Alysha is the worst!

Oiven Gloiven!

First off, I am going to interpret the email rule a little bit differently. It is ok if I receive emails from everyone, I just have to email back through my parents. So you dont have to email through my parents anymore. The rules aren't really specific on that, I was just being careful but I know now that it is fine if you guys email me. This means that I want to hear from people! Just email me at this address (BrentParsons@myldsmail.net). It has been about a month there has to be at least 1 interesting thing that has happened since then (except Jake, Jake is exempt because I know nothing exciting happens in his life. Just kidding, I want to hear from you man. Are you playing this semester).

Oh yeah, and could someone send me a weekly college football update? Nothing huge, just any big upsets and of course all the BYU and Utah football scores. Please?

Alysha you are still the worst. Besides Ben. But that goes without saying.

Oh yeah, the day the missionties emails come is Saturday, not Wednesday. I think they realized how stupid it was to have all our letters come the day after P-Day. Go Warden!

Speaking of the warden...CTM life is as dull as usual. Ok it is not that bad but it is just so extremely repetitive. Do they understand that we literally sit in the same classroom, at the same desk, next to the same people, listening to the same teacher, failing to speak another language, and wear the same clothes for over eight hours a day? Do they understand that we tell our teacher that we have to go the bathroom every 40 minutes or so just because we need a break from the musty-must fest that is our classroom? Do they understand that we actually look forward to "borrowing" a rock from the plant pot in the lunchroom to put on our windowsill outside of our classroom window just to have something to live for each day? I don't think they do. But it happens :).

I forgot to tell you last week that we were going to get a break from the usual last Friday. So in everyone's fourth week here they get to go outside and go proselyting. So we all memorized our portuguese "street contact" and hopped in a crowded van and drove through the crowded streets of São Paulo to the very center, which is where they dropped us all off and said "you have three hours. Here are two copies of the Book of Mormon for each of you and 15 pass-along cards. Go." So we went. It ended up being awesome though. Elder Blackham and I (who is pretty terrified of the huge city and, well...people in general) took a while to get started. We walked around forever in the horde of people trying to get some courage to talk to someone...courage that was not found for about half an hour when we found this park where a bunch of people were sitting. So I told the young, frightened Blackham that I would break the ice by introducing us and telling them we have a message for them, then he would give them the message. He agreed to that. So we walked up to a guy sitting and I introduced us (the man looked like he had never seen two white kids in the same place in his entire life) then Elder Blackham gave the message and did really well. His portuguese is probably ten times better than mine so if he was not quite so scared to talk to people, he would be one of the best missionaries. So anyway, the guy was not very interested so we just gave him a pass-along card and I told him to call. I am pretty sure my portuguese was horrific, but he acted like he understood so that was good at least.

So after walking past a few prostitutes leaning against a garage (I guess prime whoring time is at 2:30 in the afternoon?) we found another guy sitting on some steps so we decided to go talk to him. I introduced us again and then E. Blackham gave the message. The guy was actually pretty interested so we gave him a Book of Mormon and asked him to read it and I think he might read the whole. We saw him an hour later and he was still reading it, it was way cool.

We got shot down a few times but the Brazilian people are really the nicest people I have ever met in my life. They are always laughing and smiling and even when we could tell they wanted nothing to do with our church they still listened to our message and politely told us they were not interested. It was a really good experience for my companion and I and our whole district. We all came back and realized we pretty much know nothing of the Portuguese language though, which is good because it will probably give us a new drive to try harder.

Speaking of the Brazilian people, I don't know if I have said much about our two Brazilian roommates who have lived with the four of us (Me, Blackham, Smith, and Phillips) for the last three weeks. They are so cool and I really think that I would have been best friends with one of them (Isikawa) had we not grown up thousands of miles apart. We would stay up late and just try to communicate with each other about everything, him in his broken English that he learned in high school, and my four-week old Portuguese. Unfortunately Brazi's only stay here for three weeks so Isikawa and Oliveira left this morning. It was hard to say goodbye to them last night but it was also really fun because there were 12 Brazi's leaving in the morning so we had a sort of goodbye party for them which mostly just involved a large amount of screaming on their part and many "que's?" (what?) from the Americans who had no idea what was going on. It was actually really fun though and I will miss all of them.

On to more not-so-gay-and-sentimental news, I found out last night that one of the American Elders in my Branch (Elder Thompson) who is leaving tomorrow is The Parker's cousin! Yes, the one and only Kyle "Jester" Parker's cousin. It was hilarious to find out. He also knows a bunch of guys on the BYU lax team and he was at all our home games.

Oh yeah mom you asked me what you could send to me. I don't really need anything, but if I were to WANT a few things they would be:

1. A big pack of orange tic tacs (we can't chew gum in the CTM so the constant wreak of teenage breath puts a thin film of disgust on everything)
2. Breath mints because orange tic tacs are just candy to me
3. Peachie Oh's. Dont ask why I dont know.
4. Maybe new ink for my pen dad? I still am not sure what is up with that.
5. A scandalous photo of Samuel L. Jackson so I can prove to everyone that he is indeed my friend.
6. 4 or so new pairs of black socks from MissionaryMall
7. Any food or candy is welcomed. Candy is better than money in this place. Candy allows you to buy your way out of anything.
8. Letters
9. More mouthwash
10. A midget (potty-trained). I need someone to fight off all the Brazilians who like to hit me to prove they can beat up a white kid that's bigger than them.

I will leave it up to you, mom, to decipher from that list what you think I really might need.

A couple quotes from the week:

1. Elder Korth: "I used to play Pretty Princess and I ALWAYS won."

2. Irmão Magnago (My afternoon instructor and we weren't paying attention so he said in his accented-english): "I am growing nuts!" (meant to say "going nuts!", which just set off another bout of inattention).

3. Elder Korth: "I am so disappointed in this meal! I feel like an orphan in Bangledesh."

There are more but I dont have much time, and I can tell you would have to be there for most the quotes to be funny, but even mild humor is a cause for extreme laughter in the CTM.

So we get to go out in the yard (gym) three times a week and I won't lie, my basketball skills are improving. I personally upgraded myself from retard to just slightly autistic.

Anyway, that's all my time. I try hard to make full use of my 45 minutes of email time but I am running out of ideas of what to talk about. I will keep doing what I can but is there something that you guys want to know about that I am not talking about? Just tell me if there is.

I love you guys and I am grateful for all the support you give me. Thank you for the letters mom, dad, G&G, karrissa, ryan, alysha, tasha and anyone else who has written me. I appreciate it. I am doing my best not to think about you guys but it is really hard sometimes, I miss you all so much. Only 23 more months right? Well, I'll see you then.

-Elder Brent Parsons