January 25, 2012

This week was a great week. Even though my Portuguese is still terrible I definitely made huge progress this week. We are teaching one investigator named Paulo and he usually talks a million miles a minute and I can never catch anything, but our last lesson I could understand maybe half-ish of what he said. woo hoo! That lesson was really good in other ways too. Paulo is usually really sleepy and actually closes his eyes while my companion is talking because she talks forever and doesn't stop, but this last lesson she was a lot better at letting Paulo talk and keeping him engaged in the lesson. It was by far our best lesson yet with Paulo, the Spirit was really strong and we could tell that Paulo could feel it too.

We got 2 new roommates this last week. One is from Espírito Santo and the other is from Bolivia. They are both really nice. The best part is that the Brazilian speaks fluent English!! She has been helping me a lot with Portuguese and translating when I have no idea what other people are saying. I have been working on talking in Portuguese. After my one Brazilian friend left I didn't try very hard to talk to people so it just never really happened. But I made a goal this week to initiate a conversation with a Brazilian every night at snack. It is really hard for me because I am not the most social person and it is even harder for me to socialize in Portuguese, but it is really helping! I have learned a lot of cool things to say, I have no idea how to spell them so I'll just have to tell you when I get home.

Today is a very special P-day because we get to go hear from Elder Anderson, which I already told you about, AND Elder Ballard. Everyone is really excited. Our P-day schedule got switched around a little though. We didn't get to go to the temple this morning, and we can't go out into São Paulo later today but we can go out after we finish emails. Sister Steadman, the senior missionary in charge of the help desk and musical numbers ended up switching the song so they didn't need as many singers. I was kind of sad that i didn't get to sing, but Elder Anderson and Elder Ballard are saved from having to listen to me. I can't wait to hear what they have to say to us!

Thanks to everyone for all the letters! I've been getting them from lots of different people and I love them!! One of the Brazilian Elders told me that if I never get letters I should give you a scripture. I looked it up and it was pretty good. Look up Alma 60:6 in the Book of Mormon and you will see what I mean.