Brazillian Christmas

Hey yáll,

First things first. Christmas. People don´t really do anything here on Christmas Day. They have big parties on Christmas Eve, open their presents, and then wake up and eat leftovers on Christmas. On Christmas Eve, we ran around like crazy, trying to give presents to all of our investigators and recent converts. Then we went to Vila Ré and watched the Joseph Smith movie with the Sisters there. Then a irmão in our ward called and was upset that we weren´t planning on going to their house for Christmas Eve. So we went there too. Santa came...several times....most of those times he was sober. There was lots of food, candy, and a Christmas tree. My favorite part was the spiritual lesson. This Irmã cut out a paper christmas tree and had people write what Jesus is to them on little paper ornaments and put them on the tree. So much false doctrine. Then we went home.

Christmas Day we went back to their house for lunch, then we went to a family´s house to Skype our families. That was pretty sweet. Only one computer was working right, so I ended up skyping on a cell phone. Which worked out fine. Except it started raining and the power went out for a minute, so that was a bit of an interruption. I didn´t realize until that moment that the power goes out a lot. I had noticed that the traffic lights all go out when it rains (because it makes crossing the street considerably more difficult), but I hadn´t processed it enough to realize the power goes off in the houses too. The power is kind of weak here...

This week we also had a training for the start of the new year....it ended up being super embarrassing. My first transfer here I had an interview with President, and I pointed out some things that bothered me. Because he asked. Then, he kept bringing them up every time he saw me. Every time. Whenever he saw me he would say "Sister Peart! I´m writing a new big list of mission rules, just for you!" And I would die and just start praying that he wasn´t going to tell the whole mission that they were getting a bunch of new rules because of me.

So we get to this training, and President says "Sister Peart, I know you´re going to LOVE this training!" I started to get nervous. The assistants gave their trainings on goals and obedience, and then the President got up to go through the packet of rules they had handed out. He got up there. I started praying. He started talking....and then out of the blue: "Sister Peart! Do you remember when we had that interview when you first got on the mission?" I started to die. The assistant gave me the hand microphone as President continued to ask me (from the pulpit) a bunch of very pointed questions. I very pointedly denied any involvement. So he gave up asking me to incriminate myself in front of three zones of missionaries, and just started explaining it. Luckily, they had given me a microphone to defend myself. So in the end I think people accepted the fact that I was not trying to ruin the missionaries´ lives. But I did like the packet of rules. :)

As for getting fatter. Everyone says that they can´t notice that I´m gaining weight. But I know for a fact that this is a lie, because it´s only the Americans that say that. The Brazillians have no fear of the truth. There have already been two or three Irmãs that have told me I look so much better now that I´ve gotten fatter. Then, we went to visit one of our investigators. Her sister, who we haven´t seen in almost two months, was there and said "Wow, you´ve gotten fatter since we last saw you!" End of the story.

Yesterday I got to enjoy the fact that we live in Brasil. We were walking home, when Sister Bruno pointed out that one of the houses on our street has a giant avacado tree that hangs over into the road. We spent a few well-deserved minutes trying to pick avacados off this huge tree. In the end, I managed to pick two of them. But only by literally standing on Sister Bruno. Success.

Last night Sister Bruno and I also created a new game to play. It´s called, "Was that thunder, or a firework?" It´s actually pretty fun. Sometimes it´s hard to tell, and sometimes they go off at the same time. But then it started raining/hailing super hard, so we had to plan for our day really fast so I could take a shower before the power went out.

Speaking of showers. THE BISHOP FIXED OUR SHOWER! It´s even BETTER than it was before! Turns out that the water pressure was so low that it wasn´t activating the heater thingie. At least that´s what I gathered from all the Portuguese plumbing terms. Moral of the story: we have a shower.

To end this week´s letter, I´ll leave you with a lovely quote taken out of context. These are always my favorite.

"How did she not notice that a bird pooped on her eye?!"

Happy New Year,

Sister Peart

Feliz Natal!

Hey yáll!

I´m pretty sure this has been the longest week of my entire life. Just so you know. First things first. There is a new Elder in my zone who happens to be BROTHER BELL´S NEPHEW! Figured I´d capitalize that for emphasis. Elder Bell. Poor guy. He got here a day late, so he had to introduce himself the next week, all by himself. The other elders kind of destroyed him, but I don´t think he understood what they were saying, so everything´s fine.

So that was Monday. When we got home from the zone meeting Monday night, we found another cockroach. Tuesday was the mission Christmas Conference, so we were going to have to get up super early, and I was NOT in the mood to deal with this cockroach all night. If it had been in the kitchen, I probably would have left it, but it was in the bedroom. While I was going to fetch the broom, the wind slammed the front door shut, so the roach fell behind the giant dresser. After moving around the huge dresser to hunt for the stupid bug, I found it. And it, of course, started running right for my bed. Not ok. What followed was what can only be described as a short game of murderous hockey. I kept swatting it away from my bed, trying to get it into a place where I could effectively kill it before it started flying, and it kept trying to go to the bed. Finally I got it out and destroyed it. That is the most accurate word. Destroyed it. Guts everywhere. It actually smelled REALLY bad after I smashed it. Also, this morning while I was sweeping the bedroom I found more cockroach legs. I killed it good and dead. Success. :)

Tuesday: Christmas Conference was ok. Bit of an awkward moment when an Elder pretty much started confessing his love for a Sister over the pulpit during the testimony meeting. But hey, it happens. Worst part was that we had to get up at 4:30am to get there on time. Took the metro during all of the worst times to take the metro. Those times where you pack in and all rules about missionary appropriate physical contact fly out the window. I always want to cover myself in Law of Chastity pamphlets during those times. We were traveling with another set of sisters, and on the way there we lost one. We got to our stop, and we all tried so hard to get off the train, but it just didn´t happen. Except one lone sister managed to get off. By herself. Poor girl. She had to wait until we could get off at the next stop, catch the metro going the opposite direction, and find her.

Wednesday: We were talking with this recent convert, and she was telling us about how that morning they had gotten the call that her cousin´s wife had died. Apparently they were pretty close and she was telling us about how her mom (who lives with her) had been crying all day and all this stuff. Sister Bruno was telling her that everything will be ok, and even though it´s sad, we have the gosepl, etc. Except, in the middle of the sentence she stopped talking. I looked over and she had fallen asleep. Right in the middle of her comforting sentence. Yeah, the mission is probably the most tiring (is that a word?) experience of my life so far.

When we got home Wednesday night we found that we didn´t have any power. We went to our neighbor´s house, and she called the power company for us. Turns out, that the Elder, who was living in our house before us, never paid the power bill from SEPTEMBER. Unfortunately, he went home a couple weeks ago, so I was not able to strangle him. She let us come over Thursday morning and use her shower though, since we wouldn´t have hot water.

Thursday: We went to the mission office for an interview with President and all that jazz. Paid the bill. They turned the power back on.

Friday: Went to go take a shower that morning, and made the worst discovery of my life. Even though they turned our power back on, the shower still wasn´t working. I don´t understand how this works, but the water in the bathroom is SIGNIFICANTLY colder than the water in the kitchen sink. I´m pretty sure it´s being taken from an undiscovered glacier pool in the Amazon. Turns out the shower is broken. So yeah. It´s Monday again, and the situation is becoming fairly stinky.

I honestly can´t remember what happened on Saturday. It´s all a blur.

Sunday: They called me up to say the prayer in sacrament meeting. This wouldn´t be so bad if they planned things in advance, instead of randomly calling people out of the congregation. It also wouldn´t have been so bad if he had remembered my name....."We´ll have the closing prayer by Sister....Sister.....the Sister from Texas." Thanks. Worst part is, we spent a LOT of time in this man´s house, because we taught and baptized his soon-to-be son-in-law. Don´t worry though. I chewed him out in front of the representative from the stake. :)

But yeah. I could write more...but I don´t want to. :) Hope everybody has a good Christmas and New Year and all that jazz. I´m going to be sunburned in all of these Christmas pictures. Weird.

Feliz Natal!

Sister Peart

My oh my!

Hello all,

This was a crazy week. Really, yesterday was just a crazy day, and now I´m looking at the past week through a filter of crazy. But first things first.

I did what I´ve always wanted to do. Bought bread from the bread man. He rides around on a bike with trays of bread, with this obnoxious, but very distinctive, horn. Sister Bruno and I were dying of hunger in the street one evening when I heard the bread horn squeaking. We stopped dead in the middle of the street to see where he would appear. When he came into view I waved him down like a crazy person. Then, after a couple seconds, I waved him down like three more times. Just for good measure. I was really hungry. 

I also learned how to fly a kite like a moleque this week. All of the street boys run around in the streets flying kites. It makes walking in the street a little dangerous, since you always have to be aware of the strangulation hazards. But hey, they say São Paulo is dangerous, right? Anyways. These kids get these crappy little kites, and they get them SUPER high up in the air. I don´t know how, since they have to weave them through ten feet of intense power lines, but they do. Then, when the kites get up there, they fight each other. They try and cut the lines of the other kites. When a string gets cut, it´s finders keepers. We were sitting there with Guilherme the other day, and in the middle of his sentence he shot off without warning. We were both really confused, but he came back with the kite. Then, the other day, we were watching the kite fights with Guilherme and Steven. We saw one drift our way and Guilherme grabbed the line when it got stuck on the roof. Then we got to fly it for a little bit. It ended up getting cut again though, and we watched as all the kids stampeded down the street to catch it. Fun stuff.

Most importantly, Sol got baptized yesterday! It was the craziest baptism I have EVER seen. She has asthma and some other unidentified health problems, so after she got baptized she passed out and two other men had to jump in the water, in their Sunday clothes, to keep her from drowning right there in the baptismal font. After we woke her up, we realized she´d lost all control of her legs and feet. She ended up having to be carried everywhere after that. As of last night, she still hadn´t regained full control of her legs. Most stressful baptism ever.

Anywho. That´s pretty much all I can remember about this week. I´m sure other things happened, but they´ve all been overwhelmed by the emotional distress of thinking your investigator is going to drown during her baptism.

Boa semana!

Sister Peart

Updated tan line

Craziest baptism ever

My companion, Sister Bruno. Who is probably the shortest missionary here. 4'11''. With Elder Tall (we forgot his real name), who was on the same airplane with me to get here. He´s probably the tallest missionary here. 6'7''. They´re both from South Carolina.

12/09/2013

Hey Yáll!

It was an interesting week. The last week of the transfer is always interesting. As I´m sitting here, I´m stressing out about what is going to happen with transfers. They call us Monday night, and transfers are at 9am Tuesday morning. Not cool. I´m pretty sure ours is the ONLY mission that gives such late notice. But whatever.

I forgot the list of stories in our house, so I´ll have to go with what I remember and fill in the rest next week. Sorry. :/

First of all, we got a new cell phone! Yay! My companion has yet to get a new public transportation card, since we don´t know where to get one, but it´s a work in progress.

Our new house is a dream. There is someone who lives nearby that has what is either a VERY annoying dog, or a piglet. It´s very loud during the night times. Plus, the other day I came home to find that in the hours since I had made my bed in the morning, as giant spider had moved in and made his nasty web on my bed and everything. Gross.

Speaking of gross things, our house is apparently infested with cockroaches. Never in my life had I killed a cockroach before the mission, but these Brazillian cockroaches put the little ones in St. George to shame. Two nights ago we came home and there was a huge one on the floor. But when we tried to kill it, it just ran INSIDE the couch. My suspicion that the couch is filthy has been confirmed, and I´m very glad I´ve been refusing to sit on it this whole time. Last night, when we came home, there was a giant roach up on the wall near the ceiling. Probably the same one. We were wondering how we were going to kill it, when another, even bigger, roach started running/flying up the wall. At that point I was like "Screw it, we´re getting the neighbor´s kid."

We dragged this poor boy Guilherme away from his computer and when we got back the cockroaches were (according to my companion) breaking the law of chastity. I´m pretty sure they were just standing next to each other, but she swears she knows what was going on. Guilherme tried to kill them, but they both just fell down and disappeared. Then he went back to his computer game. I didn´t feel like I could make him try again since that was the first time I´ve ever spoken to the poor boy.

So instead we made the Elders come over. They took forever, and pretty much dismantled the entire kitchen, but eventually they killed both, and ended up finding a third. Then, on the way out, they found another on the stairs and kind of killed it. I´m pretty sure cockroaches don´t die. But at least they broke all the legs and all they could do was lay on their back and move their feelers. Gross.

I also had to share this realization I had this week. So the public bathrooms here don´t have toilet paper in the stalls. There´s one giant roll in the front of the bathroom, and you have to get your toilet paper first. Super annoying, because I´m always analyzing how much I´m going to use, worried that I won´t have enough. But then I feel like people are going to judge me for wasting toilet paper if I take too much. It´s quite an ordeal. But as I was sitting there this week (people watching), I realized that the worst part is that everyone in that bathroom can take one look at how much toilet paper you took, and know EXACTLY what kind of restroom visit you plan on taking. I found it extrememly amusing, but only because I wasn´t the one using the bathroom.

This week I also received an award-winning backhanded compliment. We were teaching this man, who was actually super annoying, about the Restoration. He kept inturrupting every five minutes to ask us if we wanted pineapple. But anyway. I was sitting there, talking about the Atonement and the role of Jesus Cristo in our lives, and he was like: "Have you ever thought about getting smaller lenses in your glasses?"

I was a little confused about what that had to do with Jesus, and responded with a very profound "huh?" He proceeded to tell me, that if I got smaller lenses in my glasses, that I could go back to the United States and find a boyfriend real quick. Ouch. Before the lesson we had already established that he thought we were marriage rejects, and that´s why we were on a mission. So that stung. But Sister Bruno says that he was trying to say he thinks I´m pretty. Who knows. Crazy pineapple man. The worst part is that I didn´t even know how to bring that back to Jesus. So I just ignored it and moved on. And then he asked if we were sure we didn´t want pineapple. Then he got mad that we were saying that we had the true church of Cristo and he started going off about American imperialism. As he drank a glass of Coke. Whatever.

BUT, my dear little friend Hamilton loves me. He´s 2 or 3 years old and he´s the son of our recent convert and he LOVES the sisters. We´ve gotten him to the point that he can almost say "sister". It´s a milestone, let me tell you. So now he calls me Sister Peter. Because that´s what his mom calls me. Anyway. He was talking with Sister Bruno and she asked "Do you like Sister Peter?" And he said "Yes.....I like princesses." HaHA! Princess. That´s me. Then she said "Do you like me?" And he said "Yes........I like balloons." 3 year old logic, you´ve gotta love it.

I´m sure there are some things I´m forgetting, but I´m almost out of time on this computer, so it´ll have to wait until next week. :/

Have a good week everyone!

Sister Peart

Our Thanksgiving Feast

The Elders killed the cockroaches

Guilherme getting ready to pass the sacrament in his new white shirt.

12/2/2013

Hey everyone!

Boy, I have a lot of stories for this week, but I think they´re all going to be trumped by the reason why I only have a little bit of time to do emails today.

So in the middle of São Paulo they have this giant market. It´s got probably the best fruit in the entire world, but you have to pay out the nose for it. They also have a bunch of little crafty vendor people from other countries. Anyway. We decided to go there today and take a look. We weren´t 100% sure if was inside our mission or not, but we went anyways. It was pretty cool. Bought some cool stuff, tried some tasty fruits (for free), saw a bunch of tourists (they´re funny), etc. Then, when we were done, some of the other sisters decided they wanted to go to this really tall bank where you can go up to the top and take a picture of the whole city. I voted no, since we would have to walk through a part of the city that we definitely are not supposed to go in without permission, but we ended up going anyways. (Just had to throw that in so yáll know that the following events are NOT my fault)

We walked towards the bank. The shyest, sweetest, newest sister pretty much got attacked by a Jack Sparrow street actor. We got to the bank and only and 2 other sisters and I could even go up to the top because we were the only ones with ID. It was going to be a half hour wait before we could even start the tour thing, so we ended up not going anyway. And then. We parted ways. My companion and I headed for the metro. Entered the metro. Went to use our metro cards and.....discovered that my companion had been robbed. Awesome. Now she doesn´t have a public transportation card, and we don´t have our cell phone. Obedience brings blessings folks. :P

So now we don´t have a lot of time because we need to sort out this mess.

We also got to go to the hospital this week. For two weeks now my companion has been getting a horrible cough at night. Only when she tries to go to bed. She starts coughing so hard that she throws up for like 15 minutes. Every night. Problem. Finally she called the President´s wife and she said we could go to the hospital. Problem #2: we didn´t know how to get to the hospital. The secretary in the mission office told us what metro to take, which Ónibus to take afterwards, and then told us to just ask the driver where to get off. Totally fine. Except that the people in that particular area are horrible. The driver never told us where to get off, and after going in the wrong direction for half an hour, this lady told us to get off and catch a bus going the other direction. We did that and asked THAT driver to tell us where to get off. Except he didn´t. So then, we ended up causing a scene and everyone on the bus got really mad at us, but hey. Who cares? Not me. We finally got off at the right stop, and then it started pouring down rain, so that was a fun walk to the hospital. We got there, neither of us had ever been to a hospital in Brasil....so we ended up dripping water all over the poor information lady´s desk while she explained the health care system of Brasil.

In the end, they took an x-ray, and she doesn´t have pneumonia. She´s just allergic to the pollution in the air. I don´t know if I´ve mentioned it before, but the pollution here is absolutely terrible. They also gave her a prescription that we didn´t have enough money to buy. :)

The next day was THANKSGIVING! :D Sadly, Thanksgiving is just another normal day here. But we wanted to make it special. That morning we looked at what we could use to make a feast...and remembered that the only food in our new house is salt, oil, and an unopened package of fake coffee. Plan B was to go the store and buy something to eat....but the mission allowance didn´t go through. So between us, we had 1 cent. The most ironic part of this is that Brasil doesn´t even use a 1 cent coin. Someone gave it to me as change because they thought it was a 5 cent piece. So we had an old, valueless, 1 cent piece. Hmmmmmm.

After a very trying Thanksgiving day, we gave up and went to the store to buy a lime pie with our personal debit cards. Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. I also bought a bar of chocolate, but the termites got into it before I could finish it....sad.

The funniest thing that happened this week, was by far the BEST rejection I have ever seen. I always enjoy seeing the ways people come up with to avoid talking to us, but this one takes the cake.

We walked up to this guy who was sitting on a wall and my companion said hi and went to shake his hand. He avoided the handshake and just gave a thumbs up. Undeterred, she started to talk to him and he started gesturing about how he´s deaf. I was sitting there trying to see if I remembered any sign language, when I saw that he was sitting there with a PHONE in his hand. A house phone. Not even a cell phone that you can use to text. A completely normal house phone. Sister Bruno tried to give him a pamphlet, which he turned down, since apparently fake deaf people also can´t read. I barely made it around the corner before I started cracking up.

These next two stories pretty much explain why an old man here once asked if I was a vampire. We were talking to this girl in her house, and she was talking about my companion´s green eyes. Then she told me I had dark eyes. I was like...what? My eyes are blue. She was like No, your eyes are black! I was like no....I just have abnormally large pupils. After stealing my glasses and performing an uncomfortably intense analysis she agreed that I just had freakishly large pupils. Then everyone who lived in the house had to come see. So that´s why people never talk about my light eyes. They think I have black eyes. That´s interesting.

Second. We had a stake FHE last night and we were taking a picture with our district leader because he goes home in a week. His companion was taking the picture, and after a couple pictures he started asking how to turn off the flash. We asked why, and he informed the whole room that I wasn´t showing up in the pictures because I was too white, so he wanted to try it without the flash. 

Moral of the story? I really am a vampire...

Also at that FHE. All the missionaries in the stake were sitting up on the stand and after they closed the meeting they announced over the pulpit that they had found a cell phone in the bathroom. I automatically knew it was ours. And it was. And they made fun of us in front of the whole stake. Thanks.

This last story is a little embarrassing, and a little bit gross, but it´s too funny to keep to myself. :)

We got to lunch yesterday and we commented on how the lady had rearranged her kitchen. She was like "Yeah, the walls were super dirty and it was driving me crazy, so when I cleaned them I just rearranged everything." And they are very clean walls. Perfect white with little flowers sprinkled on them. Very cute. We ate lunch and everything, and then she brought out the dessert, which happened to be red jello. We started eating the jello and everything was fine and dandy until I put a huge spoonful of jello in my mouth. Out of nowhere I got a randomly HUGE sneeze. With a mouthful of red jello. After the sneeze I assessed the damage and realized that I had sprayed red jello all over my hand. Gross. She gave me some toilet paper, and I cleaned it up. After lunch, I was helping her clean up and I saw that there was half-dried red jello sprayed on her nice clean, white wall. I started wiping at it with the toilet paper, but it was too late. I informed her and she was super nice and said it was no problem. Shame. Burning with shame.

Anywho, that´s all I have time for! Sorry everyone that I didn´t email back!

Tchau!

Sister Peart

Thanksgiving 2013

Thanksgiving, 2013

Hi everyone, this is Sister Peart’s mom. Right now I get the exciting opportunity to live vicariously through my daughter and serve a foreign mission. I thought I’d take some time today and write a Thanksgiving letter vicariously for her. I’m pretty sure this is what she would say:

You know how you don’t appreciate the things you have until you no longer have them? Here are some things I REALLY appreciate and look forward to having again:

-     Being able to call or email my mom and hear her melodious voice and receive her glorious wisdom and counsel. (Or talk to my dad, siblings, friends, and other family members.) Her cooking would be good right about now, too.

-     Having both hot and cold running water in my house. Having both a washing machine and dryer. Having a bathtub with a shower head and curtain. Having a reliable sewer system so I can flush everything down the toilet.

-     Having weekly trash pickup at my house.

-     Having mirrors in my apartment.

-     Being able to drive a car. Being able to use the internet whenever I want. Facebook!

There are also things I appreciate and am thankful for wherever I go:

-     Knowing that Jesus Christ loves me, and you, and he wants all of us to return to Him.

-     I can be forgiven of my sins.

-     I can have the Holy Spirit wherever I am and I’m thankful for his promptings.

-     There are good people, kind people, happy people, helpful people everywhere I go.

-     I have a healthy body that can withstand hours and hours of walking. It can also (eventually) withstand another country’s cooking and different cuisine.

-     I’m thankful to have inherited my mom’s “smarts” so I can quickly learn a foreign language, my mom’s “great personality” so I can make friends any and everywhere I go, her pale skin and beauty that gets me noticed everywhere I go. But I do wish I had not inherited her “athleticism” (or lack thereof).

-     I’m thankful for good friends and family members who write me letters often and for those of you who don’t, you have no excuse! Email them to my mom and she will make sure I get them!

I am so thankful to have the gospel in my life. I am honored to be a representative of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I am quickly coming to love the people in Brazil and I’m so thankful for all they teach me. I also want to let you, my friends and family, know that I am in the right place at the right time. I miss you all but this is where I need to be. I’ll have so many stories to tell when I get back! I love you,  Sister Peart

Ahh!

Hi Everyone!

Sorry this letter is going to be super short! We moved into a new house today, and it´s been suffering under the care (or lack thereof) of the Elders. So we need some extra time to clean it...

We had another baptism this week! Gabriel! I almost cried at the baptism, which is saying a lot. I don´t usually cry. It was kind of embarrassing. I had to stop paying attention for a little bit to get myself under control. No tears fell, so it doesn´t count as crying.

I was only crying because Gabriel started crying when his mom went up and said a little speech. She got baptized right when I got into this area, and now both her son and daughter are baptized. Gabriel is a really special kid. When we wanted to start teaching him, we asked him what he wanted. He said he wanted to learn how to be happy. So we taught him. :) At one point, he wanted to give up, but Sister Bruno promised that he would be happier once he got baptized and was obeying the commandments. She told him that if he didn´t feel happier after he got baptized, then she would throw away her missionary nametag. After the baptism, she asked him if she had to throw out her nametag, and he said no, she could keep it. It was sweet.

Other than that....Sister Jennings is probably going to die from a flesh-eating bacteria. She and Sister Bruno went running one morning and she fell and destroyed her knee on the sidewalk. Which we all know is completely sanitary....not. I always knew running was bad for you.

Today, when we moved into our new house, I learned what termites look like. I had never seen one before. 

I think that´s it for now, but I sent a bunch of pictures to mom, so hopefully yáll can see them soon.

Amo vocês!

Sister Peart

 Breaking in new shoes. Gotta love those tan lines!

Wall Graffiti

 

Making french toast

Interesting Week

Hey Everybody,

This week I kept a better list of things that happened, so now I´m not just sitting here, staring at the screen and trying to remember what happened this week.

The first story was only 3/4 my fault and sucked a lot. Last Monday we were going to our zone meeting, but we decided to just go by ourselves and not wait for the other sisters. To get to the meeting we have to take two buses. The stupid Ónibus system changed its route a few weeks ago, so we weren´t exactly sure where we were supposed to get off the first Ónibus. We were both sitting there watching the buildings and the bus stopped and opened the door. I was thinking to myself "I think maybe this is the stop?", and then my companion said that she thought this might be the stop. So we ran off the bus before we missed our opportunity, because what are the chances we would both, independently, pick the wrong stop?

We soon realized that it was not the right stop. We were already late, so we quickly walked in the direction of the terminal where we usually take the second Ónibus. After a little bit we asked a man how far it was to the terminal. He said it took about 30 minutes to walk there and that it was just 3 stops away. We had a decision to make; it definitely does not take 30 minutes to walk 3 stops, so one of these points was not true. We decided that maybe it takes him 30 minutes to walk there (Brazillians generally walk a lot slower than we do), so we decided to just go for it. We walked and walked and walked, and after about 5 stops we still hadn´t arrived. At that point we were super late, and we knew our zone leaders were probably going to be irritated, but oh well. We walked and walked and walked and we ended up on this weird sidewalk. This has got to be the WORST sidewalk in existence. It´s crumbly and sucky and right up against what I can only describe as a jungle wall. It was our only option, so we kept going. Everything was just fine for dear Sister Bruno (who´s like five foot nothing) but I was plowing through all sorts of plants that I didn´t recognize, eating all sorts of bugs, and started bleeding on the inside of my shoes from some blisters I had.

In the end, we got to the meeting like an hour late, sweating buckets, but we still beat our zone leaders. :)

To continue with this theme of "gross, dirty and sweaty", I got pooped on by a bird. So that was awesome. We were sitting on a bench getting ready to start a fast, and this bird poops right on me. We walked to the nearest shop and asked the lady for some toilet paper. I explained, or at least tried to, that a bird pooped on me. She just laughed and went to get the paper. As she was getting it, the other lady expressed her (incorrect) opinion that I was just lucky. In the end, it turns out that the first lady´s husband is from Indiana. So we went back on Saturday and talked to their whole family. They don´t live in our area, and they weren´t super interested in hearing about the church, but it was still kind of cool. Super weird, but kind of cool. Americans are very distinct.

Later that night, we were sitting in recent convert´s house, reading the Book of Mormon. Everything was cool...We´re all so spiritual...When she grabbed my head and started tearing through my hair. My reaction was obviously to almost fall off my already broken chair, but luckily she was holding my head very securely... After 5 minutes of hair tearing she announced to the world that I have lice, and that I needed to go to the pharmacy and buy medicated shampoo. We finished our visit, and started the long ride home so that Sister Bruno could check my hair. It was a VERY long ride; for both of us. I was itching all over with the idea of being covered in bugs, and Sister Bruno kept looking at me like I was about to grow a second head. When we finally got home, Sister Bruno went through my hair and found it to be completely free of lice and eggs and any other gross things. All she found was a little black fleck of dirt. Close one. Thanks for the scare....better safe than sorry though, right?

In other news, I almost broke my arm this week on the Ónibus. My stage 3 technique of controlled falling was disturbed by the intrusion of someone else´s body, so I ended up falling and catching myself on a pole. With my arm. After that it got pretty swollen, and it still hurts now. 4 days later. But it´s own of those stupid invisible bruises. So it just hurts a lot but looks fine. Dumb.

We also have been harrassing the general public. :) We were doing contacts one day in the street and I met this guy named Alfredo. My companion immediately proceeded to inform this poor guy that his name means a delicious type of pasta in English. Now, every time we see him, she tells him that she really wants pasta. Poor guy. He´s only 19, and is pretty much being stalked by these Americans that keep telling him that his name makes them hungry for foreign pasta.

Also, I am very sorry if nothing in this email makes sense. I´ve proof read it several times now and I keep finding major mistakes. The first time I wrote the last sentence of that story it said "Americas that keep telling they that his name he makes him hungry". It´s a real problem...Portuguese...I blame it on the Portuguese, but let´s be real: that sentence would be a hot mess in any language.

Anyway. I hope yáll all have a great week! Writing letters to missionaries would bless your week and make it even better. Just an idea. :)

Love,

Sister Peart

PS, one day I will send pictures. And videos. One day....

Whoa!

Hey Yáll,

So this week was a little bit insane. We had four baptisms on Saturday! Wooooooo! And one day in the future I will actually send pictures of all these baptisms. So you know that I´m not lying. Raquel, Renata, Guilherme and Steven all got baptized Saturday and confirmed on Sunday. It was awesome. We had cake. It was the first baptism that I´ve had with cake. But we figured if someone made cake, then more people would come to the baptism. Success.

So I´ve reached a whole new stage in how I ride the Ónibus. As far as I can tell, there are three stages:

Stage 1: You freak out every time you get on the bus because it´s pretty much like riding a rollar coaster while standing up. You almost fall down every 5 seconds and you sometimes almost stab people´s eyes out with umbrellas.

Stage 2: You´re determined to look like you know what you´re doing, so you concentrate a lot on where you put your hands and feet, how you move, time everything with when the bus turns and goes over speedbumps and such.

Stage 3: (Where I am now) You stop caring about what you look like, and have accustomized enough that you use enough physics to move about in a state of constant falling. Get on the bus. Swipe your card. Use the momentum from the bus speeding up to through you through the revolving gate thingie. Grab the nearest handle to your desired seat and use that to direct your fall into the seat. It works pretty well.

While I was with Sister Sorensen, we developed a fun game to play during rush hour on the Ónibus. Brazillian Twister. The rules? Put your hands and feet in spots that don´t already have hands and feet and try not to be the first one to fall down. My dream is to drive an Ónibus in São Paulo. One that is covered with big dots in all the primary colors. Plus green. :)

For the record, as I was writing this, I was eating these tasty chocolate wafer thingies that I´ve developed an addiction too. Only just now I found a rock in one of them. Or rather, my teeth found a rock in one of them. No longer hungry...

So for the baptism, I told Renata I would do my hair. So we show up to their house on Saturday morning and I´ve got my hair all straightened and contacts in and stuff. She decides to do our makeup. She does Sister Bruno´s and it´s very Brazillian, but cool. Then she does mine. They don´t have a mirror in their house, so I pretty much just hope that it doesn´t look ridiculous. Then Raquel comes home. She takes one look at me and demands to know what Renata was thinking. She insists that those colors are only appropriate for going out at night. She then takes all my makeup off and redoes herself. Still don´t have a mirror, so I didn´t really see what it looked like until I got to the baptism. It was dramatic, but nice.

Anyway, while we were at the baptism, someone told me that my hair was tasty. I wondered if maybe there was some other meaning for that word that I wasn´t understanding. That night I asked the Brazillian sister that we live with, and she said nope, it doesn´t make sense to call hair tasty. So yeah. That was new.

I´m trying to remember what else happened this week...I´m back to eating these tasty wafer thingies, in case anyone was curious. It´s a pretty hopeless situation. They are here, and I must eat them. I´m just chewing them a little more slowly, so I don´t break my teeth on any more rocks. Oh yeah. This week I was looking at a bunch of pictures of sisters from this mission. Before and after pictures. It was terrifying. I vowed never to eat again. Then I went out and bought some chocolate wafers. So much for that...

Thanks for all the letters this week! Our zone leader decided to read all the names of the letters from the pulpit, so I looked super popular. Jared, Rachel and Jacob&Tammy. I am in the process of responding, I promise. :)

Anywho, I think that´s pretty much all for this week. I really need to get back in the habit of writing things down as they happen. This week just flew by. I think because we were working so hard with our baptisms this week.

Have a great week!

Sister Peart

Kinda Boring

Hey yáll!

Not much happened this week to write about. It was kind of a tough week and I forgot to bring my old planner that has all the stories that I haven´t written about yet. :/

We had transfers at the beginning of the week. I am staying in my same area and I got put into a trio with two other Americans; Sister Bruno and Sister Oborn. We only had Sister Oborn for 5 days and then she got transferred back to her old area, but it was a good 5 days as a trio.

Tuesday night, after transfers, we realized that we were going to have 7 people sleeping in our house that night. This house really is only big enough for two people. We´ve been having four sisters there, because the stupid elders refuse to move out of the house in our area, and we make it work. But 7 is just too much. We have two beds, one of which is broken in the middle, so it sags like a hammock. Sister Brita and Sister Jennings slept on the beds. We put two of our three cushions together and Sister Bruno, Sister Oborn, and myself slept sideways on the floor. Sister Sorensen and the sister that was her companion until she left got to share the last cushion on the floor. It was a little ridiculous, but everyone survived. The best part was the bathroom we all got to share...

Let´s see....what else...Sister Oborn almost lost her eye. And I´m not even exaggerating. On some streets the gates have these metal trays that stick out for people to put their trash on. I don´t know why it´s better to suspend the trash in the air rather than set it on the ground, but whatever. Anyways. They have these trays that stick out over the sidewalk about eye level if you´re shorter than me. Sister Oborn was walking along, looking at the ground, and BOOM. Smacked her head on the tray. She had a cut that was so close to her eye that it was touching the inner eyelid. Then it puffed up and turned colors. She was a little less than pleased about that.

Sorry, I know this is not a very interesting letter, but I guess that happens sometimes, right?

Have a good week!

Sister Peart

PS, Obrigada Irmão Fabio! Minha mãe gostou das coisas no Face. :)

 

My new companion

 

BATISMOS!

Hello Everyone.

This week didn´t have as many crazy stories. So sorry. But, we baptized two men yesterday, and we have four more people scheduled for next week, so that´s awesome. I will tell you the stories of our awesome batisms. That word there is what happens when you try and say "baptism" and "batismo" at the same time...

Leandro: In reality, Leandro found us; we didn´t find him. We were walking one night and he came up to us and asked us what we were all about. He didn´t go to any church, wasn´t very religious, and admitted that his life pretty much just involved college and parties. BUT. Now he says his life has changed completely. The first time we taught him, we taught the Word of Wisdom. He was very clear that he did not think he would be able to stop drinking coffee. I don´t think he really wanted to stop drinking coffee either. But we called him a few days later and he was super excited to tell us that he hadn´t been drinking any coffee. He hadn´t wanted to drink any, and he was super happy and he didn´t know why. Don´t worry. We explained why. Because he had found the gospel of course. :) Anyway. We kept going and taught him all the lessons and he got baptized yesterday! Also. He is from farther north and he took a trip home for a few days to visit his family. When he came back he gave us "kits". Kits full of awesome native garb. I´ll have to send a picture sometime, because it is awesome. I have a skirt, shirt, dress, headscarf, giant necklace, and an awesome purse. It´s super cool. I love my kit. :)

Lauro: In reality, Lauro found us as well. We were walking along his street and we heard someone calling "Oi Sisteres! Sisteres!" It was Lauro. :) He had talked with some Elders before, and there was more to the story, but I didn´t understand the rest. In the end, we taught him, and he got baptized yesterday as well. Actually, he pretty much taught US the lessons. He came to church last week, before we had ever taught him, so we left him with the pamphlet for the Restoration and set up a time to teach it to him. When we got there, he had read the pamphlet, and proceeded to recite and explain everything about the Restoration. We just stared at him in surprise, but that rapidly changed into joy. He was super easy to teach. He is very very very smart. We found out one day that he taught himself English. He speaks better English than I speak Portuguese. And he taught himself by reading books and listening to tapes. How embarrassing is that? But he assures me that I speak very well. He is super sweet, and SUPER excited about being baptized and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. I´ve definitely never met anybody like Lauro.

OH  MY GOODNESS! I forgot the crazy story of the week! I learned just what it would be like to live in the zombie apocalypse. I can´t remember if that´s how you spell that word in English, but I´m sure you get the gist. We had a conference for just the sisters this week, and we were taking the train back with a bunch of other sisters. We were in the back of the car, and all the other people sitting there were like, "You have to go out the first door in the front". And we were super confused as to why, but they kept saying it, so we kind of drifted towards the front. As we pulled into the station they became much more insistent saying "You´re going to fall!" I was a little upset that they didn´t have much faith in my ability to stand as the train was braking. Surely it wouldn´t brake that hard. Then they said "They´re going to hurt you!", and I was like uh....what? Then I looked out the window. It was so scary. We were slowing down in the station, and there was a mob of people outside. They´re weren´t just standing there, patiently waiting to board the train....they were screaming and rioting and pounding on the doors and windows. Us sisters wasted no time in getting to the front of the car, but even still we almost died. As soon as the doors opened, men flooded into the the train and we were swept up in the sea of bodies. I body surfed to the door. It was kind of fun, but mostly terrifying. I was holding on to the bars that they have up by your head so I could guide my surfing towards the exit. In the end I got of the train without injury. Other sisters were not so lucky....One came out bleeding. Another got trampled. She was wearing a bright blue dress, and I saw here fly through the air as I was body surfing. And all that because these men were fighting over who would get a seat on the train. We are NEVER taking the train at that time again.

That´s all. Time to go to Sister Sorensen´s goodbye party. :) Have a good week!

Sister Peart

10/21/2013

Hi Everyone!

I´m sorry if none of you get personal emails this week, but the email time is extremely limited this week. It´s Sister Sorensen´s last p-day in Brasil, so we went to Brás and therefore only have a little time to do emails. Sorry.

This week I learned and saw many funny things. Some things were also not so funny. The not-so-funny things all involved death. I saw my first leftover Macumba sacrifice. We were walking along the street and something smelled unpleasant. I start looking around and Sister Sorensen just grumbles "Ah. Macumba." There was a beheaded chicken right there on the sidewalk. Complete with clay bowls full of questionable substances. Lovely.

I also almost stepped on a pancake rat. There are many rats in the road that have been run over so many times that they look like pancakes. This usually isn´t a problem, except that this particular night was rainy. So the rat was soggy. I excecuted what I´m pretty sure would be an award-winning breakdancing move if anyone had been there to see it.

I also almost stepped on a dead cat. That was the only one that kind of fazed me. I didn´t see it at all, I just was walking along, and Sister Sorensen was like "Did you SEE the dead cat?" I was like "What dead cat?" Then I realized that not only had I almost walked over the freshly dead cat, but I had, in fact, walked through the evidence of how it died. Gross. These shoes deserve more credit.

Moving on from dead things. On Tuesday we were walking to our meeting (no sign of creepy marriage guy), and I saw a man sitting on the sidewalk up the road. My first thought was "Gross. Every inch of this sidewalk has been repeatedly covered in fecal material." My second thought was "Hm, from his posture and the bottle next to him I´m going to assume he´s drunk. That describes the willingness to sit in poop." As we got closer I realized he was on the phone, and that the phone was HUGE. Third thought: "Wow. It´s like one of those cell phones from the 80's!" Finally, we walked passed him and I realized that no, it was not an 80's cell phone. It was a music box. He was talking to a music box. My mistake.

We also saw a pimped out gangster bike. We´re walking along at night and I hear what has to be a "Wanna-be-gangster" car approaching. As it passes us, I realized that I was, at that very moment, seeing the strangest contraption ever. It was a bicycle. Just a normal bicycle. With a speaker system that blasted bass well enough to rattle your teeth. But wait, there´s more. It was decked out with those lights that change colors and accompany the music. And the seat was as far back from the handlebars as possible. Par-tey.

As for the new missionary training. I learned a very important lesson this week. Sister Sorensen informed me that she wanted to show me something, but she had to find one first. I was like "Ok.....vague, but ook." We keep walking along until she finds what she´s looking for. She points out one of those plastic microcentrifugation tubes in the road. She´s like "See that? Know what that is?" And I was like, "Yes. It´s a microcentrifugation tube." She stared at me for a little while. She has a very well-developed stare. I informed her that we use them in my lab at BYU. Her response: "Well Sister. They aren´t doing medical testing in the middle of the street in São Paulo Leste. Those are for cocaine." I see. Duly noted. Now I can judge just how much any particular street needs the gospel. :) Our area is in desperate need.

Sorry this letter is kind of short. Busy busy busy. :)

Have a good week!

Sister Peart