Oh my!

                                                              Our lovely bathroom

The front of our house

On the metro

This week. Was crazy.

First of all. The weather in São Paulo is insane. It literally changes seasons several times a day. And since it takes over an hour to get to our house from our area, we have to either carry around our cloest, or stash clothes at different members´ homes.

This week it was like 90 degrees when we left our house, but I carried around a jacket all day, just in case. Then, after lunch, we walk outside and it´s rainy, windy, and about 50 degrees. What? The lady´s daughter lent us some coats, but she´s Brazillian. So the sleeves were about 5 inches too short, I could only raise my arms straight in front of me and it wouldn´t button all the way. Sister Sorensen was in the same boat. Aren´t you glad that we´re the ones out here representing the church? Luckily, nobody would talk to us that day. Or that week.

My favorite contacts from this week were The Buddhist, and the 7th Day Adventist.

7th Day Man: we walk up, start talking to him and he asks us what day we have our meetings. We said Sunday, and he went into a 5 minute rant about the Sabbath Day being Saturday and we didn´t follow the Bible. Sister Sorensen literally only got to say one word ("yes") before he stormed off yelling a very sarcastic "Good Luck". If I hadn´t been so cold, I might have had the energy to be offended. Luckily, we just laughed and kept walking.

Buddhist: very nice, very friendly, very courteously blowing the smoke from his cigarette DOWNWIND from us. Then, in the middle of the conversation, literally in the middle of the sentence, he said "Good night" and walked off. Okay....

Oh yeah. I also got to go on a field trip to the Federal Police station this week. They gave me a paper so I won´t get deported. Only it took 7 hours to get that stupid piece of paper, so someone in authority had better ask to see it at some point. It wasn´t all bad though, because my pride was healed a little bit. It´s very devastating to not know what´s going on at all times. Especially to someone as nosy as myself. So I was kind of dejected and not listening to Sister Sorensen when she said I was learning Portuguese faster than anyone else she´d ever trained. But then I got to go on the field trip to the police station with all the other Americans that came in the same day I did........when I got back to my area I was like: "Sister Sorensen? You´re right. I AM really smart." I may still sound like a gringa, but I´m not the worst one out there. :) You´d think I´d learn some humilty here, right? Not yet I guess.

Apparently Sister Sorensen has an uncle that she´s never met that lives outside the mission, but still in São Paulo. We get to go visit him sometime this week. And apparently he lives in the rich part of São Paulo (hence, not in our mission) so we went and bought nicer clothes today. Maybe they´ll have peanut butter.

We had lunch with a richer couple yesterday and they brought out peanut butter, Hershey´s chocolate syrup, and maple syrup with the ice cream. They´d never had peanut butter before. I´m not even sure where they got it. But we pretty much put it on a shrine.

Sorry, I don´t have a whole lot of funny stories from this week. We pretty much just walked around in the rain all week. I learned the smell of marijuana. I saw some 14 year olds smoking hookah in the middle of the street. Realized that there is either a bar or a church on EVERY street corner in Brasil. Learned how the Brazillians make their french fries. They are totally better than American fries. We also had cookies for the first time ever in Brasil. They don´t do cookies here. The only people who have had cookies, or know how to make them, are Mormons who served missions with Americans.

Also, I...totally forgot what I was going to say. But I´ve decided that I want to bring my camera with me and take pictures of the graffiti that I use as landmarks. That´s pretty much the only thing that looks different in any given place.

Oh yeah! Yesterday we were walking to church, and there were a bunch of guys with wheelborrows of firewood in the streets. (Fyi, I have no idea how to spell wheelborrow, and neither does the Portuguese spellcheck.) I saw one guy scraping all the bark off of a piece of wood. I asked my companion why he was doing that, and she informed me that it was not, in fact, firewood. It´s food. That I´ve eaten before. I probably would have been a lot more hesitant to try it if I knew what it looked like before it was fried, but it´s pretty good. Tastes kind of like a potato.

Anywho. That´s all for this week folks!

Tchau!

Sister Peart

Brasil!

Oi!

So....this has been a crazy couple of weeks. We were up in Springdale last Wednesday, and I got the call that my visa came and I was leaving on Sunday night. A surprise to say the least. So my companions drove me up to St. George Sunday night and I stayed the "night" (like 5 hours) with some sisters there. Elder Sullivan picked me up at 4:30am and drove me to the airport. After that it was lots of waiting and flying and wishing I could sleep. I landed in São Paulo at 8:30am. 5:30am Utah time. 26 hours traveling. But it wasn´t over yet.

We found some LDS Church Travel Services people, but then they left us standing in the airport for an hour and a half. When they came back, we piled into a van and had the most terrifying drive to the mission home. The whole time I thought I was going to die. I´m not sure if they have traffic laws in São Paulo, or if everyone is in mutual agreement that they don´t need to be obeyed. Terrifying.

We got to the mission home, they through us in the group of Brazillians coming from the MTC there and made us try and introduce ourselves in Portuguese, which is just mean. Then, back into the van to go to the mission office. At this point I was so tired that the driver of the van had to save my life because apparently I jumped out of the van and walked right in front of a bus. My bad.

I got my new trainer, and then I sat in the trunk of a car waiting for her to do some stuff. It was pathetic. It was raining, and missionaries kept trying to talk to me. We were both trying so hard to understand each other, and we were both failing so miserabley that it just looked like we were playing charades.

After that we got to drag our luggage all over creation. We walked to the metro, rode the metro, walked forever after the metro and then got to our house. We live right now with two other sisters, so we went and visited a man with them, because it was pointless to try and go to our area. We don´t live in our area, which is SUPER annoying. If we have enough money, we can take a couple buses to get there, otherwise it takes us between an hour and an hour and a half to walk between our house and our area.

My area is interesting. I pretty much get to go hiking every day, but instead of scenic views, it´s dirty city. It´s very hilly, but that didn´t stop anyone from building there. When it get´s to steep, they chop little stairs into the concrete. Some roads are pavement, some are brick-like things (cobblestones), some are both. There are dogs everywhere. I mean everywhere. In the houses, in the streets, on the roofs of the houses. And along with that comes all the feces. Poop everywhere. Gross.

The day I got here I wanted to shower SO. BAD. When I got to our apartment I learned that they don´t have showers here. There´s a drain in the floor of our bathroom and a faucet above your head. One knob for water (no hot water in the whole apartment), and it has a thingie wrapped around it that will get the shower water at least lukewarm. It was a little bit of a shock. There´s no shower curtain, the bathroom isn´t made any bigger to accomodate the shower. Everything just gets wet. Strange.

Also, the toilets seriously cannot handle anything more substantial than water. It will usually flush pee. Can´t handle poop. Can´t handle toilet paper. You have to throw the paper in the trash can right by the toilet. We´re lucky, because we have a sink. No mirror. It´s interesting.

I also learned that they don´t eat dinner here. Or really breakfast. They´ll snack a little, but mostly they just eat lunch. So we eat with members for lunch. They think everyone in America is fat because we eat big dinners and then go to bed with food in us. Who knows?

We eat rice and beans and salad every day. Depending on who is feeding us, they have other things too, but those are always there. And juice. They have a billion different kinds of juice. My first night I had my first glass of passionfruit Fanta. Pretty good. 

One lady we ate with was so funny. First, you have to know that everyon in São Paulo has a gate. And it´s super rude to touch the gate. You don´t just walk in people´s gates. So you have to stand outside the gate, clap as loud as you can and yell their name. So. This little old lady, whose name is Irmã Leão. We show up at the gate to her apartment complex and yell for her. She´s like four floors up, so she chucks her keys down at us. Bashed poor Sister Sorensen on the shoulder. We go in, up to her apartment and help her rearrange her living room for lunch. She´s chattering away, and I´m not understanding anything she´s saying and then she grabs my plate and PILES it full of food. Tons of food. Then, about every two minutes, she asks if I´m ready for more. Seriously. Every two minutes. She was so concerned that I didn´t eat more. She made enough food to feed my entire family of six, and she wanted us two to eat it all. When we finally convinced her that we couldn´t eat any more we shared a message and left. We took her keys with us on the way down and when we got to the gate she had a string dangling out the window. So we unlocked the gate, attached the keys and she hoisted them up 3 or 4 floors to her apartment. It was super funny.

I have never been more aware of just how white I am. I went from everyone staring at me because I was a celebrity, to everyone staring at me because I´m an anomaly.  Sticking out like a sore thumb. The two phrases that I hear most often are:

"Wow, you´re so white" and

"I´m sorry, I can´t understand you because your accent is too strong."

Ai. My first full day in our area, I was thinking "Jeez, I´m not THAT white, why do they keep saying that?" Then, when we used someone´s bathroom and they actually had a mirror. I was so accustomed to seeing various shades of color that I was shocked by my extreme lack of color. So yeah. Super white.

Also, I´m sorry that this punctuation is weird. I know for a fact that I´m using an accent symbol instead of an apostrophe because I can´t find it on this weird keyboard. I´m sure that´s not the only weird thing. I´m probably spelling everything wrong too, because they spell-check is set to Portuguese, so it´s underlining every English word in red, which is a little distracting. Oh well.

Have a good week!

It's here...I'm there!

9/16/2013

This is Jennifer's Sister Peart's mom. Out of the blue we got a call this morning. She is on her way to Brazil! Her visa came Wed so she started traveling early this morning. She has no idea what the mail/email situation will be like but this is the address in Brazil we were given when she got her call:

Brazil Sao Paulo East Mission
Rua Caa-Acu, 229 Belenzinho 03171-020
Sao Paulo-SP Brazil

I'll update when I hear more. Please keep her in your prayers!

9/9/2013

Hey y'all!

Let's see.....where to begin.

Quotes Taken Out of Context

"I'm just imagining your face wrapped in plastic wrap."

Lessons from Elder Bednar About the Stupid Traditions in the Church that He Wishes People Would Stop Doing

Taking ridiculous amounts of notes in meetings. He told us quite forcefully not to write down everything he says because it's a stupid waste of time. Finally, someone who agrees with me. Just write down the jewels that the Spirit teaches you. Otherwise he could just send you an email with everything he was going to say. :)

Okie Dokie. Let's see. This week I learned how to gut a deer in record time. I'm not sure why the ward family history specialist thought I would need to know that, but she went ahead and taught me anyway.

I've also been sick (shocker, right?), and therefore my sinuses, along with my ears, are plugged up with mucous. It makes it a little difficult to hear. Unfortunately, that led to me completely ignoring my mission president this week. I walked by him and apparently he said "Good morning Sister Peart, how are you?" And I walked right passed him. Sister Keenan was behind me and he said "I guess she didn't hear me?" Sister Keenan informed him that my ears are, in fact, filled with mucous, so it's likely that I didn't hear him. Awkward.

Ok, so this story is from last week, but I forgot to tell it. We have an investigator named Kim, who is awesome. I wrote the story in my journal, so rather than trying to come up with thoughts in my mucous-sodden head, I'm going to copy it out of there:

"We were having a lesson with Kim outside; sitting in the shade at a little table with some mismatched folding chairs. Cute. Spirit-filled. And then her dad comes out of the house with this can of scented air-freshener. He looks at us, waits for our full attention and says" 'This is called aromatherapy!" He then proceeds to dance around us while spraying this air-freshener. Because it's me, and I'm the one who is sensitive to smells, of course I'm the one who gets treated to a full-on mist in the face. Twice. Her dad is a little bit crazy. Please also be aware that her dad decked out the little folding table with a lace doily, and had a strange instrumental iris song on repeat the entire time. He's cute. He tries to make the place fancy for us, and it's precious. I'd prefer we didn't participate in the aromatherapy though.

So this week y'all get treated to a little bit of spirituality. :D

We had our mission conference this weekend with ELDER BEDNAR! It was awesome. I feel a little over-dramatic in saying it, but it's true: it changed my life. I read over my notes afterward and I realized that it wasn't anything that he said. All my notes I took were "no duh" things. The amazing thing was how I felt when we were there. It was a weird combination, because I felt totally comfortable with him, but then not. You could tell that he was just a man, but a chosen man. So yeah. It was amazing. When you shake his hand his eyes stare into your soul. It was a leeeetle disconcerting. But still cool.

So after that I feel like I've been walking around in this intense spiritual high, and I've been trying to do everything I can to stay that spiritually in tune. Because we came home from that mission conference and had miracle after miracle after miracle. We were expecting that it would probably be a bit of a bust day, since we only had a few hours, BUT. It was the best day of the week! Crazy how that works.

THEN, we had dinner with this member yesterday. And the Spirit was NOT there. The food was delicious (probably the best meal I've had in weeks), but the whole time all I could think was "When can we leave, when can we leave, when can we leave..." After we left we had to take a few minutes to feel like we could talk to someone again. It was weird. I was like "Oh no, I'm turning into one of those freak missionaries!" But immediately after that I was like "I don't even care let's say a prayer so the Spirit will come back!" So we did. And it did. And then we went into our lesson with Annessa and she finally admitted that she thinks she could be baptized by the end of September. I haven't talked much about Annessa, so you probably don't realize HOW BIG OF A DEAL THIS IS, but trust me. It is a huge deal. When I came into the area she was supposed to get baptized towards the beginning of July. 

This is time for a plug about the power of the Book of Mormon. It is amazing. If I could have taken a camera with me to our meetings with Annessa, I would show you my first lesson with her, and the one we had yesterday and you wouldn't even be able to tell they were the same girl. This 18 year old girl has changed so much since then that it makes my head hurt to think about it. And it's all because we started reading the Book of Mormon with her, and emphasizing why it was so important. We had already taught her all the lessons, but she was NOT ready to be baptized and we didn't know what to do. I kept thinking about the Book of Mormon, but she was already reading it and it was her goal to finish it before she got baptized. But we went ahead and started reading it with her anyway, and we did an activity that really struck her with the importance of the Book of Mormon. Since then she's been reading on her own, wanting to go to church, and doing those things we've been teaching her on her OWN! It's amazing. And I know I'm utterly failing in describing HOW BIG OF A DEAL THIS IS, but trust me. It's a miracle.

So yeah. I'll end with one last funny story:

I was working at the Visitor's Center in St. George on Friday night, and this guy came in. Another sister and I were heading to a closet, but as we walked by the door he walks in and goes "Hey lovely ladies!" The other sister looks at him and says (deliciously disdainfully) "Oh heavens", and we continue to walk away. As we do we here him walking up to the other sisters at the desk saying "Are there any heartbreakers here tonight?" Apparently he was meeting a lady here that he had met online, and it was to be there first date. The lady walks in and it's a lady from my area! I was like "Oh. My. Goodness. We need to save her." We didn't get to save her, but I shamelessly watched this awkward date unfold (we don't get tv, so we get whatever drama we can), and finally I went up and talked for her a bit. I really want to go to her ward next Sunday and ask her how it went after they left.

Anywho. Gotta get going. Have a good week!

Sister Peart

9/3/2013

My goodness. This has been the week of all weeks.

These stories will be written in the order in which I remember them...which is almost certainly NOT going to be in chronological order.

First of all, I would like to present you all with a little known piece of truth. This is 100% completely true in Utah, but it is possible that it can be a little less true in other areas:

If you are an active member of the Church, and are not doing anything to further missionary work at that EXACT moment, then missionaries do NOT want to talk to you.  Especially on p-day. In fact, even if you ARE helping with missionary work, missionaries  don't really want to talk to you on p-day. We only get a few hours every week to do all the stuff we need to do; like buy food and talk to our parents. So please. Leave your missionaries alone on p-days.

There. Now you can all go about your lives without incurring the silent wrath of your local missionaries. :) We had a man yesterday who ended up wasting an hour and a half of our p-day time, so we didn't get to eat dinner....not happy.

This week I have also decided that I will NEVER have a pet. Ever. We helped a lady go through the piles of stuff that she has in her house, and I have never had that much physical contact with cat refuse. I reeked of cat urine for the rest of the day, and had phantom whiffs of it for the next 2 days. Gross. Then, a few days later, we were at another lady's house and there was this adorable puppy. I petted it, and it was so soft, and cute, and adorable, and I was like "Hmmm, maybe I'd be willing to have a dog after all. Just not a cat." Then, it promptly jumped up on my lab and peed all over me. Disgusting. I hate animals.

We had the most awkward dinner appointment of my entire mission on Sunday. I have never been able to pinpoint the "Most Awkward" dinner; the one where they just watched us eat, the one where nobody talked, the one that made us sick afterwards. Nope. This one was definitely the worst. We showed up, all ready to find out what was for dinner, and he says "Alright! We're going to go to China Buffet!" There was that awkward silence. A couple crickets chirped. And then we say "Ohhh! ....what?" So yeah. We went out to eat on the Sabbath. It was very awkward. I prayed the whole time that nobody we knew would walk in. Luckily, La Verkin is not fancy enough for any restaurants, so the China Buffet is not in our area. But still. The last thing we needed was Brooklyn (one of our investigators) walking in after we had just taught her this very week about keeping the Sabbath Day holy. Yeah. Never again. After that, we discussed the excuse we will use in the future, so we don't have to do that again.

A creepy story. We were visiting with this hilarious old lady, and she was telling us about her marine grandson who is an idiot. She told us this story about how he had called his dad and started yelling at him and threatening him that if he didn't put a monument on his mother's grave, then he would come over and beat him up. Something like that. Apparently, this little old lady grabbed the phone and gave him a talking to. Except it was the creepiest talking to I have ever heard. She goes into this creepy whisper and says "I will kill you. I'm gonna break your arms....I'm gonna break your legs....I should break you head, since you don't use it.....I will kill you." We left after that.

Also! We got to go on splits with our mission president's wife. Sister Keenan and Sister Gregory went together, and I got to go with Sister Center! While we were waiting for one of our appointments, she wanted to see inside our house, but I realized that the others had taken the keys with them. So I thoroughly impressed my Mission President's wife by using a Durrangos gift card to break in through the front door. Luckily, Sister Center is awesome and was impressed, but not upset in any way. :) 

So yeah. :) There are some stories about our week. We have to go a little early, so we can eat lunch before our lessons.

Have a good week!

Sister Peart

107S 1470E Ste 304

St. George, UT 84790