Captains log 3

So this past week was very intresting becasue of a couple things. One i can offically say ive gone spear hunting in the mission field. 2 i got to go to a baptism for a recent convert and 3 i got to call home. the last two are pretty self explanitory so Ill just leave that there but the spear hunting was way more intresting. 

So we had this rat in our house which was really annoying  and we managed to trap it in this area under the sink so of course 4 teanae guys all living in the house are cluse less so we decide to get rid of it in the best way we can possibly think of. so i got a stick and duct taped a knife i found outside the house to the end to make a spear. now while were all talking in potrtuguse were my companion said ill poke here you get it when it comes out and thats what i did. i sat at the exit ready to get the thing and it popped out and i speared the thing before it had time to react so yea it was quick and painless and yea that was the story!

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From Mark

Week 2. Doing well. New investigator. Exciting to talk to him Sunday

Captain's Logan 2

So Ive decided to take after my father and label my emails (weekly recaps something funny) so where to start...

Remember in my farewell talk how I said I wanted to go some where cold well i got my wish. there were a couple things I never thought I would do here and one of them is wear a trench coat but here I am wearing a trenchcoat in the middle of summer in brazil... 

So I litterly know nothing or atleast it feals that way. Im in this weird limbo where I cant speak english or portugeuse properly... and its kind of annoying but thats part of the learning process. I'm learning alot about myself in here in brazil and im really loving it. Everyone here is super nice and they give you a ton of food! Its awesome because I only really have to eat like once a day here because of what the diet is. Its tons of rice beans meat and veggies and bread to go along with it!

I have some intresting stories already earlier this week my companion and I got stuck on a mountian in the dark during one of the worst storms Ive ever been in pouring rain thundering and lightining and fog so thick that you cant see more than like 20 feet and I was using an umbrella through all this funny thing is, is it was useless becasue the reain was punching straight through my umbrella. During this we managed to find some less active members and they let us in. After we taught them a lesson we left and the rain had "stopped" bu the fog reduced our visibility to like 0 so we found ourselves walking down some dirt road in the jungle of brazil when all the sudden this power like on the side of this trail blew up and scared the living daylights out of us. I've never ran that fast in my life.

They say a mans best freind is a dog but the missionaries best friend is deffinetly not the dog...

There have been countless times already when me and my comp have been jumped by dogs. Like the other day I was walking down some sketchy ally way when this little black dog came out of nowhere and came after us. It sounds stupid but seriously its terrifying when it happens. 

Almost getting run over is a daily occurence now wether it be a bus or a car its normal so I'm pretty used to it now. I feel kinda like buddy the elf when walking across the street.

I have my first investigator now its a kid named Caio and hes pretty cool im sure hes going to be baptized. im 100% sure of it! 

Thats all I really have time for right now but I will write more next week. I have a road trip back to my area that I have to get on here soon. ( I left my area because i was in trouble with the gov ;)  )

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From Mark

New letter 

Show quoted text

First week in the Field

Boy do I have stories to tell so i havent been able to write for 2 weeks ish and thats because of transfers and what not so sorry about that. Anyway my first area is in the city of petropolis i live in a little house around ~30 feet long and ~15ft wide so thats new my companion is from brazil and only speaks portueguese so im learning the language fast. its always raining here and the house is very diffrent its all concreate and the walls have mold and its always wet. but its nice to be out doing instead of being in a classroom all day. my area is in the mountians so im climbing mouantians everyday to go to houses and what not. basically what im trying to say is im going to either die here or comeback "ripped" and by "ripped" i mean very skinny with massive legs... i just keep telling myself atleast im not skipping leg day. the area is super cool because im in the mouantians above rio and when its about to rain the clouds litterly roll over the mouantans and visibility is reduced to zero its one of the coolest most eire things ive ever seen. the best way to describe my area is the steepest climbs of philmont every single day in the blazing hot sun. so its pretty cool. onday i was walking and this crazy guy stopped me while i was walking and was started screaming how america was the greatest country on earth and how he didnt belive in God or church only in amreica and then he showed me a picture of him self in a american flag suit and yea that was intresting. Then another day my companion got stuck on top of a mouantian in a rain storm and couldnt leave because it was to dangerous and we couldnt see at all. the food is interesting i eat alot of fried hot dogs and cheese bread so thats fun ive almost been electrocuted twice and i almost get run over by busses everyday my firstday i was on a cliff and the bus drove by about 4 inches from my nose so yea thats a normal day here in Brazil.

From Mark

First day in the field

Dear Family,

Your missionary has arrived in the Brazil Juiz de Fora Mission safely. Today your missionary had lunch at the mission home and will get to know there companion this afternoon. They will spend the night here in Juiz de Fora and travel to their designated areas tomorrow. Your missionaries are amazing and wonderful! Thank you for your love and support. Your missionary will Email and have Preparation day on Monday.

Thanks,

Brazil Juiz de Fora Mission

1st week on Brazil

Alrighty so Brazil is amazing this past saturday i got to go to the main street in Sao Paulo and teach people and hand out Books of Mormon and i met this kid there and he was so cool   

we met him and he wanted us to by a towel from him and so we politely declined and wallked away but then out of no where i got a prompting to go and talk to him and i wish i could say that i folowed it at first but i didnt and kept walking with my companions but something aresome happened he followed my companions and i and caught up with us and so we got to teach this little 14 year old who lived in the streets with his grandma. this boy was covered in tattoos and was super funny it was one of the coolest things ever i got to give him a book of mormon with my testimony in it and he took it back to his grandmother and yea it was awesome. thats the only real cool story that i can think of right now but the people here are so nice and it super fun to be down here i love it. i leave for the field next tuesday and yea i dont know what else to talk.about 

From Mark

So I am in Brazil

So I am in Brazil

(pardon my poor grammer/spelling i now only have 45 minutes to email and im trying write as much as i can and the key board is all out of wack with extra letters )  ok so brazil is pretty sweet my room will have atleast 2 brazilians so thats cool they will be able to help me speak way better than i could have learned in provo so thats cool also the food is a million times better here which is pretty sweet. I leave the brazil mtc in two week on october 6. also i dont know if i said anything about this in my last email but my last zone had a couple elders going into seals and they had us do a core work out this past saturday. im still sore.... so thats fun i get to go out into the streets of sao paulo in about 30 minutes  and explore with my district. so thats fun. so crazy stuff has happened already i heard a drive by last night two to be exact. so that was a thing. the flight was pretty bad we had multiple medical emergencies on all my flights. i couldent sleep cause some guy was beat boxing in the seat in front of me i had a body builder and his girlfriend to the left of me and some guy who only spoke araibian to the right so i had like no space and no one to talk to all the way to brazil. so yea that was fun. my first day a ton of brazilians corrnered me and asked a million questions and wouldnt leave until I answered them all. also my companions in prove got their visa monday morning so they should be on their way down next monday if they decide not to keep them. brazil is hot and it  rains randomly  but thats ok its very similar to home. im in a trio again and my district is super cool theres 5 elders and 3 sisters. theres bars on my window in my room cause of neighbour problems and theres a million stairs in this building and its way diffrent. tell the kids hi and love you same with the dogs and dont forget to check on my martin mom. yea my p day is on wednesdays now

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From Mark

I got my visa

As you all probably know i got my visa the other day so i get to take my p day early to say hi becasue I leave Monday at like 5 am. to be honest I'm kind of bummed out because i really like my companions, the mtc, and my teachers but its Ok because I'm finally going to Brazil which is awesome! so yea during the devotional this week i got to be in the choir which was cool because elder Stevenson was there annndd... my companions got to shake his hand. because they were in the regular seating. by the way there's a talk by Elder Bednar that's really good its on byui's page its called the character of Christ so yea its awesome. last night i did this work out with some Elders who did their bud/s entrance exam (physical) before they came out needless to say I'm pretty sore right now. so yea ill be online for a while please respond so i can talk to people from the outside world.
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From Mark

Excitement in the MTC

So we had a toilet blow up in the residence hall.... 

thats a story to tell when i get home though. 

Anyway im still alive and well my companions and i are getting along well and what not 

the mtc is fun although im getting cabin fever pretty bad. we also had a devotional yesterday that was pretty crazy people came up on the stand and started talking into the mic... but it was what ever. i dont have much stuff to talk about becasue i cant think of anything so sorry for the short email this week. tell the dogs i said hi and thell the kids i said hi and love you 

 

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From Elder Mark "Kevin" Bledsoe

Week 2?

So I'm still alive and this time my keyboard is not broken! My companions and I are doing well, we were supposed to get 2 new sisters in my district but they created 2 new districts instead... we had way more people come in than we thought we would! The food tastes ok but it pretty scary to be honest. I got to be about 20 feet from President Nelson while he was speaking at a devotional so that was pretty cool. im learning a lot and my personality has pulled a 95 from being a super not touchy person to being fine with random people hugging you and being super close. Cause the thing with the mtc is that they totally immerse you in the culture. so yea in class we have a brazilian dude teaching us and he just will give you hugs after class so yea thats still pretty weird but hey its taking down my rough edges which is good I guess. One of my companions and might do a special musical number at a devotional where we do a church hymn medley or the efy theme or something on guitar. By the way they actually have guitars here so thats nice. But yea were working that out. I hope you're all doing well, dont die, hi kids, tell the dogs i said hi and make sure that my martin is ok please. Ill send pictures in a little and my mailing address is something Im still not sure Ill send it when I send pictures (maybe).

Week 1 Doing amazing

Mark is doing amazing. He loves it. right now he is in a companionship of 3. He is district leader and is learning the language quickly.

I would just like to start off by saying that my keyboard is broke so forgive me if there're some mistakes and i also dont have much time to email people so sorry if this email jumps around alot theres so much i want to say. Anyway i would like to start off with a story about an elder in my zone his name is Elder Davies who is from portugal and he only speaks portugeuse. well he had to have a translator and and when he didnt he would always try to speak to us and it being our first two days we had no clue what was going on. so come saturday we decided to sing portuegse hymns in the language hall as a zone (at this point I can understand the language pretty well its just harder to speak it.) and so elder davies gets up on a chair and says alright guys were singing hymn number 129 In perfect english... as it turns out he's from draper utah. He had all the new people punked and it was one of the funniest things ever.

 

On my very first day i walked into my class and all it was all in portugeuse. It was the most hectic day ever but was so much fun. on my second day out i got assigned to be a district leader which is pretty cool i'm over 4 people and my district is getting 2 new sisters this week! Im learning the language super fast and im in a trio here at the mtc. This morning i got to go to the provo temple for the 5 am session so that was fun its one of the nicest looking temples ive seen. ive also had an opportunity to teach two lessons in portugeuse to a student (hes an actual investigator) at byu from brazil which is super awesome. so yea everything is going well here at the mtc! ill have more stories to 

MTC DAY 1

So Aunt Lacey picked him up at the airport  last night and dropped him off today
 he looks happy.

Airport

It was hard to leave him at the airport. We all shed some tears. I know he will do some amazing things.

Mark Bledsoe

So he left today for his 2 year mission to serve in Juiz de Fora, Brazil.  He is on his way to the Provo UT Missionary Training Center.  He will be there for about  8 weeks to learn Portuguese.  Right now they are expecting his Visa to come in a few weeks and they will send him to Sao Paulo, Brazil to finish his MTC  time.

He is very excited to be serving his mission and can't wait to get to Brazil. I will be updating this as I get letters and pictures.