September 10, 2012

Hello!

Danny brought me pretzel M&M's! I'm saving them for a bad day or something.  I see him quite a bit though which is great. I always like talking to him. His Portuguese is so good!! We've done a couple of days only speaking portuguese and when I talk to him he still understands. And his teacher said he's one of the best to communicate with. He has way cool teachers. One of them went to my mission so I've talked to him before quite a bit. Dan is also the District Leader so that's cool. People come give me compliments sometimes because he's so cool and he's my cousin, like the other day some sisters were like "we saw him play volleyball and he's way good, you have an awesome cousin." It's funny.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMERSON!!! I hope it was wonderful. Sounds like he got a bunch of boring mission stuff, but he'll be happy to have it. Sister's clothes are a lot more interesting. Ties are really valuable to the elders, it's funny. We have blue tie friday where all the elders match and the sisters wear some sort of blue. I usually wear a scarf. Oh and to be funny last week my comp. and I did "Samesies Saturday" and wore black skirts with white shirts to look like elders. We have to do all we can to stay entertained here. 9 weeks is a really long time to be packed in a tiny classroom with 12 people. I'm going to miss them all next week when I go the field though! There are 4 elders in my district going to my mission and 1 elder in another district. Plus 3 more new elders who are 6 weeks behind us, in Danny's district and 1 more new sister! The sister is really cool and I hope I can be companions with her sometime in the future, that would be great. Elder Walton is one of the ones going to my mission, he's interesting. I don't even know how to describe him, really. It's pretty fun that he knows Em & Chad though. Another new elder is from the Mt. Olympus stake. Elder Barton, I think his first name is David, but I'm not sure. He knows Emerson.

The broadway stuff for President Monson's birthday was a broadcast that we watched from the conference center. It was the Mo Tab choir singing. Not the best devotional we've had, but I appreciate that they were trying to help us have fun. Usually all the speakers they bring are really really good.

This last Friday was Brazil's Independence Day and just as I had hoped they had quite the treat for us in the cafeteria. ICE CREAM!!! Eu amo sorvete!! Muito! And even better, they had a kind that was almost exactly like the Honeycomb ice cream I fell in love with in Ireland. I was really beside myself I was so happy. Our district sang the hino nacional every hour. One of the teachers got me a CD of it, people are so nice to me here!

This week I also got to speak in sacrament meeting on Sunday, in Portuguese and pray at the fireside for the whole CTM Sunday night in Portuguese. It's so nerve wracking speaking Portuguese in a formal setting with natives. Good practice for me though. And boy do I need it. I can speak pretty well, but when it comes to understanding I struggle more. During proselyting I didn't understand what people were saying very well. We gave out 3 Book of Mormons, but it was tough stuff. People were not very happy to talk to us. Like they weren't rude, but they acted inconvenienced. It was a good learning experience though. And supposedly my mission areas have more friendly people than here in Sao Paulo, so I'm really grateful I'm serving there not here!

It's getting really hot here. I haven't been able to sleep well the past couple of nights. I can only imagine what it will be like in JP!! What an adventure!!

I don't know when I'll write next, but I'm sure it will be somewhere in Joao Pessoa!! Love you all!! Wish Emerson luck and Chad happy birthday!! In case I space it in the next email.

Sister Laurel Udy

PS from mom, I have added some pictures to previous weeks for those interested.