12 years ago, I’m serving a Mormon mission in Brazil. I’m assigned to a poverty stricken area of Curitiba, a city of about 2 million people. I’m 20 years old, young enough to think I’m invincible and stupid enough to not heed the advice to stay out of this particular neighborhood. This is one of those “favelas” that you hear about in the news. Houses made of plywood, cardboard and tarp; a river of feces, trash and decaying dog carcasses; red dirt roads that turn into streams during rainstorms and a whole lot of people walking around that didn’t really have anything to do other than observe those who didn’t belong. This is the same place where you read about nightly murders in the newspaper. The problem was, this neighborhood was right in the middle of our area and it made it difficult to get from one side to the other without passing through. Although my mission companion and I had been through the neighborhood a handful of times during the day, we had never ventured to pass through at night