I love being here at the CTM (MTC) in Brasil! Everyone is so happy and kind. I joke around and sit at meals with people I don't even know, and it's great. The plants here are beautiful. They have a garden here at the CTM, and we love to take breaks to walk through it. Some of the flowers I literally want to eat because they smell SO SO
GOOD!
So although I'm in Brazil, it doesn't really feel like it because I'm stuck in the building all day. I love it though, but I'll definitely be sick of it by the end of 6 weeks! I have to learn Portuguese somehow though, right? Everything is in Portuguese here. My schedule on the second day was in Portuguese, my teachers only teach me in Portuguese, etc. I have to learn quickly! (Especially now that 2 of my roommates are Brazilian!)
The first couple of days we soooooo long. Combined with the 9 hour red-eye flight, we had a full schedule, most of which took place in the Sala de Aula (our classroom.) The days literally felt like weeks. After being cramped in our room so long, Sister Curtis (my companion from Tennessee with a cute baby southern accent) and I was so
excited for service last week. We had way too much fun mopping the stairs. It was so nice to be up and DOING something. Maybe they're brainwashing us into loving forced servitude? Haha! I honestly just love being here and everything about this place!
excited for service last week. We had way too much fun mopping the stairs. It was so nice to be up and DOING something. Maybe they're brainwashing us into loving forced servitude? Haha! I honestly just love being here and everything about this place!
One of those things has got to be the food. The food here is SO GOOD. Half of the time I don't know what I'm eating, but it's always delicious. But we actually have meat for every meal. It's weird-ed me out the first couple of days to have so much meat, and I'm definitely missing my vegetables! (Whenever there's some, I fill my plate.) One of my favorite things is this soup we have for breakfast. It kind of taste like the milk after you eat all the lucky charms, but warmer and thicker. I'm gonna need to learn how to make that!
There's a bunch of stories and pictures, but you'll have to wait until I can upload my voice recordings and photos (when I'm out of the MTC.) Spiritual Thought: These first couple of weeks at the CTM, I have really felt so much love for my future investigators (pesquisadores.) There are so many people out in the world who are looking for some light in their life, some hope. I've seen people who have joined the church and witnessed the huge change in their life. I know that this church can bring so much joy into peoples' lives. I've seen it in my own lives and in the lives of so many others around me. I am so excited to help people find that. I already love these people so much. I wouldn't be here and I wouldn't be studying Portuguese so hard if it wasn't for the love I have for these people I haven't even met. I've given up a whole 18 months for them; there's no way I can't love them.
Thank you guys for all of your emails. I'm sorry if I don't have time to respond to all of them. Take care and remember that God loves you. (He really does!)
See ya next week,
Sister Hansen
CTM: Week 1 (part 2)
So I have a little more time than I thought. Here's a little about my teacher, Irmao Mello (Like marshMELLO.)
He is the craziest goof ball I've ever met. He is 24 max and he got married just in this past month. He tells us "Merry Christmas" every time he leaves the room and we always sing Christmas songs. That's the next big holiday in Brazil. He makes me laugh more than probably anyone else. He always makes us say something about giving him chocolate in Portuguese. Oh my goodness there was this one time, when he locked all
of the elders in our district out of the door and he wouldn't let them in. Then he finally opened the door and said, "I know thee not" and shut it again! He's the most crazy person I've ever met. He makes sitting in that Sala De Aula for 64ish% of my waking hours (we calculated it) bearable.
of the elders in our district out of the door and he wouldn't let them in. Then he finally opened the door and said, "I know thee not" and shut it again! He's the most crazy person I've ever met. He makes sitting in that Sala De Aula for 64ish% of my waking hours (we calculated it) bearable.
Just for example, he was teaching us about how to be better missionaries and he said that we needed to learn the fundamentals. He compared it to Dragon Ball Z and said we needed to "collect" the 7 dragonballs so we could power up of whatever (I haven't seen Dragon Ball Z) so we shoot out some spiritual power. He spent the next 20 or so minutes pretending to be Goku. He's crazy.
See ya next week,
Sister Hansen
