Monday, December 5, 2011

     So I can speak alright.... it's just a matter of all the vocabulary now. And all the slang people use. It's tough when people are supposed to say (Como é que você está?) and what they really say is (Como é ke cê tá?) It's just shorter like saying what's up rather than what is up, but it's what I’m trying to get used to hearing right now. My trainer thinks I’ll have the language almost fluent in just two more months. That's what I am hoping and praying for.
   Basically, no matter what, I'm gonna be hot and I'm gonna sweat. I've accepted that. My face is starting to break out from all the sweat lol, even though I wash it twice every day. I have a rag I keep with me to wipe my face and head because I don't want to look completely gross for the investigators. But it's all good because most of them have fans and stuff that they turn on for me. Another good thing is summer here is the rainy season I hear, so the rain every week or so will give me some cool days to enjoy. Oh.... and when it rains it usually goes on for days! We haven't had a huge torrential down pour yet, but I can't wait until we do. But, for example, the past three or four days have been rainy and cloudy. And it all started on a day that was 38 degrees celsius! By the night time it was only 20! In one day!

  My companion got Gripe (Portuguese for a cold) but I haven't gotten anything yet. And I eat a lot, it's just all at lunch with the members ;) they make really good food I’ll have to make some of this Brazilian food for you when I get the chance. For breakfast we will just have some bread or cookies. Store bought cookies here are very cheap and common and easy for mornings. Most mornings we don't eat much. We have a big lunch, and we get home and eat some little stuff for dinner again.

   So when I first got here to my house in my area, I almost freaked out. I almost started hyperventilating thinking that I had to live in a place like this for the next 2 years. You may want to cut this paragraph out if you want to share it with everyone else, especially the women, but there are ants everywhere in our kitchen. Everything is dirty, only one elder really does dishes. The bathroom is always dirty because the shower leaks, and so it is always wet. My feet look like I have chicken pox because of all the mosquito bites, I’ve just come to accept them now lol. And, the most overwhelming thing of all was how small this tiny house was. So yes, that first week I was praying a lot for comfort to just be able to do this, to accept this and move forward with the work I have to do. For the most part I have. I've just kind of accepted that I’ll probably be dirty and covered in germs all the time. It's kind of life in Brasil. I've accepted the mosquitoes, though I still kill them. I've accepted that I will sweat all the time. So yes, the Lord has blessed me so much, and I find when I concentrate on scripture or the language and not on home I do much better. The homesickness is almost gone completely. I feel, from the spirit, like it will be completely gone once I learn the language.

   But yeah everything is going fine. The heat actually isn't too bad once you get used to the humidity. It's almost the same temperature as Concord in the Summer to be honest. I just sweat all the time cuz we are constantly walking up hills and so far. But almost everyone has a fan so it's all good. Yes we visit inactive members and recent converts. We try to get one every day, and often we get more than one. We are really good with that goal. We do some service but not necessarily every week, just whenever people ask us to. We do not do much tracting. Almost all our investigators are from references or street contacting. Thomas S. Monson taught how to ask for references without actually saying (do you have a reference for us) because most members will say no when they think like that. But if you ask (do you know anyone who recently had a baby or who had a family member pass away) then you get more. Anyways, yes I bought a hymn book in Portuguese and my companion loves singing to ALL of our investigators, so we sing a lot.

   District meetings are just the Elders that live with us. The District is 4 people, and I am the only American. The District meetings are every Tuesday at 2 and they are tough to do cuz we have to go to lunch first and then head back for the meeting, and then head to our area again. So, we have only had one district meeting. But the other reasons are also because we have had other stuff going on on Tuesdays like interviews with the president. Zone meetings have actually been taken out of the missionary program by the First Presidency I hear. They want to focus more on the districts. Every three months we will have a multi zone conference or something, and we almost always have something going on otherwise with our zones in those three months too.