This week was so good! It has
been a lot cooler here the last few days, so that has been such sweet
relief! (Did you ever think you´d hear me say such a sentence?) haha
seriously tho, it´s been so nice to have a few nights cool down. (:
We went to the temple!!!! Ahh I
love the temple. It was such a wonderful experience. I just felt at
home. It was cool to be so far from home and be able to still feel at
home there. And there were some temple workers from the States who spoke
to me in English, so that probably helped! haha I´m so glad we got to
go. It´s such a pretty temple!
Thanksgiving was fun. We didn´t
have lunch with a member, but one of our members gave us some money to
buy lunch. So, we went to an all you can eat buffet and stuffed
ourselves! One thing weird about having a lunch break instead of a
dinner break is that you stuff yourself mid day and then all you want
for the rest of the day is to sleep. But you have to stuff yourself
because you have to make the food last till 9:30 when you get home.
So... it´s kind of strange to my body still. But... it´s good. I just
have to learn to not be a zombie after lunch every day. haha
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| At the temple |
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A butterfly I found today. She climbed on my hand!! I HELD A BUTTERFLY! haha I was so excited. I´m still kind of giddy. |
This week has been better with
Portuguese. I´m starting to teach more and I even spoke up during a
lesson to say something we hadn´t practiced! haha it´s embarrassing it´s
taken me so long to do so... but it´s still scary. I´ve given a bunch
of Portuguese spiritual thoughts at member´s houses for lunch, so that´s
been good. The members are always so patient! haha one of our
investigators told me a few days ago that my Portuguese has gotten a lot
better! I was so stoked! We started working with her my first week
here, so she´s seen my Portuguese process from the beginning. I was
pretty happy to hear something other than the "uhh... I can´t understand
her. She doesn´t speak Portuguese very well." haha Though, I will say I
have to laugh every time because they always go on to say stuff about
how well Sister Furtado speaks Portuguese. They´re like "Your portuguese
is perfect! How long have you been in Brazil?" And she has to explain
that they speak Portuguese in Portugal as well. One lady asked her
yesterday "Can you read Portuguese?" and I had to stifle a laugh. It´s
like asking someone from England if they know how to read English!! haha
OY.
Okay, remember my cockroach story?
Did I tell you the part where I freaked out and ran to hide from her
because SHE CAN FLY and she flew straight into my hair?!?!?! I had a
cockroach IN MY HAIR. And then she got lost. BUT - we found her this
week and I freaked out again cuz she was crawling on our "clean" dishes.
You could definitely tell who the Brazillians were in the house cuz
Sister Furtado and I were hiding in the bedroom with the door closed,
and Sister Loss picked up the cockroach with her BARE HANDS and killed
it. Then brought it into the bedroom and said "WAS a Barata!" bahaha I
laughed. Poor cockroach. But seriously, on my dishes?! IN MY HAIR?!
Yuck.
Speaking of freaking out - the
dogs here. OH my goodness, the dogs. They´re fine during the day. They
are loud and there are millions of them, but I can handle it. But I
think they´re going to give me a heart attack one of these nights
because their favorite past time at night is to scare the living
daylights out of the sister missionaries. EVERY night I scream a few
times because something jumps out at me. The city is dead silent at
night - it is so nice! But we get in this zone as we´re walking home and
then when the dogs jump out and start barking, we start screaming and
grabbing onto each other. Then we remember it´s just a dog and we always
have a moment of awkwardness after a freak out while we´re having to
... un hug and keep walking. haha UGH.
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This is when I stepped in dog poo and I was sad |
Sister Furtado and I are still
having SO much fun. We laugh every single day. Seriously, she is so
great. I love getting to be her companion! It´s her birthday today, so
we had chocolate cake this morning (for breakfast. ehem) and we´re going
to find some ice cream later. It´ll be a good day. ALSO - our zone met
our monthly goals, so we get a full Pday today!!! WOOOOT!! That means we
don´t end Pday at 6 PM like usual, but get to go till 10:30! We might
have appointments we have to go to later anyway... but it´s a nice
thought. haha
Anyway, sorry for this
ridiculously random email. I forgot my planner at home so I can´t really
remember anything specific that happened. It´s been a good week though
and I´m happy. :) I love you all so much!! I hope all is well!
Drea
PS. I had a cool experience this week. I had a pretty tough day on Friday. It was District Meeting which was all in Portuguese and I couldn´t understand a word. Which I´m used to by now. But suddenly I was in the middle of a role play and it was my turn to talk and I didn´t even know what we were role playing. I just sat there with huge eyes and a "how did I even get over here?" look, and we moved on. I was so frustrated. I was embarrassed and kind of annoyed they´d ask me to be in a role play and I locked myself in a bathroom stall and let myself cry. I cried and begged the Lord to help me make it thru the day. We had so many lessons to teach and I wanted to do anything but speak Portuguese. I cried and prayed and then had to move on with the day.
Not even 5 minutes later,
Sister Wright pulled me aside and just hugged me. She then got really
quiet and told me that she felt I had angels helping me. She said she
doesn´t usually say that but that she feels it. She specifically
mentioned a Grandmother and Grandfather, which I thought was
interesting. I bawled. haha but over the next few hours - it was the
weirdest thing. EVERY person we talked to - on the street, during
lessons, members... everyone... Everyone we talked to seemed to go out
of their way that day to compliment my Portuguese. One member told me
that the spiritual thought I gave on Sunday strengthened her and her
family´s testimony of the gift of tongues cuz they could tell I was
nervous in the beginning, but when I started testifying she said I spoke
with fluency. Another person asked me how many years I´ve been living
in Brazil. HAH!! Somehow, I had angels that day telling people to be
extra kind. To not make the typical "Ela nao fala bem Portugues" phrase
I´ve come to know so well. Because I couldn´t handle it that day.
I´m
not as good at Portuguese as they were telling me I was that day, but it
meant so much to me that the Lord would answer my prayer in that way,
because it was exactly what I needed. He answered a little girl´s prayer
from a bathroom stall because that´s the merciful, loving,
detail-oriented God we have. I´m so grateful. Someone else we stopped on
the street that day told me the only reason he stopped to hear what we
had to say was because I had light in my eyes and he wanted to know why.
He said "Eyes of a Lynx" (which is not the first time people have told
me I look like a cat here.) haha it was kind of cool. I don´t know what
happened that day, but I´m so grateful for it. I´m so grateful for
prayer and for the miracles the Lord is willing to give if we make the
effort to reach out to him. I feel a little silly admitting to my
bawling in a bathroom stall, but I´m just grateful and wanted to share.
:)
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