I´m typing this on a keyboard that is configured slightly differently than I´m used to so bear with my misspellings, lack of correct punctuation, etc.
Anyway, I did indeed make it to Brazil. The flight was all night but wasn´t too bad and I arrived with all of my belongings as well, fortunately. The most interesting part was the really sudden leap into Portuguese. I did practice with Sister Zanella and it helped a ton, but there´s really no preparation you can get for being in a place where you need to communicate. Neither President Monteiro nor his wife speak English, but interviews and training went just fine. I´m serving in Bom Retiro (literally ´Good Retirement`), a wealthy suburb of Curitiba. My companion is Sister Medrado (from Cuiaba), who is fabulous, and we also share an apartment with Sister Araújo (from Manaus) and Sister Eulogio (from Peru). None of them speak more than a bit of English, so rest assured I´m learning Portuguese very quickly.
The city is gorgeous, I can´t even describe how pretty it is. We use the public transportation to get to all our meetings so I´ve seen a bit of it so far. There are a lot of interestingly designed high-rises and graffitti on everything. Our most effective finding tool here is knocking doors (well, clapping at gates) so we do a lot of that. Curitiba is very mountainous, which I like, so we hike up a lot of very steep streets. We usually carry umbrellas to protect against blazing sun or pouring rain (the ntwo types of summer weather) and also to guard against dogs. EVERYONE here has at least three very sizable dogs guarding their houses. I thought I was a dog person before but perhaps I won´t be in the next month or so. Also, I know people always ask, so the food here is incredible. We have a calendar where members of the ward are assigned days to feed us, so we have a dinner appointment each day except p-day.
As for the language, I´m not very patient with my progress, but the Lord really needs me humbled as well. Sometimes I can understand most of a conversation perfectly, sometimes I get almost nothing out of what people are saying. I still lack the confidence to talk easily with anyone besides the other sisters, but Sister Medrado is really encouraging me to pull my weight during lessons and I´ve also given the spiritual thought at appointments a few times and was abruptly called on to bear my testimony in sacrament meeting yesterday. Accurate grammar aside, I can usually talk about most topics and be understood, so the last six weeks of study really did help a lot.
My last Saturday in Hendricks, Mark was baptized! It was an amazing experience because of just how far he came to arrive at that point. All of Mark´s friends in the church were there and everyone who helped to teach him or was a part of his conversion, which was a sizable number. We had a bit of a stressful moment before, when no on´s keys to the baptismal closet fit the old lock and we couldn´t get any jumpsuits. But thanks to the diligent lockpicking efforts of the Spanish elders and the timely arrival of the second counselor, everything worked out in time. The two talks were given by Haylee and Brother Snider, who are both really shy and kind of doubtful of their abilities. They were the best baptismal talks I´ve ever heard and I´m not saying that just cause I love them. Mark got baptized by Johnny and after the baptism we asked him how he felt. He responded ´Great! I´m kind of dizzy.` While he changed, we shared a couple of the conversion stories of his pioneer ancestors and then Brother Frailey gave the most enthusiastic welcome to the ward I´ve ever heard. His confirmation in sacrament meeting and ordination to the Aaronic Priesthood were also amazing experiences. I wish you all could have been there.
Anyway, gotta go because I need to email President Monteiro and that could take a while. But I love you all, have an amazing new year, and please send any questions you have. Love you all!
Sister Nielsen
Pictures:
Haylee, Sister Zanella, Johnny, Mark, me, and Solomon right after the baptism
The view of São Paulo from the plane. I wish you all could see the enormous scope of the picture; each of those teensy grey specks is a massive high-rise building. And there are thousands of them
Me and Sister Medrado right before coming here, so you can see I still have all my arms and stuff
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