Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Hitting the Streets of Sao Paulo

ola!!!! what an AMAZING week! every week just gets better and better. ive definitely gotten adjusted to the schedule and im loving it here. and now i have to leave so soon!  last sunday a big group of our favorite brazilians left, signing god be with you till we meet again in portuguese will forever get me now. oh and we have new brazilian roommates, they are so sweet! and they help so much with the language too. but highlight of this week was definitely proselyting. SUCH a wonderful experience! we saw so many miracles and wow...heavenly father really does help so much with the language! i talked with 5 ladies and shared my testimony and they promised to read! it made me so excited for the field! i cannot get over how fast time has gone here. it really feels like i just arrived and in a few days ill be heading out! i really am going to miss the ctm so much. the people are wonderful, my district is the best and my teachers are so helpful. i really am so grateful for the opportunity i have to be here. ive learned so much portuguese and feel like i can really talk. its definitely not grammatically correct but i can communicate! ive learned to use a lot of hand motions, its like playing charades everyday haha but with the funnest, sweetest people you will ever meet. the brazilians really do make it so easy to learn. im not worried if i mess up in front of them because they just smile and correct me and teach me. and the hispanics are so great too because they’re learning but they know a lot already especially about the grammar. ive been reading a scripture to a brazilian at every meal to help with pronunciation and i think ive improved a little! its just nice because you really are always speaking portuguese so you learn the essentials pretty fast. like hot water. oh gosh i never told you that story. so first week we get here i needed something soothing for my stomach because i felt sick. we (me and my companion, neverrrrrrr ever leave your companion!) went to go look for someone to help us. we saw one of our teachers in the hall so we tried asking him in portuguese if we could drink the water from the sink. problem. guess who doesnt know how to say sink? yup. and he really does not speak english which we thought was just an act for class but no he actually really doesnt. so for the next five minutes we were trying to explain that, no we didnt drink the toilet water hahah. thats apparently what it sounded like. ahhh hes great...well ive learned a lot since then! oh and i never want to sing in english again. i always loved hyms but in portuguese its just so beautiful! at devotional we all sing and then we have musical numbers and it is so powerful. i love it. there is such a strong spirit here. im so happy and loving it more and more each day. im learning so much about the love of the father. teaching is so much better now I have grown to love the people we teach. our taped discussions are so much less painful to watch now its wonderful! ok im running out of time! i love you all so much! keep me updated with everything!

xoxo,
sister mckenzie


ps family photo album=best idea ever, thank you for whoever suggested that! so helpful in getting to know the other sisters when there’s a language barrier