Email received August 15, 2016

Mom,

Sobral is VERY different than Teresina or any other city that I have been to thus far on my mission. Even though it really isn't that far away (6 and a half hours) it's a lot different! The heat is almost the same, but here there is a lot of wind early in the morning and in the late afternoon. So that helps a lot to cool things off a bit. The city is quite a bit cleaner as well! There are always some parts of every city that are cleaner than others, but here is mostly better! The people are a bit different here as well. A lot of the times that I say Good Afternoon or Good Night to someone, they don't even respond when in other places they always returned the favor. So the people here are a bit more cold. A LOT of people are members of another church. There are some pretty big churches here that are very old! From what I understood, a while back, the separation of race and class was very big and because of that, the city has a lot of landmarks and separations in the city itself. Not sure if any of that made any sense... My english has gotten pretty bad... But more on the missionary side, the work has been challenging here. Because of the other churches culture, a lot of people don't even want to talk to us. When I got here, the group of people that we have to teach topped a staggering 4. But we are working hard to improve that! We have encountered some pretty good people and there are a few members that are preparing friends as well for us to visit. My comp, Elder Xavier, is from João Pessoa, Paraíba. But he moved to Piracicaba in São Paulo. He is one of the other Missionaries that Elder Medina trained! So we knew each other from a while back and things are going great! We are working hard and working together to change things around here. My new address is
Rua Domingos Arruda Casa 151, Junco, Sobral, Cerará.
We live in the second floor of the house. The address there in Teresina was
Rua Babaçu Casa 2826 (i think), Real Copagri, Teresina, Piauí

Glad to hear that all is going well and that you had a good sacrament meeting! Our meeting was a bit different yesterday. It was a Stake Conference in which the Stake Presidency was reorganized! So we had two 70's here for that! Was a very spiritual meeting! With an attendance of 1,364! Was a very full meeting!

Hope that all continues to go well and that your preparations for the travel go well! Get ready for some heat as well! :)
LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Elder Gunnoe