He'll get there

Hey there,
My companion's name is Elder Costa.
Conference was terrific. It´s really nifty how they do it. It´s broadcast live in English and then they have some people in a room somewhere who talk over the talks. The speaker will start saying a sentence and then the interpreter comes in. When the interpreter comes in the English can´t be heard. The hymns are in English but it´s interesting because we grab our hymn books and sing along in Portuguese. One Elder in my district is from São Paulo. I find that most people from São Paulo can not carry a tune in a bucket.
They broadcast conference in English in the other room but my district is all Brazilians and so they didn´t want to watch something in a language that they didn´t understand  - go figure - so I only got to see conference in Portuguese. I understood more or less (mostly less) everything. I think that during one of President Uchtdorf´s talks, he spoke about being humbled and teaching a Sunday school class in another language. I connected with that. I also connected when he said that no matter how small and weak that we feel we are strong in the Lord. He also spoke about the Lord using the weak to proclaim the gospel. 
We tried to drag some investigators to conference and two came. This is a big deal! 
Oh! I´m surrounded by cave men. One Elder was trying to make a watermelon smoothie in the blender. He couldn´t get all the chunks to the bottom of the blender. In this situation I would hit the pulse button on the blender or perhaps turn off the blender and use a spatula to mash things down. Instead the Elders picked up the blender and -while it was on- banged the blender against the counter top about a thousand times. Here´s the kicker - that didn´t work. 
Other news in the field of companion advancement: My companion tried to drain noodles by putting his hand over the top of the pan and pouring the water in to the sink. Golly...who´d -a-thunk that wasn´t going to work?
I got frustrated this week because I didn´t have a dictionary with me and was trying to explain a kite in Portuguese. The first guess was rooster so I spent about twenty minutes trying to explain a kite then I figured out that the same word that they use for rooster is the word they use for kite. That´s right, they named a kite after a rooster, a bird that doesn´t fly.
The language is coming along. Still, I sometimes feel like sitting in a corner, curling up with a nice warm straight jacket, rocking back and forth and screaming "Não falo português (I don´t speak Portuguese). Honestly, to say the word "was" you have to really understand the situation that you´re talking about. In English we just have one "was", they have three (at least that they use often, I think they have more). Also, forming a rhetorical question is rocket science. There´s different word endings and other headaches involved. I get complimented on my Portuguese sometimes but a lot of the time they just look bewildered, turn to my companion, and ask him what I said.
I got on a bus this week and felt a strong sense of stewardship over every person inside and out of the bus. The elects will hear the voice of the missionaries as though it were the voice of the Lord himself and they will come to a knowledge of the truth of our message. Perhaps it´s tough finding these elects or perhaps I need to become a better missionary, or maybe both. There´s so many in-actives here. I think I met 12 last week. They are very nice. They might be riding by on a bike and warmly say "Hey Elder" or they´ll invite you into their house but when invited to Church they just nod along smiling and say something to the affect of "I don´t really have the desire to go right now ...but I always pray" or "I always tell people I´m Mormon, I just haven´t been going for some reason" That´s right guys! Congratulations! Jesus Christ established his Church to teach us to stay in the house and pray. That´s so right, the Pioneers went through everything, many dieing all along the way so that you could stay in your house and pray. I gave up my house, family, music, fun, and ten thousand dollars just to give you a thumbs up and tell you to keep doing what you´re doing.
But all in all. Life's good. I love you all =)