Kom op, yo!

 (By the way, yo is a totally normal way to refer to people here. Old people say it to each other.)

It was pretty cold here. Luckily, we can walk to the church from our apartment. It's just across the street! Makes it very easy. But yeah, it has been pretty dang icy here. People just deal with it for the most part, but everyone gets very lazy. "Oh, It's cold outside; I'll just wake up at noon and then go to bed at six." Maybe I just come in contact with lazy people, but that's how it seems.

We had an interesting week. We've found that when it's cold it's very easy as a missionary to waste time traveling to look people up that are far away rather than going and just contacting. Elder Silva and I decided we wanted to not do that, so we've been trying to contact more. Our week of contacting gave us an incredible..... 1 potential! WHOOO! AH YEAH. But for real, contacting in the cold blows. You would think more people would invite you in, but really people just tell you, "What are you doing outside? Go home!"

It felt good anyway, so I don't care what they think!

Other than that the work isn't going super fast, I'm doing really well. I have seen myself mature a lot since being out here. Though I must say, not at all in the way I expected. Rather than becoming this more somber and realistic person, I've just become much more comfortable with the man that I am, accepting my personality for the..... colorful, quirky one that it is, and using it as best I can! I like it a lot more than just becoming someone else!

Well, I have some good pictures this week! Get ready.

Elder Silva is tired of being Mormon, so he tried out Islam.

I found a black and white mode on my camera.

JET SET, JET SET, JET SET JET SET...............

Herbal tea is very big deal here; Elder Silva is trying to get used to it.

And lastly--Is this your given name? Or did you have to earn it?

sorry.... (some really terrible jokes in this post!)

Elder Shaw