Oi! Tudo Bem? All is well here in Brazil!
So first off I have to say that I seriously have the best friends and family in the whole world!! I got letters this past week and here we can only open them on pday so today I got to open a letter from Lindsey (Sister Lopez), Sister Jasperson and Eric and then Sister Jasperson also mailed me the letters that I got in Virginia also so I opened letters from Taylor Bloom and Thomas and Cameron! What the heck! It was like Christmas!! Seriously it made me so happy I was almost teary, almost. But HUGE thank you to my peeps back home in the good ole USA who I just love so dang much. You are too good to me!
This week was a big week!! Not that anything like monumental happened but I feel like I just grew a bunch this week! My tan lines got a little darker, my face got a few more freckles, my language improved and most importantly I feel like I really for the first time felt like I understand what I am doing here. It´s hard to be confused all the time and it was really wearing on me to just feel useless here because I don´t understand what is going on haha but this week I really felt like I started to get the hang of the culture, the people of Ceará, the language, and my purpose as a missionary in the midst of all of this!
I went on splits again with Lizzy (who is so adorable, I just love her to death!) and taught a bunch of lessons during the week where I was the senior companion. I had a moment of shock when I was teaching with a Brazillian who has been out on her mission the same amount of time as me and I realized that I was leading the lessons and directing the work for the day! WHAT?? It is super funny because I seriously confuse English and Portuguese all the time!! When I get really excited or really frustrated or when I start talking fast, I want to speak in English because I can´t express myself very well in Portuguese and all the time I will think that something is happening in one language when it´s really in the other. sheesh, my brain is just confused! But it´s good I think because I think that I´m improving in the language! I am kind of teaching Sister Mote English and it´s way funny. Since we are always talking (in Portuguese) and actually have a relationship I just assumed that she speaks English but then we read the Book of Mormon together (me in Portguese and her in English) and she like can´t say anything and doesn´t understand a thing and it cracks me up! I always forget. Also yesterday Larissa looked up my facebook and she wanted to friend request me because I told her that Brooklynn had my account. But friend request wasn´t an option so she clicked the message option and asked what she should say in the message. I told her to say whatever, that it didn´t matter, and then looked at me all confused and was like ´´in portuguese??´´ haha I started laughing when I realized that she doesn´t speak English and Brooklynn wouldn´t understand her in Portuguese. So she typed the word she knows in English: Hi. haha so there you go Brooklynn!
We are teaching a bunch of teenage boys right now and Sister Mote has me sit by them in church because she thinks they all want to sit by the American haha it´s hilarious. One of them has a less active dad who is an artist and he has the coolest paintings! He told me he would make me a little one and I am so excited! Their family is way awesome and we really want to start teaching the mom! The work has been slow so far (which apparently is abnormal) but I think that it will start to pick up in the next couple weeks. I have been praying really hard and working really hard so if it´s God`s will I know that we will see miracles!
Random stuff from Brazil: I had some yummy fruit this week (mangos, papaya, acerola, other random things) and this DELICIOUS tapioca stuff. It´s not like our tapioca, it´s like a tortilla with sand... except edible hahah and then you put butter and cheese or sweetened condensed milk on it... YUM. Elder Seawell is in my zone so it is a little tender mercy that I get to see him a lot! On Tuesday he was on an exchange with the assistants and they were working in our area and at the end of the day we got to eat tapioca at a members house and just relax for a second and since the assistant he was with is American too we got to speak English! Ah it was a little piece of heaven. But, I have to say the cookies here are awful. I didn´t realize what I big sweet tooth I have until now! I always want some REAL baked goods and theirs are not good hahah. We always have chocolate wafers in our house and that´s about as good as it gets. But every morning you can smell the fresh bread in all of the stores and it´s the best!
Okay well that´s my week in a little nutshell! I LOVE you all SOO MUCH!
Be happy and eat cookies!
Sister Brittany Westover
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