Fireworks

Hey yáll.

Again, the longest week of my life.

First things first. I hate fireworks. São Paulo has no rules about the use of fireworks. Or, if they do, nobody feels obligated to obey them. It was impossible to sleep on New Years Eve. It felt like we were in a war zone. People are insane. They were all standing on top of their houses and chucking lighted fireworks off the roof! Here in São Paulo, the houses are all built on top of each other without any sense of organization, so I was afraid that a firework was going to come in our window. My bed being under the window, I had an emergency fire escape plan all drawn up in my mind...just in case. At one point, I was just about to fall into a half-sleep, when someone miscalculated their throw and a firework slammed into our house. There was no sleeping after that. I wasn´t watching the clock, but I could still tell when it hit midnight. At first I thought it was a roll of thunder that just kept growing and never stopped. After about 30 seconds, I realized that that was the sound of all the people, in one of the largest cities in the world, setting off fireworks at the same time. Crazy. After that night, things went back to normal. A few fireworks every day.

In the United States, I believe that New Years Eve is the big event to celebrate. Everyone parties and then gets on with the new year on the first of January. Not here. The first of January was bigger than Christmas was. We showed up to one of our investigator´s houses and found the entire sink, along with a trash can, full of empty beer cans. Stupid holidays.

On the way back, we saw a person in the street ahead of us. They ran down one of the intersecting roads, and after they were gone my companion and I both looked at each other in confusion. Was that a man or a woman? It looked mannish. But it was wearing a skirt and flowery shirt, and looked like it had boobs. As we passed that intersecting street we found 20 full-grown, slightly overweight, men dressed up as women and playing soccer in the street. Interesting. I thought about passing out Word of Wisdom pamphlets, but decided against it.

One day we were talking with one of our teenaged recent converts and she was telling us that there weren´t many women that drive Ónibuses. True fact. She said that the women drivers were all crazy. I find the men drivers to be crazy, so I wasn´t sure how to respond to that. The next day, we were in the middle of crossing the street (definitely our turn to cross) and an Ónibus came within three feet of flattening my companion. It was a lady. I found the irony humerous.

Just in case yáll were unaware, it is very hot. I don´t think I have ever sweat this much in my entire life. And I worked as a cart-pusher during the summer in Texas. Hot, hot, hot. The other day we were sitting at lunch, and my companion asked if my nametag had hurt me. I was a little confused by the random question. She said she thought that maybe it had poked me, because it looked like I was bleeding. It did, in fact, appear that I had been bleeding, but there was no wound. Then the man who was feeding us lunch discovered the problem. I was sweating so prufusely that my nametag had started to rust and was rubbing rusty sweat all over my skin. Gross, gross, GROSS.

Let´s see, what else. We met a man in the street who gave me the nickname of Barbie. His whole family has agreed that I look like Barbie. We went back the next day and then we met his 28 year old son, who is uncomfortably convinced that I am a lovely person. He asked me how to propose in English. I´m tired of these people.

Worst story ever. We went to teach this cute old man named José. When we got there, he asked if we could do the lesson in his workshop down the street, because we would be disturbed in his house. We were like, ok, whatever. When we got there we saw two cockroaches outside. He informed us that an hour or two earlier he had sprayed bug killer inside, so now the cockroaches were leaving, but that there should only be a couple, already dead, ones inside. Whatever, that´s fine. We walked inside. The walls, ceiling, and floor were crawling with about 5 different species of cockroaches. The biggest ones were a good 3-4 inches long. Some flew. Not ok. While my companion struggled to keep down a panic attack, José informed us that cockroaches won´t hurt us. Don´t care. They have to die. I spent a good 10 minutes killing every cockroach I could. I felt like I was playing that dancing game they have at Gattiland. The one where you have to step on the spiders that light up in order to win tokens. Like Wac-a-Mole with your feet. After we at least cleared the floor space, we sat down and started the lesson. I decided to exercise my faith and close my eyes during the opening prayer. When I opened them again, José had a huge cockroach on his foot. No more closing of the eyes. As Sister Bruno taught the Restoration at light speed, I killed every cockroach that came within reach. By the end of the lesson there was a pile of about 20 cockroaches. Gross. I guess you could say I´ve conquered my fear, but they are still nasty.

That´s all I have time for, but hopefully it gave you a somewhat accurate picture of this week. Have a good week!

Sister Peart