Itapecerica De Serra

I am just finishing my first two weeks in the field and I'm about to finish my first two months. Time is surprisingly flying by super super fast. Its awesome. I didn't get put into a jungle like I was hoping, for now. (idk how to spell it) but I live in a Favella. Our house is suppose to be for two sets of missionaries, but this transfer there is just me and my comp, Elder Gleaves from North Carolina. Gleaves has only 6 months to go and speaks perfect Portuguese. But Im his first American companion so he is finally getting to speak english again and my Portuguese isn't getting any better. Well it kinda of is, but I still speak a ton in english.

Since there are supposed to be two sets of missionaries, we have an extra room that we use to study in. Then we have a kitchen, a "family room", a laundry room, which is just as big as a bedroom. The whole house in general is good for two people but it's full of a ton of junk from older missionaries. It's not really a problem tho. Our electricity is fine, but one bathroom (we have two) and the laundry room are missing lights.

The water has a reg. dispenser and a filtered one so we can perfectly drink water here and everywhere else.

We are the third flood. The only window that touches the hill beside us without bars. All the other windows that are impossible to get in through are locked up. And we are the only people with bars on our building.

The floor above is the Bishop's family. They are probably the poorest people I've meet in this city. There place is smaller then ours and there's like 6 of them (I'm not positive). Everyone in the building is members. The stairs open up to a hill and on top of that is a house with a church family also.

When it rains all the water and mud just go right down from the top, idk who designed the stuff here. Most of the houses are like this. The bottom floor is a garage. The bishop uses that for a store for diapers. I don't think they make much from it. Most garages are used for stores. Every street has about 10 of the garages for churches, half of them being Evangelical and the other half being bars. Either way I'm pretty sure they watch soccer in both of them. The churches are surprisingly the loudest thing every night. The preacher will either be screaming a prayer rapidly over speakers or music will be playing. Either way I don't understand a lot of it. The streets probably have as many dogs crapping everywhere as they do people. They are super annoying and don't ever stop barking.

For some reason people only eat lunch in Brasil and when they do it's massive and basically just rice and beans. It's honestly starting to suck. Everyday but p-day a member will feed us. Our area is huge and sometimes have to walk 45min one way to eat. 

In between each block are vellas (i think that's how it's called and spelled). They are basically just allies that drop down in the very pits of hell and are interweaved houses. It's the weirdest, saddest thing ever. It reminds me of that one area in the beginning of SW Rogue One, but that's really all I can say, I don't remember who was in the scene or when it was, lol. 

The people here are really nice. They won't tell us to go away. In the very end after ten minutes they tell us they aren't interested.

Our church building here is probably the nicest building in town.

I'm about to run out of time, hope you enjoyed this weeks email.

11-13-2017