Week 2...Brazil CTM

Oi everyone! (I love saying Oi! It’s really fun)

This week has been wonderful! Sorry for the heart attack email last week- missionaries seriously have noooo time to email. You can write me letters the regular way, which would be wonderful. You don´t understand how much a letter makes a missionaries day- it´s wonderful. Well, at least I think because I haven’t gotten one yet! Ha ha

This week went really well. The days take forever but weeks go by fast. Like I said last week, our schedule is like this:
6:30am wake up,
7 am breakfast
7:30 personal study (read scriptures and stuff)
8:30-12 class (it´s SO long- I get so bored and antsy but learn a lot. We have really fun teachers) 12-1 lunch
1-4:30 MORE class (ugh- I think my bum will totally flatten out during my MTC stay because we sit for 9 hours a day) In class we learn Portuguese, instruction on how to teach church lessons to people (we do a lot of role play stuff).
4:30-5:30 dinner
Then companion study for an hour after that (we study the language, help each other with pronunciation and stuff, and also church materials to get familiar with the lessons we´ll be teaching)
At night we have gym time, and I run a mile on the track with my companion. After all the rice, beans, rolls, butter and juice I’m having here, I don’t want to get tooo fat!

An apostle came to the CTM this week- Elder Russell M. Nelson. We prepared for his coming all week, and my companions and I sang in the choir. We could feel the Spirit so strongly as he walked in to the room. It was almost tangible and brought everyone peace and happiness. He first had everyone shake his hand, which was really neat! I thought something cool would happen as I shook his hand, but I realized that everyone had smiles on their faces after they shook his hand, and that is what was so important and memorable- just that the gospel brings joy to so many!

I can´t wait to tell people how happy it makes me, and how much the Lord loves each person, every day! So Elder Nelson spoke, and he shared thoughts that answered questions I had had, which was so wonderful. He blessed us all, and our families, and that we would have success (I wrote the specific blessing down, and I’ll have to share it when I have more time) Elder Holland spoke in areas around here, and I was kind of disappointed I didn’t get to hear him speak as well, because I love his talks.

What crazy things can I share?? Well, my teacher told us about this creepy cockroach they have here in Brazil. He said that they come out at night (mostly if your apartment isn’t clean) and look for food. BUT he said that if you aren´t a good teeth brusher, they will follow the food smell to your mouth. They then bite your lips and lightly blow too so you don’t feel it and crawl on you, which is super nasty. When you wake up in the morning your lips will be swollen and hurt so bad! Isn’t that disgusting!?! I brush my teeth all the time, so I’m not too worried, but he said it happened to his companion, and it was gross. I guess that´s how I will convince my kids to brush their teeth someday- I´ll tell them the scary huge cockroach will bite their lips in the night!
Something else that is funny here- The Brazilians pronounce Joseph Smith´s name like Josheph aSmitchee, and it makes me giggle every time! My teacher the other day said ``Josheph Smitchee went to the grove to pray” and my whole class started busting out laughing! We explained to him what he said, and we all laughed. I guess I’m starved for entertainment :)

So Brazilians do this sweet hand snap thing. It´s hard to explain, but I have almost got it down. I feel so cool now! The American elders in my class have Brazilian elders as roommates, and we all try to talk with them. They are so funny- and we teach them silly things in English and they do the same for us. Sometimes it turns out to be embarrassing! But we are learning who to trust!! I am learning more and more Portuguese every day, and it’s so fun! I still am overwhelmed; I can’t believe I will be able to speak it someday. But I keep trying!

I hope you all are doing well- I really would LOVE letters! My pictures aren’t working today, I´ll try next week. I love you all and want to hear from you!