No Time!

 Mon, Jul 29, 2013 3:31 pm EST
     Week 7
Oi from Brasil!

      Wow so much to write about...

      That 24 hour travel  day was fun...I felt disgusting and looked it, but that's okay.  My trainer is Sister M. from São Paolo.  She's great!  Very patient. I'm helping her learn English, and she's helping me with Portuguese. There are two other sisters in our apartment. No one really speaks English...so it's easy to feel isolated, but its also a good thing...I'll learn faster. They're all really great though.  It just takes a lot of effort and concentration for me to be social...Ha,ha!

      My area is A. Its about an hour by bus outside of Belém.  It's definitely different than the US.  There's a lot of poverty, but the people are happy.  There's always some sort of party going on.  They loveee to blast their music!  People drive crazy here.  All bets are off with traffic rules.  Love it.

      I tried Açai for the first time this week!  It doesn't have much flavor, but of course it tastes good when you add sugar!  They eat it here with farinha, or with rice. or with beans...that was different. So much rice and beans!  I'm learning to like powdered milk too.  I guess they don't do regular milk?  Also cookies are a staple.  Wafer cookies and biscuit-like cookies.  Tell Grandma they have good bread!  Hard crust, soft middle.

      I could say more about the area, but I need to get to the good stuff! We had Zone Conference on Thurs. so my first real day was Friday. I got to meet most of our investigators/teach some.  It was great!  I'm having a bit of trouble understanding the people here...They talk fast and the accent is different, but I'll get it, its only the first week after all.

      Yesterday we brought one of our investigators, Helena to church. Her nephew came too, and we were talking to him afterwards, and it turns out he's already read part of the Book of Mormon, so we went and taught him later that evening. The lesson went all right. He has a lot of questions, and he's been to a lot of churches. At one point he started talking about Dante's Inferno?  I was pretty lost for a bit.  Anyway, we'll see how that goes.

      Yesterday we went and visited a woman who they'd already taught, but she hasn't been  coming to church.  We taught her the Restoration over again, and I got to teach her about the First Vision, along with some other things. I started crying pretty bad when I was reciting the First Vision.  I felt dumb for crying so much, but the Spirit was really strong.  I know she felt it too.  After that she committed to work towards baptism after she received an answer.  It was really special.

      Anyway, no more time, but I'm really happy here.  It's definitely difficult with my lack of language skills, but that's okay. I know that I'm receiving divine assistance every day.

      Also! The Zone Leaders asked me to give a presentation at our meeting on Friday... I think the Elders have a sense of humor...

paz e bençãos!

Sister Kemer