Hello!
The first week felt like an eternity to be honest, I have not been this mentally exhausted in a long time. My portuguese is coming faster than I thought it would, but it is still definitely a work in progress.
People are super nice here, everytime you see someone you exchange greetings. The food is weird, but there is always beans and rice if you are not feeling very adventurous. There are four of us in a room, and we have our own shower and toilet, so that is super nice. I killed my first spider in the shower the second day, and already got nailed by a mosquito, so that is just awesome. My brazilian roommates are super cute. Sister Rocha will pull out her dictionary and plop down next to my bed every night and we try to have conversations. My companion is Sister Rasmussen, and she is super responsible and punctual, but other than that we get along pretty well. She had way stricter parents, so she doesn´t really do stuff like drink things with carbonation, or watch tv that was made after 1960. Thank you for not doing that to me, I really appreciate it.
I have a bunch of things to tell you, and not a lot of time, so I will just go day by day and tell you the little things that happened throughout the week.
TUESDAY
I remember next to nothing about Tuesday to be honest, it´s all a big jetlagged blur. I remember we had choir to practice for the devotional we were going to have that night. The song was titled, Um a Um, and I started laughing because those are the only sounds I´d been able to say in response to people saying stuff in Portuguese to me at that point.
WEDNESDAY
That night we heard a group of elders chanting OREOS, OREOS, OREOS! For about a solid minute. Found out later that a bunch of Brazilian elders saw an American elder with a package of Oreos and got super excited because they recognized them as an American food.
THURSDAY, MONTE PYTHON DAY
Everyone always asks, Qual ès seu nome? What´s your name? Qual sua missão? What´s your mission? And when you answer those questions correctly, they say something that´s total gibberish and you just stare in confusion at them as you are tossed into the chasm of language barriers.
Actual thing said in class today: The gift of tongues is the most painful gift. You have to struggle. . .if you want to kill someone who is telling you to speak Portuguese, that is just part of the gift of tongues.
HENRIQUE IS DEAD?
So, the guy who was supposed to be our first investigator didn´t come. Another investigator with a completely different backstory came instead, and told us that Henrique was ´nõa viva´, and I, a little confused, asked ´´Henrique is dead???``. Not my best moment in comprehending the Portuguese language. Turns out he was just sick for the day.
STATUS OF OUR MENTAL STATES AS A DISTRICT
Our instructors will ask us what our names are and we´ll all look down at our nametags in confusion because we honestly can´t remember.
FRIDAY
Everytime I tell an instructor I´m from Utah, they nod knowingly and say ``a factorias``, which is factory I guess? No entendo. They do the same thing to the missionaries from Idaho, except they say ``babitas``. Poor Idaho missionaries, even in Brazil they can´t stop being associated with potatoes.
HENRIQUE IS NOT DEAD, AND THE TRUTH COMES OUT
So we met Irmão Coehlo today, and we told him that the other `investigator´ who came the day before told us that Henrique was dead. He laughed and said, ``oh no, I´m fine``, and then he sorta gasped and looked like he´d just told us that Santa was really just our parents. He was so upset that he accidentally told us that he was really Henrique.
STATUS OF OUR PORTUGUESE COMPREHENSION
Instructor: Asks a question that isn´t a yes or no question.
All of us after a moment of puzzled silence: Sim
In all honesty I´m learning a lot faster than I thought I would. The gift of tongues is definitely real.
SATURDAY
All the Brazilianos do this thing with their hand. They kinda flick it, and smack their pointer finger against their middle finger to make a snapping sound. I think it´s silly, because all I can think of is Emperor´s New Groove where Kuzco asks if what Pacha´s doing with his fingers is some sort of peasant game. But they told us we would never be true Portuguese speakers until we learned how to do it, so I finally mastered it today. My wrist kinda hurts now though, so I think I will leave my success behind me.
SUNDAY
Sunday was really sweet. We had a devotional that night, and we opened with Called to Serve with everyone singing in their native language, so it was a big awesome mishmash of a song. It was our closing hymn that really got me though. We sang How Firm a Foundation, and the second verse really comforted me, because Sunday was probably my hardest day so far as far as homesickness and doubt goes.
Fear not, I am with thee. Oh be ye not dismayed.
For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid.
I´ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand.
Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.
MONDAY
They had the weirdest pudding at lunch today. It tasted like those popcorn jellybeans. Upon seeing my confusion, a sister helpfully told me to put some cinnamon on it. That did nothing to help my confusion, but it definitely made the pudding taste better.
We had about three power outages this day, so that was wild. You could just hear groans from all over the CTM until they flicked back on within a couple seconds.
Just want to say I love you guys, and miss you. Sorry about Nathan´s foot! I hope it turns out okay, that is no fun
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