us the same thing... that his sister wanted to talk to us. So when we got to their house they invited us in and told us to sit down. So we sat there waiting for their sister to appear that everyone had been saying wanted to talk to us. So we waited a few minutes and all of a sudden they brought out this huge cake and like 10 people singing happy birthday haha. So it was pretty nice to feel so loved in a new area. 
         O and thanks for the information on BYU :) and to answer your questions we have district meeting on Wednesday, but in our mission we always meet with our whole zone. Which is good because our district only has 4. So my companion Elder Castanho left for the mission the same day as Shane.. He has one week more than me on the mision. He's from São Paulo. We´ll end up finishing the mission on the same day. But anyways thats about all I got.. I'll send some pictures this week... I wanted to last week but the computer I was using had windows 98 I think and wasn't recognizing my flash drive, haha. But I think this week it'll work out. Have a good week and Vacation. Até Mais!

Élder Udy

Transferred...to Caucaia

            Oiii... So turns out that no one was transferred in our house.. except for me. So now I’m in the other city Caucaia that is to the side of Fortaleza.. Its pretty much the same city haha. So I was transferred here to be District Leader... And now my companion is Elder Castanho, another Brazilian from São Paulo. When I found out I was gonna leave Montese, I was sad because there was this this guy and his son we were teaching for like 10 weeks that is gonna be baptized next week and finally when he was getting excited to get baptized.. I got transferred, but that’s how it goes I guess. I took a picture with them I’ll send it after. 
So its about time that the World Cup ended. It’s pretty hard to have lots of success when you have to stay inside so much during the week. But now that its over and I’m in a new area things are looking up. Sounds like Cole is finally learning to appreciate the finer things in life haha, but I can’t believe he got sunburned again. I don’t no why he never uses sun screen.... If he goes to a place like Fortaleza on his mission he´ll end up going home with skin cancer haha. 
           So remember how I told you that we finally got a Ward mission leader in my other ward (Park of the Nations) Parque das Nações... well I was talking with Elder Ricks whose place I’m filling here... and he said their Ward Mission Leader went inactive a few weeks ago..haha every ward I go to doesn’t have a Ward Mission Leader.
Sounds like the vacation will be fun. Nothing like some time with Wade to make you laugh haha. And Cole won’t even have anyone to fight with in the car or pick movies for him to watch. Hopefully dad won't even have to yell at him haha. Sounds like you guys will have fun. 
Sounds like Girls camp was fun. I miss listening to President Carter speak. I think he´ll be an apostle one day haha.. So I don’t really know anyone here, so doesn’t really make for too big of a birthday celebration, but I’m sure the missionaries I live with will do some celebrating with me haha. I feel like an old man now.. 20 is old. I can’t believe I’ve already been here for 8 months. So I’ll look for something to buy maybe... but seeing as I just left the area that has things to buy for an area with dirt roads idk how much shopping I’ll be doing haha... maybe I’ll just use it to buy more food :) ... o could u tell me how much money is on my debit card? O and did u find out the requirements for a brazilian to go to BYU?
So this is about all I got for this week. Sounds like everything’s going good there. Hope you guys have a good vacation. I'll send you some pictures. Tenha uma boa semana! Amo vocês!
-Élder Udy

We woke up with water covering our whole house


July 7, 2014
Friends
  Hey Mom... so I got the letter from you guys today too. Nothing is better than getting letters from home haha and I read that Cole said that he is going to be driving across Nebraska in a couple weeks. Are you guys going to go on another one of those 3 week long vacations again?
   So we met our new mission president this week. His name is President Bonini. We're gonna have another conference next week. He only talked to us for like 2 hours. Not much has changed yet here. He just added some rules like we have to go to church in our suits now.. but I think that's pretty much the only thing that changed... we´ll see what happens here in a few weeks when we have more meetings with him. 
   So it sounds like the missionaries there are livin the dream haha. While they were shooting off fireworks, playing bocce ball, ping pong, and burning holes in peoples houses. we were inside watching church movies on our 8 inch portable DVD player haha. I read in the letter that Cole got juggling pins for his birthday. I must have been missing alot these past 8 months because when I left Cole didn't have the coordination to juggle tennis balls let alone bowling pins haha. In our area there's this guy that's always dressed in a clown suit juggling sticks that are on fire in front of the cars.. hoping that someone will give him some money. 
   Dad must really like scouts to be going to scout camp for a week without any of his own kids. But I guess scout camp would be pretty fun if you're a leader... you get to leave behind all your duties and responsibilities for a week to hang out with the other leaders all day while the kids are trapped in classes. Not too bad I guess. 
   So this week we stayed in all day after we ate lunch during the Brazil game. And tomorrow as well, we will be staying in all day… it'll be kinda like another pday haha... so we´d better find another church movie to watch on our little dvd player. We finally got a Ward mission leader in our ward this week! so that was pretty exciting for us haha. He's our good friend. He's been home from his mission for 5 months and he's full of ideas on how we can integrate the ward into missionary work. 
   This week is already the last week of the transfer so we will see what happens on the next pday. So this week one day when we were washing clothes in the washing machine.. the tube where the water passes to leave the washing machine broke and we woke up in the middle of the night with water covering our entire house haha. It was pretty wild but we're slowly recovering. 
   So on the sound box you guys gave me theres over 500 songs. So one day I sat on my bed looking for the Star Spangled Banner and I finally found it. number 444. So on July 4th, the 2 Brazilians and the Argentinian and I, we all listened to the Star Spangled Banner as I sang with my hand on my heart looking at the flag that I made and hung up on the wall next to our picture of Jesus. After that I read 1 Nephi 13:30 for everyone…  they say it talks about the Americas in general, but I like to believe it talks about the United States.... All the Americans in the mission like to show their patriotism haha. 
July 4th
   I don’t really have too many new stories this week, but I’ll try to send somenext week.  Hope you guys are enjoying your summer.  Tell Cole he better get to work fixing that hole in the siding of the house, haha.  Love you guys. – Elder Udy