Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Week 2 in Brazil! -- March 5, 2014

Oi Familia!  Tudo bem?  This week has probably been one of the  most humbling, and most fulfilling weeks of my mission!
Haha first off, Heavenly Father is REALLY humbling me.... I thought... "Portuguese will come easily..."  NOPE!  Literally every day I wake up at 6am to study the language.  I botched a few first lessons when Elder Astudillo turned the time over to me, and it made me feel SO BAD!  Aaaaaaaahhh... Haha when the Brazilians don't understand, they'll squint their eyes and say, "...Oi?"  SO... I've been really trying hard to learn and study as much as I can in every spare moment!

As a miracle from Heavenly Father, I haven't gotten sick yet!  Every time I fill my water bottle, I pray that the water I'm drinking won't have parasites.. and so far, so good!  The food is DELISH here, too.  I thought that since it is a poorer area, that we would literally eat just rice and beans for each meal.  Don't get me wrong - we DO eat rice and beans at every meal, but it's so tasty and there's always this spaghetti-type stuff and strange vegetables of some sort to eat, too :)  I love it!

This week was a bit of a roller coaster because we were teaching a family of 8, and they were going to get baptized!  We taught them, and they got interviewed, and were ready to go, then the MORNING of the baptism, the Mom had a dream that someone came to her and told her not to get baptized.... Brazilians are VERY faithful/believing, so she took it as a sign from God that she shouldn't be baptized.  So sad!  

On a lighter note, we found a family of 4 that are WONDERFUL!  They let us right in, and the Mom said "When you guys were speaking, I felt this warmth all up and down my back" and the dad said, "When you came, I had a bad pain in my chest, but once you came in and taught us, it went completely away."  #miracle  We'll be going back again tomorrow to teach them.  

The past few days have been "Carnival" which is a week-long celebration similar to Mardi Gras.  So... Lots of drunkards all around!  Haha I was able to practice my teaching on them at the bus station and the streets.  It was fun!

Sorry this letter is so short!  we are out of time at the cafe.... I will write more next week!

Thanks for your prayers and love and support!

Love, Jason
PS - In Brazil, I like to make friends with the random stray animals I find in the streets.... like the 9458723947203 dogs and random horses and frogs!  :)






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