Visa!!!

Hi!!!

Well, I've got some awesome news.  Are you ready? Here's the drum roll:ddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd BOOM!  My Visa came through!!!  It's been approved by Brazil, and is "Ready For Pickup!"  I'll still stay in Arizona for the rest of this transfer, but I will be flying down to Brazil the week before Christmas I think.  I'm so excited!  I get to call you twice for Christmas!

Sorry for not E-mailing you yesterday.  Our P-days are usually on mondays, except for transfer weeks when we get our P-days on Tuesday (Transfer day).  This week was a transfer week, but Tuesday was a holiday so the library was closed.  Our mission president gave us permission to E-mail on Wednesday instead, so here I am!  I'll including a picture of my companion too.

 

The ward here is awesome, and my mission president is the best.  The bishop is super gung ho about missionary work, earlier this year he even called the mission president and asked for a different set of missionaries because the ones that he had weren't working hard!  My trainer is a super hard worker though, so I'm sure that we won't have that problem.  

After we landed the mission president met us at the airport, we piled into the vans, and then we went to a Mormon Battalion memorial in Tucson.  We parked the cars a little ways from the memorial, and then we all had to run there.  It's a mission tradition, and it's meant to teach us that there's an urgency in the work that we're doing.  After that we went to the mission office, did some training, had interviews, and ate lunch, and then we went to the mission home.  The church takes good care of their mission presidents, let me tell you!  The mission home is a big, beautiful home in a nice neighborhood, and right behind it is a wash.  The AP's took us on a "nature walk" through the was while the Mission President did more interviews.  It was really fun!  Apparently the monsoons down here are pretty crazy, too bad I won't be here to see one.

Also, did you know that there's a $5,000 fine for messing with a Saguoro cactus?  That's pretty hefty!  It's also the law in Arizona that if someone comes to your house and asks you for water, you have to give them some.  Kind of interesting!

They have another type of cactus called jumping Choyas.  When you bump them they move a lot, and you get a lot of cactus on you.  The pieces break off really easily, and the thorns have microscopic barbs on them that make is so they don't come off very well.  Yikes!  I'll send you some pictures of my companion and I in a bit, I hope you like them!  I love you so much Mom, keep being awesome!

Love,

Elder Sweet

 

 

This is a picture of a "Jumping Cholla."  

If you bump them pieces of them fall off, and they have little barbs on their spines

 so once they get stuck in you they come out easily.  They're actually pretty cool!




And here's a close up