In the Field!

Olá gente!

What a long confusing exciting week it's been!

My trip to the field started early tuesday morning where we had to wake up at 3:30 AM to catch a bus to Campinas and then fly to Juiz de Fora. The landing in Juiz de Fora was the so sketch. The plane wasn't very big so we were moving all over the place and I was looking out the window at all the hills and rivers and thought we were about to crash land but turns out that the airport is just tiny and it's in the middle of nowhere. We met my mission president who is so sick then we headed to the city where we had lunch and a testimony and a bunch of training then we went to bed at the mission home. The next day we had more training and then they told us who are companions were and our areas.

My trainer is Elder Braz who is a native Brasileiro. He is awesome! Super hard worker and a super fun dude. And he is almost fluent in English. Mans a beast he learned all of it from playing video games cause he said people roasted him when he spoke Portuguese.

I'm out here in Tres Pontas. A small town near Varginha on the far western side of the mission. Which I know probably means nothing to most of you but hey its in the middle of nowhere Minas Gerais so that's the best description I can give. I'm serious. It took a 7 hour bus ride to get here so we really out here.

But yeah I really like it here. It's really pretty with all the green hills surrounding the town. The houses are pretty decent and are all different colors which I like. Walking up the hills isn't very fun but they aren't too steep here like in other parts of the mission.

And the people here are so nice. All we have to say when street contacting is "você gostaria receber uma oração?" (would you like to receive a prayer?) and boom we're inside. We've taught a lot of lessons already and I've only been here like 5 days.

 What's difficult is getting people to commit to things. We already had two people on date to be baptized when I get here but they won't come to church and are having a hard time accepting the Word of Wisdom but we will continue to try. We taught this investigator on saturday night and invited her to church and she said she would come, then on Sunday went to her house before church and clapped at her gate and she wouldn't answer but we called her and she said she was coming then boom we're at church and nothing. So that's just how it's gonna be I guess.

It hasn't been easy I'll be real. I've been so confused the entire time I've been here. I have no idea what's going on, what people are saying, and what I'm doing next but I've just been following my trainer and I've been learning bit by bit. When I really really concentrate I can understand a bit of what people are saying but not much. I almost always at least know what the topic of conversation is. I have already seen how much more I can understand but I still feel like I can't say anything. Someone will ask me a question and I'll just freeze up cause I have no idea what to say. Haha but i know I'll get better and in the meantime the holy ghost will fill in the gaps.

My favorite phrase my trainer has taught me is "(es)tá me levando pro (pro = para o) cheiro do queijo" which literally translated means "you are bringing me to the smell of the cheese" which you say when you are following someone and they don't know where they are going. 

Sorry this email is so long but this is honestly more for me to remember later than anything else but it is a pretty cool miracle. My second day here we taught the Restoration to one of our Pesquisadores Laura and her daughter or daughter in law (I'm still very confused on what happened) Sabrina and it went really well. We would say like one sentence then she would talk for like 5 minutes about it. I don't know what she said but my comp says it was good haha. Then one day we were visiting some random people that had been taught before and we were lost so we just knocked on a door and they let us in and Laura was there! She said that she had followed our invitation and prayed to know if the book of mormon was true and that we answered her prayer. Pretty cool to see how the Lord puts us in places we need to be even when we're not even trying haha.

But yeah I'm out here putting in the work. I love hearing from you guys and all the support you have given me! This week hasn't been easy but its been better because of you! Love you all!

Sorry not many pics I'll try to take more

1) me

2) me and my comp