Juli was totally right....

Hello family!

Irmäo Terenciani showed us our parent's replies to the pictures he sent over Facebook.  He thought yours was funny.  I was happy to see the reply, but I also got a little angry.  I mean, my Portuguese Instructor can message my family whenever he wants, but I can't?  Where's the justice!

Anyways, exciting news, I saw my first lizard here!  I was walking back from the bathroom and it was just chilling on the wall!  It was this tiny little gecko thing with the little sticky toes.  He was so cute.  I ran back to the class and was like, hey friends, I found a gecko!  We all took turns holding it, so hopefully it wasn't poisonous or anything.  I took it out to the courtyard garden so it could live a productive life eating the cockroach looking bugs that are all over.  I have no idea how it made it all the way up to the second floor of the CTM, but I was thrilled to see it.

Saturday was one of the longest days I've had here.  We went proselyting for the first time, and it was absolutely terrifying.  They just gave us some contact cards, dropped us off on this street, told us to stay in a three block radius and to be back in about two hours, and just set us loose on the unsuspecting world.  Our strategy ended up being that we'd approach people walking their dogs and ask if we could pet it.  While one of us made friends with the dog, the other would introduce us as missionaries.  We talked to a bunch of polite people, but only made one contact.  Well, he made contact with us, so I'm 98% sure he was a stake president or something.  He just marched up, asked if we were the missionaries with the Book of Mormon, and said he'd met some missionaries before but they'd never contacted him.  We had him fill out the slip, and walked away with our poor heads spinning.

I taught my first Relief Society lesson last Sunday, and it went pretty well.  I used an Avatar quote in it and found a couple fans that way.  It was awesome.

Yesterday was rough.  I had splits again, and I horribly failed my first part of the lesson.  I couldn't form a single sentence, and my companion just took over the whole thing after I floundered for a couple seconds.  I was so flustered.  She didn't even let me try any of my other parts of the lesson, she just did it all.  I was so embarrassed and frustrated by the end that I was biting my tongue to keep from crying.  That was bad, but I was supposed to eat lunch with my splits companion and rejoin Sister R after.  I almost made it through lunch, but she apparently noticed I was choking down my food, because she kept trying to talk to me with this really kind voice.  That, combined with the fact that I couldn't understand a word she was saying just punted me off the edge.  I started crying in the middle of the cafeteria in the middle of lunch hour.  She immediately started trying to comfort me, and Sister R appeared like my emotional distress can summon her from the ether.  I was so angry with myself for crying, and I refused to have a meltdown in the cafeteria, so I forced myself to get it together within about 30 seconds, so I don't think I caused a scene, but I'm still just humiliated.  The worst part is that I have to go on splits with this girl two more times this week, and now she thinks that I'm not only a deadweight but an emotional wreck too.

Portuguese is hard, but I already really like speaking it.  You know, when I'm not teaching lessons, because my brain completely forgets everything about it when I'm doing that.  I keep laughing because Juli would always get mad when we compared it to Spanish, and now I understand why.  I am now biased towards Portuguese.

I feel kinda alone here.  I think it's because there's no one here to specifically help me.  We have companions, but they're handling their own challenges.  District Leaders aren't there for emotional support, and STL's are over about 50 girls, so they don't really have time for individual needs unless its an emergency.  I sometimes just need a hug from someone who actually cares about me, not the role that I need to fulfill.

So, lots of new things.  Lots of exciting things.  Lots of down moments.  The time is flying though, I've already hit the halfway mark for my time in the CTM.  

Our Brazilian roommates left yesterday since they only stay here for three weeks.  I don't want new ones, our old ones were the best.  Yesterday was just not a great day.   It's okay though.  It'll get better eventually

Anyways, love yah!  It's hard not to get discouraged, but at the same time I have to remember that it's only been three full weeks of learning, and I already know a lot.  I just gotta keep plugging along and I'll get there eventually.

Love you gotta go!

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