First e-mail from Brazil 1/4/2010

We actually received three e-mails from James today. I will attach all three here, in the order they were sent. HEY Everyone How is it going? I am finally in Brazil and I love it here. I get to go to my first area tonight. It is called Padrao and tonight at 9 I will take a bus for 7 hours to my new area where I will meet my trainer, Elder Nascimento. From what I hear about him he is really funny and he is an amazing artist. He is a native Brazilian so he only speaks a tiny bit of English so it will be fun. My area has about 700,000 people in the city so lots of work to do. As for the weather it is pretty hot, but apparently this past week has been one of the coolest. I went out with Elder Harmon the past two days and we have been working in his area, he is one of President Dias' assistants and he is really cool. We were out and about yesterday and talking with people and picking them up for church and some of the people say that the hottest it got this past year was in October and it was about 122 plus humidity. Crazy! So to tell you a little bit what has been happening,I have been Going out with Elder Harmon and I have done a few street contacts. We have had 2 lunch appointments and I love the food. On Saturday night we were heading to a bus stop and we stopped at a street vender and I ate lingua de vaca, which translates into tongue of cow, or cows tongue and it was AMAZING!! You are probably thinking right now what kind of son have I raised but I am not going to lie it was really good. It was really soft and it like melted in your mouth. It may sound gross but I liked it. I forgot to bring my camera but I will send you some pictures soon enough. I have to go now, we get to go get registered with the police here in Teresina and then since it is P-Day we are going to eat at a restaurant and then we are going bowling. So write back with any questions and I will try to answer them. Also I will get you the address and find out what is better for sending letters and stuff to me. tchau Love Elder Crittenden Oh something else that I forgot to tell you, I had in my email today a Pastor from India telling me that he visited my website and that he was a missionary for his church and wants my help with sharing the gospel. Did you make a website for me then? Did you put pictures of me and my companion Elder Cook also because the email was addressed to both of us? Just a question write back Love you Dad Love Elder Crittenden Hey Dad, I messed up on the name of my new area, its not Padrao, its Sobral. If you want to look it up on google earth so. Love Elder Crittenden