I am very happy here!

I hurt my finger on the fan because one of the metal spokes that are on the outside was broken, so it was shaking in the wind. So I was trying to tuck it back into another one and my finger slipped and went into the fan. It is fine now. But I thought that I would get an infection in it and that would be really bad! I kept it really clean and it looks really good now! I am very happy that it is healing well.

The past couple of days have been really bad for me I woke up Saturday with a massive headache! It hurt so bad that I could not focus on anything all day Saturday. The pain was in the back of my head behind my right ear. It was really weird to have pain there but it was awful! I thought that it would go away so I just let it be. I took some medicine but it did not help at all. So then I thought that I needed to drink some water so I spent the rest of the day drinking water and that did not help at all. So then I figured that it would just go away in the night. So I went to bed and woke up Sunday morning and it was worse! But we had stuff planned so I had to just suck it up and be a missionary. I know that the Lord helped me through that day because I actually taught members a message after lunch. But my headache was much worse than it was on Saturday! Monday morning it was still hurting really bad so I called the mission presidents wife, who is in charge of anything that has to do with our health, and she was in a meeting in Sao Paulo so she could not talk to me so she was going to have Elder Call give me a call.  So I spent all of Monday in bed sleeping waiting for this Elder Call person to call me. He called and told me that he was a doctor and wanted to hear about my headache. I explained to him what and where my pain was and he told me that I had tense muscles in my neck and they were pinching some nerves in the back of my head. I have no idea how he knows by me explaining it over the phone. He told me that I should keep my chin up during the day and put some ice on it every night for the next couple of days and prop my head up at night right before I go to sleep. He told me also to get a muscle relaxer and take one every night. The amazing thing is I did that for the rest of the day on Monday and iced it at night and woke up on Tuesday and felt a littler better. But on Tuesday I did it all day and did everything that he told me and my headache is gone! I am going to keep doing it for a couple more days just to make sure. But I am so happy now that my headache is gone! Because it was really awful and when you are sick as a missionary you feel really bad because you can’t go and help your investigators and your companion has to just sit around while you sleep! I felt really bad but I could not do anything! I am so grateful for the doctor here! And that he knew what was wrong over the phone!

Other then the headache my week has been good! Easter was really weird for me not only because I was in so much pain but because I did not even know that it was Easter until someone told me Saturday night! And here they do something really weird they make a dummy of Judas, the apostle that betrayed Jesus, and they beat him up! It’s like a party to them to beat this dummy of Judas.

I love Stephen B. Allen he is awesome! He came and talked to us while I was at the MTC twice! He is an awesome speaker, I hope you enjoyed his talk!

I am using the bug spray but I don’t think that you will need to send me more because here they have this coil stuff that I don’t remember the name of. But it’s a coil and you burn it and it kills all the bugs and I do not get bitten in the night. For which I am very grateful!

I love the food a lot! It is so good I wish that you and Ryan could have some it’s awesome! I do miss eating American candy though. They don’t have any here. They have some American stuff but it is really expensive and I don’t buy it.

I am very happy here! Thank you for praying for me to understand the language! I know that your prayers are with me and that every prayer you say on my behalf will bless me and Heavenly Father will watch out for me.  I feel your love for me though my Heavenly Father! I know what you mean when you say you feel rejuvenated by the scriptures. I feel the same way every day when I have to walk all day and teach people the Gospel every day! I know that I would not be able to do that without the help from my Savior and Father in Heaven. I know that I am not doing any good here but Heavenly Father is doing good things through me! I realized that I do not convert anybody the Spirit does and that was an important lesson for me to learn as a missionary!

Love ya,

Elder Vaughn

Everyone speaks Portuegese!

Things here are calming down. I am getting used to being in a foreign country. I am not shocked anymore when everyone speaks to me in Portuguese and expects me to understand what they are saying. Because guess what? EVERYONE SPEAKS PORTUGUESE! LOL! For a while I was shocked about it. I don’t know why because I am in Brazil.

Nothing interesting has happened this week. When I say interesting I mean that I did not find bugs in my bed or I did not find bugs crawling on my food. I did cut my finger really bad yesterday morning on our fan. Please don´t worry about it I cleaned it really good and am taking care of it. It did hurt really bad for a while but I am fine now!

I had to go to the federal police building to sign something for my visa. They fingerprinted me and had me sign the paper three times. I had to sign without touching the edge of the box. It was kinda hard, but I managed!

I was so excited about the Baptismo on Saturday! It was so cool and I am going to try and attach photos to this email. It will be hard because the computer is in Portuguese so I will have someone help me!

During our lessons it is really hard for me to stay focused because I don’t understand what they are saying so I zone out. It is really hard! I try and force myself to listen and I do a lot of the time but sometimes I just can´t and I zone out! People try and help me with the language which is not really that helpful because they don’t know what the words mean in English which is what I really need right now. It is helpful when I conjugate wrong and they correct me. That is helpful.

I don’t really understand the money here it will take some time to get used to it. And my companion says that people selling stuff will see us and say that we are missionaries so they will charge us more because we have money! It’s so dumb! But that is my fate I guess.

You talk about the weather so I will tell you about the weather here. It rains and it’s hot. It rains some more and then it pours! And then it is really HOT! And it is really humid. It is so humid that the envelopes that I have sealed. So, I have to be careful and open it so that I can put letters in it. It’s crazy! But I love the rain here. It really cools down when it rains!

I have also attached some photos of the Manaus Temple and a cockroach that we found in our toilet. I hope you enjoy them! Hahaha

I love ya and hope you are doing well! Please do not worry about me I am fine!

Brazil!

Things here in Brazil are CRAZY! it is so different then what i am used to in the united states. So much has happened to me since I got here!

Before I tell you all about my week, yes, I had two packages waiting for me and everyone was jealous because it was full of American food and that stuff I can’t buy here so everyone wanted to buy if from me. I am safe. I am serving in the city of Manaus. In an area they call Tancredo Neves. Its a little bit outside of the city of Manaus, like West Valley is to Salt Lake. It is a busy city there are a LOT of people. But not to busy. The language is really hard! I can’t understand anything people say to me. Everyone says that it is normal to not understand anything. So I am not worried. My companion, Elder Calaza is from southern Brazil and he does not speak as good English as I thought. I live with two other Brazilians, Elder Leao and Elder Dias. (Yes his name means days in Portuguese, I thought it was really funny at first) Elder Dias does not speak English at all and Elder Leao speaks really good English because he lived in Utah with his sister for 6 months a couple of years ago.

My week has been really good a lot has happened and I have learned a lot about Brazil. I don’t know where to start.... On Sunday we were going around and I was meeting the members after stake conference (which I did not understand by the way). So we went to a family and they gave us food, The food is really good! I LOVE IT! and then we left and went to another family and they also gave us food. my companion tried to tell them that we had just eaten at another families house but they would not take no for an answer. So I had two BIG meals that day! I was so full but so grateful for the sacrifice the members make to feed us. They pull out all the stops for missionaries. They serve rice and beans at every meal! Fine with me because i love it!

The other day in the middle of the night my finger started to hurt really bad and I found out in the morning that I had gotten bitten, or so I thought, by some bug. It hurt really bad! In the morning I noticed that there was something in my pillow case so I opened it up and found that there was a huge catepillar on my pillow! and it was pokey and when you touched it, it hurt and left what looked like a bug bite. It was crazy! We also found a cockroach in our toilet and it was really big too! All the bugs here are big and they are everywhere! I had to put the food you sent me in our fridge because there were ants crawling all over the stuff!

The rain here is crazy! It starts to pour without warning and I was soaking wet within about 3 seconds! There is so much water that comes down! But it is awesome and I love the rain!

I was really surprised at how dirty the streets are! There is garbage all over the streets! It makes me a little sad to see all the garbage lying around. There are also dogs roaming the streets that don’t have homes to live in. They look really sad and lonely.

I was also shocked to find out that the people are not as poor as you would think they would be. They have really crappy houses. But they have cars and cable tv and internet. I love the people here they are all so nice! Everyone tries to help me with learning Portuguese. They understand that I am learning and they try to help me. It’s awesome!

I love it here and would not want to be anywhere else in the whole world! This place has its ups and downs but they are now my ups and downs and I love it here!

I love you guys and hope that all is well with you and that you are loving life as much as i am!