December 28, 2011

I have officially been a missionary for 2 weeks now. It feels like it has been something more like 2 months. I'm still not getting Portuguese but I might have picked up a word or 2 this week. I have the missionary purpose memorized in Portuguese which makes me feel cool, but that’s about all I have to brag about. I still don't have any companions. My 2 Brazilian roommates left this week for the mission field so I was left all alone in my bedroom. They switched me over last night to a room with 3 Americans in it. I thought they were going to leave me in my room because we got a huge group of new Americans in today and I was hoping that there would be at least 1 sister that would be my new companion. No sisters this time though. I do have a name tag now. It's only a temporary one so they printed my name out on a piece of paper and taped it over the name that is actually on the tag. It looks kind of lame. I tried to take a picture of it but my camera wouldn't focus. Another good thing that happened this week is the bruise on my hand has finally gone away. I had a big dark bruise on my hand right where the other person's thumb goes when you are shaking hands. It’s finally gone now!

Christmas was pretty fun. Christmas Eve was basically a free day. We got to sleep in till 8, go have breakfast then do whatever we wanted till lunch. I went to gym and played volleyball the whole time. It’s so much more fun to play with the Brazilians than with Americans because they set each other up and can actually spike the ball. Americans just hit it back and forth. After lunch we had games and a movie. We watched the Muppet Christmas movie in Portuguese with no subtitles so I had absolutely no clue what was happening. Christmas day we only had sacrament then free time to write letters and other Sunday-type activities we wanted. Later on we watched the 1st presidency Christmas devotional. It was good the first time but even better the second!

I'm loving the MTC but can't wait to get to Teresina! I just need to start learning a little more Portuguese!