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| Sao Paulo Skyline |
So this week was pretty exciting. We went proselyting on the streets of central
Sao Paulo this
past Wednesday! In the afternoon we all headed out with one of our instructors,
Irma (Sister) de Silva, and we walked a bit and then got on the omnibus (public
bus) which was super hot and crowded. We walked a bit more and got to a pretty
busy block and they handed all the missionaries 3 copies of the Book of Mormon each
and we were off. The day before they gave us some tips and we
practiced with each other, but basically what you do is you walk up to
someone and say, "Good evening, may I give you a present?"
because apparently all Brazilians love presents and it totally works! So after
you get their attention with the present you just give them a quick "this
is another testament of Jesus Christ, it will bless your life as you read and
pray to know if it is true, testify!, thanks!" It was a little slow at
first but after the first man we placed a Book of Mormon with we
were super stoked and it just kept getting better. We had this one couple
come up and talk to us and I think they asked us if we were like Jehovah Witnesses.
Unfortunately, I didn’t know the word for Jehovah’s Witnesses in Portuguese so
that was pretty confusing but Elder Si. was able to kind of
understand and reply. I hope they got the difference and they said they would
read the book- awesome!
Speaking of Elder Si.and myself,
things are going along well. I am trying to help him out of his shell a bit. I
stand by my advice that one of the most important mission prep sort of things
you can do is just be able to start up, keep going and end a conversation with
anyone at anytime. He has some reservations about doing that in English, so add
on the language and it gets a little much sometimes. But he has progressed so
much and this proselyting was a big confidence booster for him. And back to
that we even saw 2 guys as we walked back by reading the book later, cool,
so we placed 7 BOMs (we helped out another companionship who was having a hard
time). As a district we placed 30 total, it was an amazing experience! So we all feel like we run the CTM now, which
we kind of do, haha, just kidding.
So about our district, apparently
we’re a “diamond in the rough” district because of how much we try to speak
Portuguese and with our focus and such. We may not feel that way all the time
but, hey. Anyway we get back from proselyting and we get the news. We had a new
sister move into our district who had only been in Provo MTC for 4 days... 4
days to 3 weeks is a big, big, big difference! Since our sisters are the
"newest" American sisters in the CTM, she had to come in with us. And
because of this we had to move classrooms to a bigger one but the desks are
tiny like at college and it’s on the 3rd floor instead of the 2nd. Now our
teachers can’t continue where we were or at the speed they were because this
new sister can’t understand. Whew- its been kind of rough but the sister is
catching up. The plan is that another sister should be coming next week so she
will be with that sister and move down to the week she actually is in. I don’t
know but we will find out, I guess.
So for my teachers we have Irma (Sister) De
Silva in the afternoons and Irmao (Brother) Brito at night. They are both native
Brazilians from Sao Paulo who served missions
somewhere in Brazil .
They are awesome though and super funny and know how to teach well. For our
class schedule it kind of repeats for the morning then the evening. We have an
hour of grammar, and then we have a lesson on some pre-determined topic like “how
to teach the word of wisdom”. They show
us and we practice with each other and then switch who we teach or we’ll be
the investigator. Then we have time to study with our companion while our
instructor becomes our "investigator" and we all switch around
who teaches when and then in the night we do it again except with
different topics and the other teacher.
Ok, so on Thursday we had to get
up earlier and go to the police station to declare our visas. Everyone who got
to the CTM at the same time as us got on a big bus and drove to the police
station. We had to wait in line for a
long time and then sit at a computer, hand them our stuff, make sure our
name was spelled right, then they took pictures of us and did all of
our finger prints and we were on our way... after waiting forever! Oh, and
the Olympics were on the TV in the waiting room- talk about torture! Anyway, it
was all good.
I love you all so much! Have
fun in the snow and I hope everyone gets to feeling better!
Elder Pierce
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