Hello Guaratinguetá!

Fam-

Wow, I'm not in the city of São Paulo anymore.... I spent my entire mission until now in the capital region (which means cars, people, concrete, traffic, noise, pollution, craziness in general) but Guará is a city on the interior, about 2 and a half hours from the center of São Paulo. Trees, rivers, MOUNTAINS.... I kinda freaked out a lil because it's way more tranquil here. But I like it. It's a bit more similar to Wenatchee.

I have a new son! Elder Ruzi, from Uberlândia, Minas Gerais (look it up if you're curious). Straight from the MTC and has the fire! I'm excited. Our area is Guaratinguetá 1, and we're opening the area (there's nobody to show us around and such) It's always an adventure.

For example, after the long bus ride we got to the center of Guará at 9:30 pm, where a member gave us a ride to our house, which is newly rented. It's HUGE compared to all the other places I've lived.... 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen, a laundry room, a dining room, a study room with a living room part, a covered garage space, a little yard in front and on the sides and in back.... it's ridiculous. And just us two live there.

 It was a funny moment when we looked at each other with a "what now?" look. There was nothing in the way of plates, cups, etc nor food, everything was super dirty, we only knew one member, didn't even know if we had lunch the next day and didn't even have a charger to replentish our rapidly dying phone battery.

But to sum lots of things up, Everything fell into place perfectly. We cleaned our house, got the stuff we needed, met quite a few members even before church on Sunday, started visiting people we found in the Area Book and now we have the beginnings of a teaching pool... The Lord helped us IMMENSELY this week, and I hope we'll be able to keep up with it all. I'm excited. 

I love you all!

Elder Merrill

Meu filho! Elder Ruzi

Rio Paraíba that splits our area...

Panorama from the relief society president's house looking over part of the city..

... definitely not São Paulo anymore.... MOUNTAINS. I MISS MOUNTAINS.

Our fan fell and broke a blade, so I used my taping skills to prevent us from roasting in the night.... definitely not the safest thing, but hey, it's super hot here, fazer o que, né?