Pre-Carnaval

Hey bretheren,

As I´ve said many times already in my mission, and will probably many more in the future, it was another crazy week here in Rio! Unfortunately, mother, I didn´t see Jon Schmidt here in Rio. I didn´t even hear anyone talking about him passing here, but he was probably in Zona Sul, the super rich part of Rio where Americans live and...well, rich people. I´m like almost seriously busting a gut about what happened with the letter I sent to Natalie back in September. Seriously? It finally arrived, and was completely opened. Brazillian class, setting new limits. HA.

Because of scheduling conflicts with the guy in the ward who was going to help us move to the new house, it  won´t happen until tomorrow. The new house won´t be furnished, but we´ll be bringing everything from our current house to the new one. us 4 elders will still be living together, but the new house is part of the other elders area, so Elder Acevedo and I will have to walk 20 minutes just to arrive in our area.... and our area is freaking ginormous. Lots of walking, taking the bus, and planning will have to be done to get as much work done as possible.

So Carnaval will start here next week. For those of you that don´t know what carnaval is, it´s mardi gras here in Brasil, but on steroids. At least that´s what I hear. Everyone goes to the streets, does lots of promiscuous activities (I fascinated myself and my english vocabulary with that word), wear skimpy clothing, and pretty
much give in to anything and everything Satan would want us to do. It´s so bad in this area that all of the youth in this area have a youth conference the entire week awhere they go camping somewhere else and have like a miny EFY to stay away from the apostasy that goes on during Carnaval. One of two things will probably happen with us as missionaries in Ramos. We´ll either try to work as normal, staying away from the busy streets that will have the most activity or we´ll go on a division in a different area that isn´t as cray cray. Should be an interesting week.... wooooo.

Elder Acevedo and I have been teaching lots of new people, especially since we´ve opened this area and had to start everything out fresh. There´s a super cool married couple that we started teaching last week. They´re names are Jorge and Regina. Regina has been having lots of health problems as a result of smoking, and they became really scared. Trouble breathing, lotsa of chest pains, and difficulties using muscles. Her neighbor is a member and this member, Marle, said that Regina wanted a health blessing. We were able to visit them, teach a bit about the priesthood and authority, and I gave her a blessing. Her response after the blessing is seriously unreal. She said she started feeling much better. 3 days later when we followed up and taught them the Restoration, she was feeling almost completely better. Still some chest pains, but she thanked us so much and have received our lessons super well. Thery´re reading the Book of Mormon, praying, and have accepted everything, but for now they just need to get married in order to be baptized. Hopefully that won´t be a problem for them and we´ll get them in the wedding process as soon as possible.

I want to end with a funny experience that happened last week. Elder Acevedo and I were doing contacts at 8:00 at night, and suddenly there was a giant green explosion, probably 200 feet in front of us. Seriously it had to have beaten any 4th of July fireworks show I´ve ever seen. A transformer exploded, and all the community lost power. It was like 8 o clock, and pitch black. Luckily, we were close to a members home and we were able to pass by there rather than stay the rest of the night in the completely dark streets.

I love you all! I love telling the members and investigators here about how much the Gospel of Jesus Christ has blessed my family. I want every family here in Brasil to have and feel the same happiness in their families that I was able to have during my life. Tchau!!

Love,
Elder Braun

Sorry, I didn´t have a chance to take any other cool photos this week :(