The World Cup and my parasite

So there are two new interesting things going on here in Brazil. One
is I have a parasite (it's not as bad as you think), and the other is
that the world cup is going on!

First the parasite: So a few weeks ago I started to notice that white
spots were starting to appear on my skin. It's like patchs where the
color of my skin dissappeared. I don't remember how to properly word
that in English. Anyway, it's called Pano Branco in Portuguese so I
showed Sister Dias and she got me some medication. It's this creme
that I put on the areas with the spots of discoloration in my skin.
Apparently the reason I have them is because of a parasite. The
parasite is on the top of my head so when I take a shower and such,
the water from my hair runs down and affects my neck and shoulders,
where I have the white spots. But it's not lethal, it'll go away.
I'm getting Selson Blue in Teresina this week because they don't have
it here in Parnaíba and that will help. It just takes some time.

Second, the world cup! The days that Brazil isn't playing are pretty
normal. Everything is a bit more colorful though because they put up
decorations. But the days that Brazil play we have to stay inside
because it gets really crazy here. So far Brazil has yet to play but
tomorrow and next Sunday we have to stay in our house. And then
there's one more day but I forget. If Brazil makes it to the next
round (and they will) then we'll have even more days we have to stay
inside because it'll be even crazier! But on the flip side it helps
us out a bit that the world cup is going on. When we contact people
on the street, talking about the World Cup is a great opener and it
really shows that we're normal, easy-going people. It helps keep the
atmosphere relaxed and people like us and are even more willing to
hear our message. And it's fun for us too to hear the results!
Apparently the U.S. and England tied and everyone was telling us that
England would dominate us!

We have two really good investigators this week. One is a girl and we
started teaching her a couple of weeks ago, but we lost contact with
her because her mom died and it looked like she was going to move. We
got back into contact with her and found out she's been reading the
Book of Mormon a lot and it's been helping her out with this hard
situation. She wants to stay in this Church she said, so she'll be
baptized soon. The other is Jon. He's very intelligent and very
receptive to the lessons. He's having trouble recognizing an answer
to his prayers. But we finally got him to come to Church and he loved
it. He loved the Gospel Principals manual and he wanted to have a
copy. It's looking good for him.

Other than that, things are going good! I'll let you know how fun
this week is with the two Brazil games next Monday!

Love,
Elder Rackham