Hello,
The weather here is really good for being winter. Sometimes I wear a jacket because the classroom gets cold. Today
it was overcast, but still warm enough to go without a jacket. Everyone
here responds to me telling them about my mission by saying that it's
really hot up there. So lucky me! But apparently it's beautiful and the
people are SUPER friendly and there is a breeze from the ocean. I'm
excited to experience that part of the country. Both my companions are
serving down in Santa Maria where it gets really cold so they're
jealous of me. It's just our trio in our room, two sets of bunk beds.
I'm on the top bunk. I chose it, but I clearly didn't think all the way
through my decision. The sister's rooms have a bathroom in it, but all
the elders have a communal bathroom in their hall. We're treated like
princesses here at the CTM. At meal times and actually anytime there is
any sort of line we go straight to the front. We also have to sit in the
front at every meeting and devotional. It's supposedly a privilage, but
front row isn't always my favorite.
Our room has little bugs all over, they are smaller than fruit
flies so I just pretend they aren't even there, but it is sort of gross.
Otherwise the CTM is really nice. I've seen a couple of cockroaches in
the gym, but that's all. The bugs kind of remind me of all the spiders
crawling in herds in harry potter, I don't know why, but it's sort of
fun to imagine. Speaking of Harry Potter, we practice teaching our
afternoon teacher every day. She pretends to be an investigator and her
name is Hermione. We teach in all portuguese. The language is going
really well, I'm pretty ahead because of all my Spanish, but it's still a
joke to try to talk to a native. They laugh at me. I like it though.
One of them told me last week that I'm Brazilian at heart. I think it's
because I'm really loud a lot of the time and I like to meet new people.
Hopefully that means I'll be accepted by the locals when I'm in the
field. It's really fun meeting the Brazilians even though I can't speak
their language. They are so loving. One of them gave me a cool keychain
before he left for the field yesterday,
it was sweet. The mission is full of meeting people and loving them and
then having to say goodbye. I don't know how it's going to be when my
companions leave. At least 4 of the elders in my district will be in
Joao Pessoa with me. Back to the topic of teaching our teacher though,
it was a rough week. I'm learning a lot, but I definitely cried about it
when our fake investigator didn't accept the gospel. Our teacher loves
us, but she is pretty harsh with feedback. After I cried about it I felt
better though, it was bound to happen eventually, apparently all the
sister missionaries have a breaking point. It's weird to experience
failure. Like in school I would do bad sometimes, but never so bad that I
couldn't recover and do well in the end. With this it's like straight
forward failure. Our fake investigator tried to give us back the book of
mormon and told us we were really offensive and insensitive. It was
harsh. We've improved since then, but it was weird being told all of
that. Not something I'm used to. I guess part of it is my Sportuglish
(spanish, portugese & english) that makes it difficult to teach
effectively.
After that I caught a cold, which was awful, but I'm healing from
that as well. This place is a breeding ground for germs and something is
going around. Some good news though -- the second half of the week was
wonderful! We did this thing called TRC which is where they video you
teaching and give feedback and we got really good feedback from a
different teacher than our usual one so we felt like at least there was
some hope for us as missionaries. The person we taught was another elder
pretending to be an investigator and he was really helpful, speaking
slowly and clearly, guiding us to share good things, accepting our
commitments. He was great.
I memorized some things in Portuguese which was cool. I love
speaking a different language. It's really good being here. I got some
mail this week too which is the BEST THING EVER. Seriously I never knew I
would love mail this much.
I love you all. I'm out of time.
Talk to you soon!
Laurel
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