Week 3- CTM and Temple

 Hey guys! I've successfully completed/survived my first week at the São Paulo CTM. It's been such a fun week, but also one of the longest weeks of my life. We had a lot of downtime at the start of the week which was hard. It's boring! Now that classes have started again it's going much better.  Learning Portuguese has been super tough. Whenever I try and speak Portuguese with a native, the first question they ask is "OH! Where did you learn Spanish?" The CTM president was very interested in my Spanish. My Portuguese... not so much. But, I'm working on it! My district has started practicing SYL (speak your language) which has been so helpful.

Living in the CTM has been an interesting experience. It's kinda like FSY meets military base. Every moring they play music at 6:30 to wake us up and they play music again at 2200 to let us know that we need to be in our rooms. It has not sunk in yet for me that I'm going to be living in this country until the end of next year. I feel like I'm at FSY camp and will be leaving the CTM to go back home. Apparently that's a super common feeling from what other missionaries have told me. 

The people here are SO friendly!! Everyone stops to say hi to everyone. The native Brazilians love to practice their English on us americanos.  It's so fun. Everyone just stops everyone to chitchat. It's a very welcoming environment,  and a tad overwhelming at the beginning if I'm being honest. But it's made the transition a lot easier having people be so nice all of the time. 

Did you guys know that ham and cheese sandwiches are a normal breakfast food here? I didn't until day two of CTM. They gave us sandwiches when we arrived on day one around 1130 but I assumed they were left overs from lunch until I saw them for breakfast the next morning. Breakfast here consists of sandwiches, pão de queso and a yogurt drink (think Danimals from the US). I usually do the Danimal. Maybe a pão de queso if I'm super hungry. Ive had a hard time with the food here. It's already hard because it's a new place with new food, but when you make that food cafeteria food? Yuck!! On Monday though we had pasta, not only did I finish my plate for the first time, but i got seconds. So good! The dessert here is usually pretty good too. The CTM gives us 17,00 a day to spend at the little vending machines and café so I've been eating a lot of Fruitella (Think Mambas). So no nutritional value. But it's food!

Also the water for the showers, not warm. It's so cold here in São Paulo, so cold showers feel more like a curse than a blessing. Thankfully they're not freezing, but they're a notch below luke warm. There was also a spider in the shower the other night... super grody. I have learned since my arrival that my mission is THE hottest mission in the COUNTRY. So please pray for me yall.  It's going to be an adjustment going from winter in São Paulo to 90⁰+ temps all day every day. I keep reminding myself to enjoy the cold while I still can. It's been mid 50⁰s to high 60⁰s all week, and I did not pack accordingly. Ive been wearing my rain jackets to stay warm and sleeping in my robe.

The CTM has required safety videos we have to watch before we leave. Ive been watching them now so I don't forget, bc they're kind of long. And depressing. One video was like "make sure you look before you cross or you'll end up like Elder so and so who got hit by a bus and had brain damage so bad he's blind now and had to relearn what a nose is" or "watch out for electrical wires so that you don't touch one and fall off of a roof and die." Like oh! I was unaware that there were so many ways to die or get maimed on the mission. I'm making it a goal to not do anynof that. I don't want to be the next George OMalley!

We've had the opportunity to go to the Campinas temple 2x since being here. We went on the fourth of July and all of the Americans wore red white and blue to celebrate and then we went yesterday.  On Friday I was able to do a family name for baptisms and confirmations but they forgot to print us our names today so I did a temple name for endowment and initiatory. I did the endowment in English and initiatory in Portuguese. It was so cool!!

Thank you to everyone who wrote me throughout the week, it was so nice getting to hear from all of you. I didn't realize how starved I'd be for outside interaction until I got here. It's fun to read your guys stories throughout the week, so feel free to keep sharing! I received my first package yesterday, I unfortunately forgot tennis shoes at home and I need them to work oit so my amazing mom sent me some. Thanks mom!! Now i can run more. I'm not a fan of running but when you only have sandals, that's kinda all you can do. I can't fun far because yk, sandals. But I've been doing 0.5 every morning before starting on my other exercises. Warms me up! Did I mention how bitterly cold it is?

Spiritual thought: the Campinas temple has a portrait of Christ that I really love. It depicts him on his knees in the Garden of Gethsemane. He is being held up by an angel and comforted. John 14:18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. 

Even though life on earth is hard and we can feel alone, God has never and will never abandon us. He is always there with His angels to take care of us and to give us hope.

Anyways, that's really all I have to say. I love all of you and miss you so much! Feel free to write me back today, and throughout the week. 🩷🩷🩷