MINHA FAMILIA EU AMO
VOCES
Fridays are my P-Day!
As you probably noticed.
i am so excited to
write you guys you have no idea. I've been keeping a list of all the crazy/fun/spiritual/scary things happening so hopefully I'll get to them all.
Here are 3 things I´ve
learned so far from the LONGEST 10 DAYS OF MY LIFE:
1. Missions are hard
2. Portuguese is hard
3. Brazilians are very
nice but talk too fast.
I don~t even know
where to start, I feel like I´ve been here a month already. The CTM is so fun!! But homesickness is a real thing. I´ve been struggling with that a lot this
past week and a half but I keep praying to be able to push through it and lemme
tell you, the Lord is aware of each one of us and has helped me with so much
already. Okay for starters, everyone here speaks Portuguese allll the time.
There is my district and then 2 other districts from the States but they´re not
supposed to speak to us in English. My district is legit, its me and Sister
Kinnaman, Elder Baker, Elder Battan, Elder Hughes and Elder Merrill. We´re
known as ´´The Americans´´.... not sure how i feel about that one yet. We make
fun of each other a lot and make the 10 HOURS A DAY WE SPEND IN CLASS TOGETHER
actually enjoyable. Yeah you heard me right, we spend 10 hours a day in this
one classroom together. It gets hot and sticky and spiritual all up in there.
The Elders think i´m a handful because i have lots of varying opinions on world
issues but they still like me. they also make fun of me and say i make a lot of
weird faces, (not untrue), but i think they´re just mad because they´re usually
at them. We like to incorporate tiny pieces of song lyrics into our conversations
to remind us that there is a world that exists outside of the CTM. But yeah our
days are super long because every single second is planned out for us from 6:30
to 10:30. Everyone that came here from the Provo MTC says here theyre way more
strict on everything. except that we can wear maxi skirts here like whyyy was i
not informed of that??
waking up at 6:30 isnt
as horrible as anticipated, and by 10:30 i am so ready to pass out.
(no, not drunk julia, jared and uncle tim)
oh also for julia and
jared, someone was talking about their bishop back home named bishop hart and i
said under my breath ´´bishop fart´´ and only my companion heard me and i think
she thinks i have terets now. oops.
I have a Brazilian
roommate named Sister Fernandes and a Peruvian one named Sister Bonfild. I love
them. They´re crazy and animated. We speak a really funny mix of spanish and Portuguese
and english. sis fer. tried talking to me in port really fast and i try and
lean on my spanish but she makes me practice. Shes like the typical brazilian
woman idk how to describe her. Sometimes it ends up being her speaking Portuguese
then sis bonfild translating it into spanish for me and then i translate it into english for sis kinn. They love american singers like bruno mars and beyonce
its super cute.
fun fact: everyone
here says ´´sheem´´ for sim which means yes, which means dad was actually right about something. #firsttimeforeverything. also, i dont like all of these
tedious little rules that they have here, or the fact that they make you use
arbitrary goal sheets and plan in time for planning, because i already have my
own goals in my head and i already plan out all my time by myself so i dont get
the point. Also we have this lame computer program to help us learn portuguese
called TALL which i hate because id rather practice face to face not just
memorize vocab. but i guess dad was right again because sometimes you have to
do things you dont wanna do. #lifelessonsbypdaddy
Speaking of
portuguese, it is pretty dang difficult lemme tell you. But I~m picking it up.
it is a blessing and a curse to know spanish, its easier for me to pick up on
vocab and alot of the phrases but then pronunciation of portuguese kills me. i
speak in a combination of 3/4 portuguese 1/4 spanish and just kinda hope for
the best haha. when the natives here me speak they ask if i know spanish so i guess my secrets out. but i´m getting better. i can talk about lots of church
stuff fine, its just my real life vocab that struggles. its hard when i want to
teach by the spirit and adapt my lesson plans to fit an ´´investigator´´ we
have, but i dont know how to say all the stuff i know they need to hear,
in portuguese yet.
The people here are amazing!!!
sooo so nice and sweet and all the sisters give you hugs and air kisses on the
cheek when you see them. and everyone in the halls always says hi to each other
and good morning (bom dia) and good night (boa noiche). i cant count the number
of times a day i say ´ói!´(oye) which means hi. theyre just all so nice and inviting
even though i can barely communicate with them. a lot of them like to try
little english phrases on me and its so cute. oh and its probably the best
thing ever here that since we´re in latin america, everyone pronounces sister
like ´seeester´ like on nacho libre, so im seester walk-hair.
I´m learning alot
about patience and the power of prayer here. My companion is pretty different
from me, because although i love her, she likes to take things slow, and is
pretty quiet and passive. as you know, i am not. especially when it comes to
the gospel. But its okay, shes teaching me to slow down and im teaching her to
speak up. i pray a lot to be able to see the other elders here as christ would
see them, and its amazing at the capacity of love that im able to have during
the day. but by the night i think my prayers wear off so i have to just read
more scriptures.
the food here is
alright, its all brazilian food so pretty much every day is mystery meat in the cafeteria. oh and theres every flavor guarana under the sun, uncle kenny would
love it. the foods sometimes good, sometimes great, sometimes bad, and
sometimes tastes like its from parts of the animal that no human being should
ever ingest. but mostly its decent. i miss mcdonalds.
theres one elder in my
district going to maceio (we were right, its mahh-say-o!), and one other elder on my plane ride that i know of so far. whenever i tell a native im going there
all they say is, ohhh its so hot there! awesome.....
oh and we went to the
police station this week so we~re officially brazileros!
okay so what ive
learned this week is that the lord is on our side. and that whatever knowledge
we have, we have to share. we went to the temple capinas today, it was like i
finally felt at home.
love you all
sister walker
No comments:
Post a Comment