Disclaimer

DISCLAIMER: Last week's analogy probably sounded like I was in depression. But no. I am not in depression. ;) Just had too much time to think ;) Got down and deep ;) Anyways. Here goes my week!

(Hey mom, I was wondering, for Christmas could you also send me the book Jesus the Christ? I thought they would give it to us in english here but they don't :/ Oh well. )

Random things:

Still eating beans and rice. Don't you worry. Still there. And I've made this little invention where you get a piece of roll, press down the insides, and put all the beans and rice into the roll. I recommend you try it. It's heaven. I'm wearing my retainers? Proud? Me too. I got this absolutely insanely sick looking scripture case. There is a man who hand crafts them and made them out of real letter and he writes your name, your mission, and a scripture on the back. I will take a picture of it and show you guys. Literally the coolest scripture case I've ever seen. Your jaws will all drop. Needless to say. I splurged and spent about 40 bucks american money on it. I had to. Forgive me. Next random thing. Hearing our portuguese teachers speak english is probably the funniest most amazing thing ever. When they say in their broken portuguese accent "oh crap" or other stuff it is absolutely hilarious and gets the whole class laughing. Irmao R told us some prime ones he learned while he was on his mission in japan.. ready? He was like "Why you all up in my koolaid, you don't even know the flavor" In his japanese/portuguese accent. I LITERALLY DIED. Our whole class was busting out laughing. I don't know how he learned these things. But they are wonderful. Threading. You ever tried it? My Samoan companion Sis F does it. It's where you take a thread, and then twist it and then put it against your face where it pulls all your hairs out. It's basically like plucking. But it seriously hurt. I think I'm going to try that for my mission. Maybe youtube it or something? ;) I have a picture so I'll show you later! Went to the police this week. Officially have a visa here for a year and a half! YAY!

 

The people:

 

I love the people here. They are so nice and so welcoming. We have made friends with some portuguese sisters and they always come in our room before we go to bed and we try to talk back and forth. We laugh so much even though we hardly know each other's language :) Also. I love the spanish sisters in our room. We always tease each other and play little jokes on each other and try to scare each other. They call me loca moccaco. (crazy monkey) Which. Get this. Turns out moccaco is a bad word in brazil. A derogatory word. Yup. So. That ended... ;) Of course, right? ;) I love just making faces with them and sitting and laughing :) Everyone here is so diverse it's wonderful! You meet people all over the world from south america. And we are all trying to speak the same language. It's wonderful.

 

Proselyting:

You are not going to believe what we had to do. This wednesday. Yup. We got on a bus, drove in the middle of the city and started proselyting. (Talking to random people in the street about the Book of Mormon and about Christ and gave them the book if they wanted it :) ) We had 4 books of mormon we had to give away. TALK ABOUT SCARY. I have been here for three weeks. And they expect me to go out there and talk about what I believe in and what I know. Scariest thing ever. But for some reason (Hand of the Lord) I didn't do bad at all! We gave all 4 books of mormon away to people that wanted them! It was crazy! It helps me know that I could do it even though I only knew the language for 3 weeks. Miracles happen, eh?

 

Miracle:

Anyways. After proselyting which was really fun and exciting, we went back on the bus and the people around us were curious to what we taught, and the craziest thing happened. Some guy walked up to us and started asking us about the church. THEN he followed us off the bus wanting to learn more. He followed us all the way up to the MTC while we talked about the gospel. BUT we couldn't teach him anymore because we had to go inside to the MTC. BUT GET THIS. Just before we got to the MTC, we met real missionaries who I had never seen in the MTC area before. So right when we had to leave that guy because we had to go to the MTC, the missionaries walked up and we handed him off to the missionaries. It truly was a miracle. Who knew. That exact time. He really cares about us up there. The big guy.

I hope that made sense. But it was wonderful.

My analogy:

This week was like being in a cab where the cab driver doesn't speak your language. And the whole time you're trying to make the cab driver go a certain way because you are positive that that is the fastest way. But turns out that the cab driver was actually taking you a shortcut the whole time. Needless to say. Sometimes we gotta let the Lord lead!

Anyways, I'm over time. I hope that analogy made sense... Not like they ever do. Oh well ;)

I love you all so much and think about you a lot! Take care. Be good! You all are wonderful!

Sister Parco