February 3, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

     This past week turned out to be pretty entertaining, but first, here´s the news about the transfers:

     Elder Bueno became zone leader in Nanuque, the zone farthest north in the mission. Elder Knudson was sent to the Vitória zone. As our new district leader, we received Elder Araujo, who passed through Aracruz already at the beginning of his mission, and his his companion, Elder Hansen, who is from Ohio and will finish up his training this transfer.

     This past week feels like it´s been a month because so much has changed. Even my relationship with Elder Capelletti has changed a little. We had a couple days where we were able to really have some deep conversations and talk about how the mission has changes us thus far. We´ve gotten to the point where we feel comfortable opening up and sharing some of the real difficulties that we´ve passed through, and because of this, there´s a lot of confidence that´s been built. We´re getting really good at figuring out what gets the other to jump out of their skin, and what makes the other completely lose it with laughter, too. Elder Capelletti always gets a kick out of the faces I pull when something goes wrong (like knocking down the clothes rack as I´m trying to grab my towel--sending hangers flying all over the veranda), and how high I jump when we both turn a corner at the same time and almost run into each other. The other day, as we were stopping by at a less active member´s house (Luis Carlos--he´s less active because he has a disease in his legs, and is without a wheel chair at the moment. We´re working on that) anyway, we were sitting on the floor, visiting with Luis, and I noticed that Elder Capelletti was spacing out a little (he was tired, we had to walk a long way to get there). So I casually took my pen out of my pocket, and tossed it onto the spot of ground where he was staring, and he jumped pretty bad, Muahaha.

      This same day, Elder Capelletti and I were standing at the sink doing dishes, when Elder Capelletti accidentally knocked over a glass cup. We both almost cracked our heads open on the ceiling because we jumped so hard when it fell and broke into pieces! We both stood there for a second--shocked--and then I couldn´t help but bursting into laughter. I noticed that he wasn´t too happy about the broken cup, so I ran to a safe distance to laugh at the hilarity (Mom, you know how it is. Laugh from a distance to be safe from retaliation, he he he). I was trying to tell him to breathe ( the word for breathe is ´respira´), but I was laughing so hard I wasn´t able to say the whole word without busting up again. Now, I´ve been teaching Elder Capelletti English, and we have a goal to get him at least capable of basic conversation by the end of this transfer. Because of this, (and the impediment of my laughter), Elder Capelletti thought I was trying to say ´´speak´´. So he stood there, thinking ``wha--....what do I say?´´ So he was just standing there wondering what to say as I was having a laugh attack. It was a pretty funny picture.

     Anyway, those are a few of the funny things that happened this week. We´re pretty good at cracking each other up. Things are still a little slow on the work front, but I feel like we´re going to start seeing some real progress soon. I love you all so much, and I´ll see you soon!

Tchau, gente!

-Elder Crapo