Week 2

Dear family and friends,

 

Week 2: São Paulo CTM -- Companions Elder James and Elder Sanders

 

Thats so awesome for Micheal and nat!!!! im soooo excited for them that they are going on missions. i have been waiting to hear where they would be sent to for ever!  thanks for sending me stufff! its so exciting getting mail here :) one question i have for you is who won the superbowl? and also when are the report dates for nat and michael?

this last week went faster here than the first, but some of the days still seemed pretty long. my first Pday last tuesday was great! it was so much fun just roaming the streets and exploring. its so pretty here, dad would love it! i bought a soccer jersey and sent you a letter, i dont know if you have gotten that yet. also i have been using your flash cards alot alot alot, so thanks so much mom for making them! all my friends are jealous and say that i have the best mom (which is obviously true). something sad that happened was that our district got split in two :( we got two new elders from provo (elder benalli and elder kamalu) and ours was too big so now there is 7 in each. i was in the half that had to split, so we had to change classrooms and get new teachers. also we had to move out of our room into another hall which stinks because we just had gotten moved in, but its all good now! now i have two brasileiros in my room so they are super fun to talk to and we help each other with english and portuguese. one only speaks portuguese though so its kinda tough to understand him. one of the new teachers we got is really funny, but the other was really really hard to teach. he didnt help us out at all with our portuguese while we were teaching, so it was difficult, but it will be good in the long run! i just have to keep everything in perspective :) he actually had to do something else so we dont have him and we now have a sister teaching our class and she knows the Gordon´s! she was companions with Stephanie a while ago. small world huh? she recognized me from a picture that Stephanie got when me and elise went to homecoming together and asked me if i know them. on thursday we did something called TRC. its what nat did with her friends where you go to the MTC to be pretend investigators. this time it was just teachers other than ours, but next time it will be locals! the language is coming along pretty well. its still hard to express myself the way i would like to, but im improving! hopefully living with the brasileiros will help some. on sunday elder kamalu was chosen as our district leader and i really like him. we all planned some really good goals for our group. also sunday was fast sunday, i thought i was going to die. we fasted for 24 hours! i have never done a fast for that long before. i ate as much as i could for my saturday lunch and weighed myself before and after and i gained .80 kilos :) i think my fast was made easier though because i was really fasting with a purpose this time and i think that mde it easier for me. for our sunday night devotional we had a giant CTM testimony meeting which was super cool because both brazileiros and americans were bearing their testimonies. It was cool hearing them in both languages and having the translators so everyone could understand. OH! i also wore my tie from dad because it was fast sunday! i hope he remembered to wear his! as of sunday i had also gone through all my ties once and i restarted on monday. today i am wearing the tie from amy and jeremy. my district has a really awesome personal study yesterday (we didnt keep it very personal). it turned into a group discussion about really cool topics that people were reading in the scriptures. we started talking about some super cool stuff and it just made me realize that their really has to be a God because we have such cool stuff in this world! i was able to go to the temple again today which was an amazing experience yet again. its so so pretty and i can feel the spirit so strong when im there. this time i went to town first before writing this email. i bought another shirt and some pens, mailed some letters, and bought some cookies! they were so so good and it was a plus that i didnt have to pay for them :) i also bought a grape milkshake somewhere that was fantastic as well. yesterday here in São Paulo it was 40 degrees Celsius which is equivalent to 114.8 degrees F. imagine how hot it would be in Teresina! its so crazy how hot it can get here. it will definitely take two years to almost become used to it. Im still trying super hard and staying optimistic! i think staying optimistic is one of the most important things here. its hard to not get down on yourself, but if you do, everything falls apart and you stop learning. its surprising, but i think i am actually getting used to waking up at 6:25! i dont know if its because it is so hot that i cant sleep very well, but i usually wake up before the alarm goes off! i wake up in a pool of sweat every morning. yummm right? :) and another random thought... yesterday during our service hour, me and my buddy elder adams were sweeping the basketball courts and volleyball courts and swept up 20 roaches! 5 of them were still alive and kept crawling out of the bucket. it was super super funny. i heard there is alot of bugs in teresina, but im getting used to them which is good. I cant wait to hear from you next week! tell nat and michael congrats for me!! i love you all sooooo much! <3

 

Muito Amor

-Elder Derek Romney Lambert