Óla minha família!!

Wow the past two days have been a whirlwind. I'll be honest, wednesday and thursday morning were horrible. I never had a bad day at the Provo MTC but it's been a completely different story here. Don't worry I still haven't cried yet but the tears were at the surface haha. So many adjustments here. There are a million more rules, I don't understand a lot of them to be honest but I've seen the blessings from obedience and know I'll be blessed and protected for it! One of those rules is I only get 40 minutes to email.... oh well. Another rule is that we have to speak Portuguese 100% of the day, not just in class, not just at meals, but all. the. time. Sister Arbuckle and I decided to go ahead and do as much as we could to SYL all day and we did it for like 8 hours!!!! Amazing, right?! We were totally able to communicate with each other and could say almost anything we needed or wanted to! It kinda separates us from the elders in our district because.. to say it nicely... they can't speak the language. At all. We still love them but it makes it hard to try and speak in portuguese all day. So its just me and the comp but we're already seeing a major improvement in our language comprehension and speaking.  And the coolest part is that we can talk to, laugh with, and enjoy conversation with all the other missionaries here at the CTM! All the latinos here loveeee us, it's so fun to talk to everyone. We're juggling three languages though, Portuguese, English, and Spanish. Sometimes you can't figure out what people are saying because its a mix of span-porto-ingles. We have a good time though! Turns out we are the ONLY americans here plus one other elder leaving this week, the other two are from Scotland and New Zealand. They have sweeeeet accents. Adam have any questions for Elder Gallagher? I'm sure you know exactly where his family clan is from and what his tartan looks like lol. I couldn't tell him anything about our Scottish ancestry, that's when I really needed Adam's brain with me!

Oh so I forgot to mention on wednesday - I got asked to be the Sister Training Leader! Again. Of our cute little district of 4 haha.

Today we got to go to the TEMPLE!!!!! So funny story with that. We have to get up at 5:30 to leave for the temple at 6:30, but this morning..... neither of our alarms went off, and sister Arbuckle jolted me awake at 6:27 and said, WE HAVE 3 MINUTES TO GET READY BEFORE THE BUS LEAVES!! So I literally jumped off my bunk bed and scrambled to get clothes on, neither of us brushed our teeth, I didn't touch my hair (which I'll talk about later, yikes) and we dashed for the bus. Made it just in time haha. But as the brasílians say.. TUDO BEM!  Apparently the missionaries here can either go to the São Paulo temple, or the Campinas temple, dependent on the weather and traffic. Today was São Paulo but hopefully we can experience both! And the rule for no picture taking outside of the CTM doesn't apply for the temple so we got to take pictures!! So I´ll send those pictures along as soon as I get to o campo (the field) em Natal. The temple was so amazing though. We got there at like 8:30, but turns out there were a few missionaries who hadn´t received their endowments yet so we had to wait for them to do ordinances and our session started at 10:30. So in the meantime.. we did a few other ordinances ourselves! It was a really long day, I would be lying if I said that I didn´t fall asleep during the session.... but as we were all together during this I couldn´t help but think - we are all very far away from home. Missionaries from Ecuador, Argentina, Peru, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, America, and everywhere in between. Yet we were all there in the house of the Lord, all missionaries sharing His gospel, and all His children, called to serve in Brazil. Another testament to me, that this is where I am supposed to be.

After the temple we walked outside and experienced our first downpour. Put a little damper on things (ha ha ha) but the sun came out afterwards! The first time I´ve felt the warm sun, and seen it since I´ve been here! It´s actually been pretty cold, only like 70 degrees and overcast. But São Paulo is in a drought right now so everyone is really grateful for the rain.

Yesterday we experienced our first brasílian cockroaches. Yes, indoors. And yes, probably 5 inches long and 2 inches in diameter. Welcome to Brasíl, Emily... no worries I´m not that grossed out yet, but give me a few weeks in Natal and we can revisit that subject.

My hair is a serious monster here. Absolutely outrageous, I don´t know what to do with it. I have never in my life seen it this curly and this poofy, everyone comments on it too. Gosh. Don´t laugh when you see my first pictures from here!!

I met Irmão Silva!! The teacher that the Ashcrafts know really well! And his wife is my teacher, irmã Alcalde. What a small world. She´s from Fortaleza. We´re going to all take a picture today that they´re going to send to the Ashcrafts so I´m sure when she gets that she will send it to you as well.

The days have definitely been looking up since I´ve been here. We taught two investigators yesterday, didn´t even need to use notes, and our portuguese was better. I´m seeing blessings that come from working hard and stretching myself, even when I really don´t want to. You know more than anyone how much I really hate to get out of my comfort zone, but I´ve been forced to and it´s getting easier and easier, and I´m learning from mistakes and most importantly learning my purpose as a missionary. It´s still so crazy to me that I´m already in the country that I´ll be serving my mission in, and that I´m every day surrounded by these wonderful people and the culture and the language.

I´m doing fine, I´m hot and sweaty and don´t look as cute all the time but I´m still the same old Emily, just with a new and improved spiritual self. I´m growing every day and consistently find a greater desire to love and serve.

Eu tenho um testimunho de Jesus Cristo e sei que através Sua Expiação nós podemos receber peçõar por nossos pecados. Eu sei que nos temos um Pai Eterna que nos amas, e respostas nossas perguntas através as escrituras. Eu sei que o Livro de Mórmon e VERDADEIRO. Eu tenho um testimunho do Dom de Línguas porque eu aprendo e ensino em português melhor todos os dias. Eu sei que o Espírito Santo ensina os verdades do evangelho, não eu. Eu sei que estas coisas e verdadeiro.

Amo vocês e até mais!

Sister Brown