Serra

Hello Familia,
Well, my new area is Serra. It's really close to where Andre Carloni is, in fact, I can often see the area where I used to work. It's good to be back in Vitoria. I love the ocean breeze and the smell of fish markets and the salty air. haha It's the best.
My new comp' is Elder Costa, from Manus. Yupp, he is a Lamenite. haha He is really short and way funny. He is basically like the Brazilian version of my first companion Elder Hale my trainer.
This week was full of laughs and good times we already have a baptism coming up too. It's Bruna, she is an amazing lady. She has 24 years and is really looking forward to being baptised. But she doesn't have a lot of support. Like just this morning she called me telling me that she didn't want to be baptized because her friends are telling her that she is crazy. She basically is just getting confused about stuff because of her friends. But it's all good. We will go there tonight and sort things out. We also have Pamela. We found her knocking doors. She is really really depressed, like she has thought about killing herself and stuff. But our messages have really helped her out. It's amazing to see how simple the Gospel is, but how much it can effect the life of someone. So if everything goes right she will be baptised on Christmas.

I live in a house with another couple of missionaries. Elder F. Silva and Elder Ostermiller, they are pretty legit. Elder Ostermiller and Elder Costa both have only 5 months on the mission. Elder Ostermiller is sooo funny! I think he is so funny because he is so young on the mission. haha Like he has been saying slang stuff that I haven't heard in so long, so I just start cracking up. hahah It's so funny. My area is really good but really big, so we end up spending a lot of money on buses. But it's OK at least we have lunch.

I sent you guys a Christmas package last week. It will probably get there in January but oh well, I hope you guys like it. I threw some random stuff in it for all of you, and a random thing for Cara. I still haven't gotten my Christmas package. Being that it hasn't even arrived in Brazil yet, (they usually call and tell you if you got a package) but that's only happened to me 2 times on the mission, with Jel's package and my birthday package - that took 7 months to get here. We will see.

I hope all is well with you. If everything goes well, I'll see you on Christmas using Skype. I'm going to create my own account.

Love ya guys,
Elder Manis

ps- Preston got hitched??

Tell Wyatt to go to BYU or any Utah college, they will hold your scholarship.