Insomniac Dogs and Brazilian Toilet Paper: September 5, 2012

Dear Family,

Great photos in the email message! Keep them coming!!! Thank you for the letters and photos from you and Debra; they were great, and brightened up my day! Thank you for the addresses as well. I already have 100 envelopes so I am fine on those and I just buy stamps as I need them so I don't need you to buy me any.

As far as learning the culture is concerned, it is not part of the curriculum at the CTM to learn about the culture, but my teachers both like to teach culture around the 9th week which is good! One of my teachers served in Londrina when it was a different mission and served in Foz de Iguacu, which is great because he will be able to tell us stuff about our mission specifically!! For water they give every missionary a filter water bottle that we drink out of so it is either that or bottled water or soda, so for me it will be bottled water and the water that I filter with the bottle they gave me. They don't talk at all about cooking and stuff here but I should be fine. I feel pretty prepared for that and my trainer will be great! I definitely feel more prepared in that regard than a lot of other missionaries here.

I am soooo glad that Izzy loves the water! I can't wait to see how good of a swimmer and how big she will be when I get back!!

Here in São Paulo, we have not had rain for over 2 months (I'm pretty sure it is a record) so it is really nice here actually. It will probably rain super hard my first day out in the field haha!

By the way, Elder S.’s grandfather said the opening prayer at the Republican National Convention last Thursday night. His family knows the Romneys pretty well.

We had a really inspirational talk this past week given by Sister Degn, the CTM president's wife, on the eyes of faith.  One part that really stood out to me and has helped me this past week was when she talked about how when we look at ourselves we see all of our faults and shortcomings but when Christ looks on us with eyes of faith he sees only our potential. I have really been trying to see everyone with spiritual eyes this past week to see their potential instead of their shortcomings.

I have been snail mailing you letters pretty much every week with photos and stuff in them. I hope you are starting to get those. If you could let me know if you are getting these or not that would be great! J

This past Saturday was Halfway Tie Day for our halfway point in the CTM (I will send more info on what this is when I send you photos).

There is this dog outside of the CTM that we have "lovingly" named Stan. All night, Stan barks and barks and barks. If he could speak English he would probably be saying: "I can't sleep!! I can't sleep!! I can't sleep!! I can't sleep!! I can't sleep!! I can't sleep!! I can't sleep!! I can't sleep!! I can't sleep!! I can't sleep!! I can't sleep!! I can't sleep!! I can't sleep!! I can't sleep!! I can't sleep!! I can't sleep!! I can't sleep!! I can't sleep!!,” and then the other dogs pipe in and tell him to shut up but he just keeps saying “I can't sleep!! I can't sleep!! I can't sleep!! I can't sleep!! I can't sleep!! I can't sleep!!” It is really annoying, but we love him all the same... not really.

I'm going to try and add one fun fact about Brazil to each of my letters, so this week it is that in Brazil you cannot buy toilet paper in rolls. It ONLY comes in sheets like napkins. This is so people don't T-P people's houses, which with all the graffiti that is in Brazil doesn't surprise me. You would be hard-pressed to find a single building in São Paulo besides the CTM that doesn't have graffiti on it!!! Serious!

Oh, before I forget, tell Grammie thanks for the letter with the info from the Las Vegas bunch!! Keep it coming please!! I love getting info about how all of you guys are doing!! J

So I have been thinking, and I think it would be great and fun for when I get back to do a musical number in church with you, Mom. I was thinking you on the piano and me singing a solo of a hymn in Portuguese. How does that sound?? The hymn that I would want to do is number 202 in the Portuguese hymnbook (335 in the English hymnbook). The title in English is "Brightly Beams My Father's Mercy." So, I'm giving you an almost 2-year heads-up in order to find some good music for this and to practice. Let me know if this is something you would like to do and if it is possible for you to get music and everything. Thanks! J

(note from Marie:  I’ll need 2 years to learn to play a hymn on the piano well enough to accompany him!)

We had a great activity this week that I think would be a great activity for the Young Men in the ward to do. How it goes is everyone writes down on a piece of paper a doctrine and an analogy that helps to teach that doctrine. Then they mix them up and randomly pass them back out so no one has their own sheet of paper and then you go around in a circle and a person says what doctrine they have on their sheet and the next person has to explain that doctrine with the analogy that is on their sheet. Once they are done they give their doctrine to the person who is next and they have to explain your doctrine with their analogy. It was really fun and really makes you think and be able to apply anything to any principle of doctrine!!

So, this week we had more of our friends leave, including Elder A. who I knew from BYU. At a language workshop, he gave me some great advice that really made a difference for me. He said that the big secret of the CTM that hardly any missionary understands is that most missionaries when they get enough Portuguese to skate by stop studying and stop putting in that extra effort. They get too comfortable and they leave the CTM knowing very little Portuguese, but those elders that apply themselves and try to learn extra concepts and really try to talk with Brazilians, are the missionaries that are going to know a lot of Portuguese when they leave!! And this is so true. There are missionaries here that I knew as much Portuguese as them when they were on week 9 and I was on week 3 or 4. And it was because they were slackers (or fubeckas in Portuguese) when it came to studying Portuguese and using it every day. Since then, I have been talking with my new Brazilian roommates and the new Brazilians across the hall so much my head hurts every night when I go to bed. But, it really helps! I am even starting to think in Portuguese now a little bit!!!

I'm out of time; I'm sending some more photos today with a letter that tells more.

Love you guys!!!