4 Days 'til the Field!!!

Campinas Brazil Temple

Well we are all out of "normal" days here, 4 days til the field!!! Our last day of normal type stuff was on Friday and even then, not really because Sis. T. (the newer sister) got her new companion who is in the same situation/week at Provo, and then getting thrown into a district 2 weeks ahead, so we had that crazy move around. Also some cool news: the church just got Visas for like 200 missionaries who have been Visa waiting in the states and we got the first shipment of 20 of them this week. It's weird because all of them have been in the field for 8 - 12 months so they all have field stories and stuff which is cool, but they only stay here for 12 days in like a refresher Portuguese course- pretty cool. 

So last p-day when we went out on the town I finally got a border tie, which you get from this one little shop on the street and they are pretty sweet, and you have to get one if your here! haha. Also, we got these churros filled with dolce de lete from this street cart. Elder Si. and I savored our first bites together, santa vaca that was delicious! Anyway, so Sunday church stuff: we are all split up into branches by language and based on the date when we got here.  We have sacrament  where all missionaries prepare a 5 min talk in Portuguese and they randomly call whoever when the meeting starts to speak.  I dodged the bullet though and next week is fast Sunday so like only half of our district spoke.  Then we split into priesthood and relief society then come back together with all the English speakers to have a doctrine class taught by CTM Pres. Swenson, which is always great and powerful. Then, we have some free time and there's normally a church movie in Portuguese.  At night there is a devotional with all the CTM. 

After last Sunday's devotional Sis Swenson comes up to me and said, "hey we aren't having a choir at this Tuesday's devotional, would you like to prepare something?" (meaning only Monday and Tuesday mornings to practice) So I was like, "sure!" and headed straight down to the music office. I was flipping through their solo selections when I found that one song from 17 miracles "Savior Redeemer of My Soul" and it was totally in my range and so I was super excited. Sis S. in our district plays the piano really well and so she accompanied me and we practiced and ran though the song like 3 times and it was all good. So I sang that Tuesday night and it went amazing, really grateful for that opportunity. Oh and also I got a hair cut that morning so I enjoyed looking squirrley in my new hair cut while singing. haha It's actually totally fine and I look like when I first got here again. 

Campinas Brazil Temple

Funny story:  we do service here every week and Elder Si. and I were folding fitted sheets in the industrial laundry room here like bosses and he started singing "The hills are alive with the sound of music... AH Ah ah ah..." in this hilarious old lady cracking voice so of course I joined in and we had a bunch of fun laughing and singing while folding laundry. And today, our last p day here in the CTM, we got an awesome surprise! Something about the São Paulo temple being closed because of Carnival (which officially starts the day we leave- great...) but anyway all of the American missionaries were going to go to the Campinas Temple, and... it was in English! The Campinas Temple is beautiful and not having to deal with fuzzy translations was so nice! 

Back to other questions though: (where are the others in your district serving?) Elders R., M., Si. and Sister S. are all going to Santos Mission (one of the new 58 whenever that was) Sister M.'s mission is Salvador, Elder St. and Sister D. are going to São Paulo East, then Sister Sh., Elder Sa. and myself are going to Santa Maria. So we will be headed on a plane for somewhere between 2 and 3 hours down there this Tuesday at some point! (what does it mean to be Brazilian?  What are they like?) As for what the Brazilians are like I'm sure Ill be able to answer that much better in a week in my first email from the field!

 

I love you all so much hope you feel better continue with the work!

 

Élder Pierce