1st Week here in Rondonòpolis!

Sooooo I am here in Rondonòpolis..  Finally!  The travel turned out quite interesting so I will start with that.. 

SO,  I was told 7 hours by bus to arrive there and I thought okay, not terrible. Beleza.  I can do 7 hours.. Well, about half way we were traveling through these smaller mountains and literaly we were out in no mans land!  Like everywhere you look there was trees and small mountains.. But anyways the Bus broke down and at first I am thinking ´hmm this is a weird place for someone to be getting off the bus´ but it was broken down.. And so I am just sitting there and decide well this could be a while, I will just take a quick nap here.   I woke up 3 hours later, still there.. and waited and waited.. and got really hungry and thirsty and waited and we were there through the day and through the night.  Out no where to be found and I was just thinking man I am probabaly going to die here.. this is it for me.. I am a gonner.. No, but finally the next day another bus passed through ( a REALLY SMALL BUS) and stopped for us, and all of us crammed onto the small little bus with all our stuff.  And keep in mind here that I am traveling alone in a foreign country knowing nothing about the area.. Yeah it was terrible. but we finally arrived and I got off with all my stuff and sit and wait to get picked up... and then I realized wait no one knows where I am.. why I didnt show up when I was supposed to.  I dont have a phone and then a miracle happened.. a member of the ward that I am being transfered to was leaving to travel to Campo Grande and he called his brother and he came and picked me up and took me to my companion.. AND after 2 and a half days of wearing the same clothes.. and not eating or drinking anything I had arrived! But I am extremely lucky for the member and I never want to go 2 and a half days without food or water again please! But I am here and the area is awesome!!

My new house is extremely Ghetto! I went to plug in the iron and the wall started smoking really bad so I dont think I will be ironing my shirts for a little while, until I can figure out a new method haha.. But I really like it here already! My companion is awesome! He is from Curitiba and only knows the offensive words in english and he says them all the time and doesnt know what they mean.  I am working on explaining them to him haha its bad but really funny. He plays the guitar really good and is teaching me. Everynight we sit on our roof drink tererê and he teaches me guitar.. I am already pretty good if I dont say so myself.. No, I am terrible but I will get good just wait and see! Also!! here I talked Prez Reber into giving us permission to go to the Gym, down the street because my companion has bad knees and it would be great to do workouts to help, and so he gave us the okay! And what did i do? yupp we went and bought gym memberships to the Gym of Brazil and its awesome! So I am really excited about this area cuz I get to use the GYM!! I missed the gym so much. But the first day a lady there made us take a physical test...?  Like okay haha, and made me run a mile, and ride the bike for 30 mins.  And I am just like wait a sec here lady I want to lift not run... and to enter they scan your finger print so its pretty legit, they dont mess around.. But I met a Huge dude there named Françisco and he wants me to come over and teach him and work out together so even at the gym I am a missionary! 

Well, other than that I dont have a lot.. the work was really slow because of the travel here and the problems with the house and getting to know the new area but this week should be a great one and I am excited to jump back into the Mission work!

Thanks for all the support and I love you all! Hope you all have a safe and blessed week!

Warm regards, 

Elder Marcus Phipps