Me, being diverse.: November 12, 2012

Oi!!! Tudo bem?! Tudo é bem aqui!

Let me just start with how great my birthday has been already. I woke up this morning and Sis. F immediately sang Parabéns to me and then I studied about the gifts of the spirit and realized all of the great presents Heavenly Father gave me, including my life and opportunity to be ressurected. (Wow I don't remember how to spell that word in English... ressucitado) Then as we are walking to the e-mail place a mob of Brazilian school girls starts chasing us trying to scream "Hello!" and other half-english phrases at us. Finally we turn around because we understand their portuguese and know that they want to speak English with me. So they ask if they can take a photo with me and I told them only if they sang Parabéns for me because today was my birthday. So IMMEDIATELY they start singing, but in English. Hilarious! "Happy BirTday to you" in the middle of the street. Yeah, so great. But, also it was the 5th birthday of the daughter of the bishop last week so they had a big party Saturday night and Sis. F and I pretended that it was a party for me. It was great. One of the members in our ward, Leonardo (he's a firefighter, super cool) got me a cotton candy bigger than my head. What a joke. This party though-- you would not believe. For a 5 year old. It was like that TV show, my super sweet 16. A huge bouncy castle, ballons everywhere, popcorn & a cotton candy machine. Huge banners of princesses. The little girl was dressed exactly like a princess. They invited the whole ward plus just about everyone else the family knows. It was fun, but wow. Why wasn't my 5th birthday like that mom & dad? Haha.

I got letters this week. Always wonderful. I loved the letter I got from Ashley Bench in Spanish. So great to try to remember all the Spanish I learned and forgot already. It was good practice for me. I really am liking this transfer so much better than the last. I am enjoying rather than enduring. What a blessing. Funny that one of the letters said I could at least have a cold shower when I get home, but actually when I shower here at night it is usually cold water. I haven't had a hot shower in almost 2 months. I can bear it, but even after a really hot day a cold shower is not a pleasant experience.

I read Em's e-mail this week about the couple that wants to be baptized, but the wife isn't sure about getting married. Welcome to Caicó. We have so many investigators that aren't married. Literally it is so common to live together and never get married here that we try to casually ask people in the first contact if they are married legally. One woman that was at church Sunday and would be able to be baptized this week can't be because she is married legally to her first husband who died and if she marries her current husband (who she has been living with 18 years) she will lose the money the government gives her each month because of her deceased husband. We are going to try to help her realize the sacrifice is worth it, but who knows. Also, another man who has come to church the past 2 weeks and LOVES the gospel is living with his "wife" of 30+ years, but hasn't divorced his first wife yet. So hopefully he will get divorced and remarried soon so he can be baptized. I definitely sympathize with Emerson though about the whole importance of marriage thing.

This week lots of people made comments to me about how people in the U.S. are prejudice and poor me for having to live there. I just think to myself... no, slavery ended over 100 years ago. It is challenging to listen to people give all their opinions of Americans-- good or bad. I am learning patience for sure and I tell myself that I make assumptions about things I don't know sometimes too.

They already have Christmas decorations up here! Wahoo! It is strange not to have any snow though so I don't feel like I am missing out on Christmas because the atmosphere here is really different. We have a zone conference to celebrate Christmas Dec. 14 so that will be fun I think. Thanks for the pictures of the snow at our house, helped me remember that not everyone in the world is dripping sweat like I am. I am grateful I don't have to walk in the snow though, that would be awful.

One more cool thing. Our investigator that will be baptized this week told us that after talking to us she had a desire to be more modest. So great. We didn't say anything to her about modesty, in fact we never say things about modesty because it is burning hot here and hardly anyone is modest at all, but it was cool that she realized it out of a self-respect type thing. I was way happy. She is recognizing the Spirit!! WOO!

Here are some pictures. One of us with Caicó in the background. And two of us posing on one of the many horse drawn carriages farmers and people use here. Sis. F was so funny asking the man if we could take a picture on it. He allowed us to and afterwards asked if we would take a picture and print it for him.