Getting Sick In Brazil
I was in a city in the Pantanal of Brazil called Caceres, in the State of Mato Grosso. The Pantanal is a very beautiful area of dense jungles and hot, humid weather. It may be one of the hottest places in all of Brazil. I was a missionary for my church down there, just a young 19 year old kid. I was having a blast, I had many friends that I had met and was able to speak the Portuguese language very well. I had been in Caceres for about 4 months and the President of my Mission came to visit us and took us to a Churrascaria restaurant in the Caceres. It was a great meal, especially for missionaries as we were not accustomed to eating at restaurants. We ate like crazy and went home. Little did I know at that time that meal would change my life forever.
The next morning, we got up as normal to go and teach some people we had met earlier in the week. We had bikes in that area and so we rode about 6 to 8 blocks to the small, humble home in which we were going. Shortly after arriving (about at 10:00 am) I began to feel uneasy. I rapidly began to deteriorate, within 10 minutes of first feeling sick I was telling the other missionary with me that we had to leave immediately as I was feeling terribly ill. II don't really remember what we said or how we left that home, I only vaguely remember riding our bikes back to our house.
