Elder Jacob Shepard in Brazil: First Weekly Report from Brazil

Hello everybody!

It´s me, a distant, as in distance, relative of yours. I´m here in Brazil in a LAN House writing my first email like this that I will be writing weekly to all of you. I might not have all of the contact information of might that might want to hear me, but if you know someone who does, send me a list and I add them to the names of people I´m writing too. (might have been a run on sentence)

I´m in a city called Camocim, which is a place known for fishing and it´s beaches. It is as hot as anywhere else in my mission but it´s luckily windy. The down side is that it rains like a monsoon every once in a while. It´s funny because when it rains, all the Brazilians hide in their houses. A saying here is that when it rains ,all the Brazilians melt.

The people here are very nice and humble. Many times they do not have a great education, because those that do, usually leave Camocim for a bigger city. They are very serious about the education of kids, though. It´s a different kind of place here. Many people will invite us in and give us juice or cookies or something want us to feel at home.

Religion is a big deal down here, and everyone seems to think that they just have to pick on that sound nice. If you see something about Jesus or God on every block, you know your in Brazil. Since we´re missionaries, I think that´s why many of them want to be nice to us, because we are talking about Jesus.

It´s been really great here since I can actually see the difference of the peoples lives when we help them. To see a person give up drinking and partying, so that can be with their family, to see a young man get off the streets, away from drugs and gangs, or a women that has gained respect for herself and realize that their is more to life then her body is rewarding and really why I´m here. We talk about what we believe in and try to get them to improve their lives even if they don´t want to do anything with our church.

To have them improve their lives in anyway has made my time here worth it and I know I´ll get better at finding and helping anyone from the rich person trying to find purpose to the poor family trying to bring a broken relationship together. And as we talk about these things, I can tell I´m a better person then I was before. At least I know how to clean my own mess, clothes, buy food and live somewhere where I have to take care of things. You´d be surprised at some of the crazy things I´ve seen here, but Life is good.

If you have any questions send me a line and I´ll answer as best I can. I´m at the point where I´m mixing my English with Portuguese, so we´ll see how my grammar is. I write emails on Mondays around 10 o´clock to 4. I love all of you and hope that everything is going great in the States.

Your (Something or Other) in the Service,

Elder Jacob Shepard