Tuesday, June 25, 2013

And the Work has Begun


Well hello! How is everyone doing? Brazil is amazing. But culture shock is a very real thing. Haha Ok. The computer I was using last week was ridiculous - and I couldn’t upload pictures, so I am sending them (lots of them) this week.

Yes, my luggage is finally here, thank Heavens! My apartment is…. Something else. Yep, the mess you'll see in the photos is from the Elders before us- that’s how it was when we moved in. Haha no hot water- at all. And the mosquitoes here aren’t too great either. BUT! The food is AMAZING! Basically it is beans, rice, pasta, chicken, and juice- always. It's great, I love it. The first house we ate at actually fed us fish! Amazing. No complaints here J Except… they don’t have regular milk! Or Honey Nut Cheerios. Or peanut butter. At the apartment all I eat is peanut butter on crackers, so it is a blessing that we get to eat at members´ homes as often as we do. If we didn’t, I'm sure I'd starve  - haha. Other problem: Yes, I brought two containers of peanut butter... but I am quite sure it won't even get me through the transfer - hahaha - but not really a joke.

So… we have a pet… yes. Totally breaking rules here but we're not quite sure what to do about it. It’s a black cat that followed us home and we can't really assure that it stays out of our house because we don’t have a back door that works properly. In one of the pictures you can see that its barred off, but the glass on the door behind the bars is broken! Haha - we are getting it fixed, but not soon enough! The cat is pretty annoying. I really liked it at first… until it threw up on our floor, scattered our trash can everywhere, and peed on the kitchen table, my camera, and my missionary certificate. Yep. It's time for that cat to go.

Our P-day is Monday, but we couldn’t email yesterday because all the stores were closed. Yesterday was a holiday- São João. I don’t actually know anything about the holiday other than the fact that it is apparently a bigger deal than Christmas in the North (where I'm at).  
Last week my companion and I were witnesses at a wedding. Legal, right? Yep! But it gets better; the couple got married because the woman is one of our investigators who is getting baptized on Saturday! WE ARE SO EXCITED!!! Speaking of baptisms…  we have a few investigators with a baptismal date. Because we white- washed the area, we sorta had to ´start fresh´… so we found A TON (18) investigators last week. Wow! Now the dilemma is getting them all to come to church, huh? But we do have more baptisms coming up, and of course I'll keep ya´ll updated.

The people here are amazing! All they want is to follow Jesus Christ. I haven’t even met anyone yet who doesn’t believe in God. It's great. I love this area. I also love the members- they treat us like gold. We couldn’t be luckier! The people are so sweet. All the time people come up to you and hug you, without cause or explanation- randomly. It's awesome. We feel so welcome here. Oh yeah, the name of the area is Prossind. And speaking of the area, yes I'm staying in the João Pessoa mission when it splits. Wahoo! I just love serving here. People actually want to talk about religion, which is so different from the U.S.

Haha - funny story. A lot of people here think I'm Brazilian. Yes, I know. It makes no sense. But I guess they just think I'm from the South. Anyways, the other day we were walking down the street and we hear a man say (about me) ´ aqula mulher é muito branco ´ hahaha which means, ´that girl is SO white!´ haha oh well…

Well, wahoo we can use Facebook now. WHATS UP!? I am actually stoked about that - there were quite a few people I wanted to check up on (people I had been working on before my mission)… so this is great news. Other than that, I have no idea what happened in the missionary broadcast because I watched it in Portuguese.

The language is coming.. slowly but surely. Its hard, but I'm trying. I feel bad for my companion. She has to do most of the talking - almost all of it. But I say what I can when I can.

Michael- I hope you are doing well. I am sorry to hear about the surgery bud, but I will definitely be praying for you [Blog Editor's Note: Michael had to have his appendix taken out this morning]. I love you.

Well, all is well here, as I hope is the case for all of you in Utah (or wherever you are). Have a wonderful week! Love you!

Sister Seal

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