May 20th 2010

Oi, my family! Have I told you all about the 20 Americans that stopped by? They were with a youth service organization and here in Rio for 2 weeks to help a few members in the ward here in Nitaroi to rebuild their houses after the storms. Super cool! They first came to our ward talent show. An Asian kid played "Hie to Kolob" on the piano really good! 2 girls did a weird arm thing where they held hands and like a jump rope, put their bodies thru their arms. . ugh.. it is really hard to explain. A few of them did the cultural dance/fight of Brazil, they do a lot of martial art spins and kicks with dancing, it was really cool. It was weird to talk to them in English about normal things. Ha! They came back on Monday for FHE, they split up in groups of 5-7 kids and came with us to teach a lesson. The daughter of the house we were in gave the first lesson in Portuguese, twisting the principle inside out and upside down, making it almost impossible to translate into English.Ya! I was able to do the translating for the night. It was tough!! HAHA On the bus back to our church on the of the leaders snuck (magically) 3 packs of skittles, 1 of m&ms and a ton of laughy taffy and fruit snacks in our bags. So awesome! I don't think I'll eat it for awhile (but won't save it like Jill hahah).

The other day we found an old lady sitting on the curb, so we said hi and did our contact with her. She seemed interested enough for us to teach her so we followed her back to her house. Her husband was laying in bed with a chair along side of it, which his bandaged foot was resting upon. We started to get to know them, and like all old people (here in Rio) they went off on their whole week, dawn to dusk. "blah, blah, blah".... I saw a guitar in the corner of the room with some clothes on it, so I asked if he played. He huffed, "psh! give it to me!" I grabbed the dusty instrument (Milton '87) and handed it to the crippled man. He stretched his fingers in ways only Wesley Bronson can do. He dusted his guitar with is ripped shirt and continued his preparation in tuning his guitar by ear. Every string in its proper notes! All the random notes coming together into a humming like a rain storm just starting. His plunking went into strumming as he started to sing about the beauty of God in his life. He sang well for an 87 year old man! He then starts to beat the guitar like the kid from August Rush and ends with the same plunking/plinking form which he started. It was amazing!! BUUUUTTT they didn't care for our message at all!!!! hahahaha

I love you all! Keep your smile on!!