Hello Again!
So first things first, we got a new elder in our district, Elder Toronto. We told him that he spoke basically fluent English for a Canadian. (He's from Pennsylvania. We're so funny. Ha!) He's from the Provo MTC and speaks Português pretty well! I love him, all 6'4" of him! Haha!
So this week we started our first real "jejums de inglês" (English fasts-- basically we try to only speak Português.) We started Sunday and have kinda failed since then, but I'm trying to end strong. I've learned so much Português in 3 weeks. It's crazy!
Here's a funny story: So we have choir practices on Sundays (everyone is a part of the choir.) There were these Spanish speaking Elders behind us, and they were hilarious. Part of the song
was in English, so it was kind of fun to hear about the equivalent of what I sound like in Português. One of the elders was saying "earth-lie" instead of earthly, and another thought the mezto forte dynamic was a part of the lyrics. Ha! After they master the English pronunciation, they started saying stuff like "I'm American," "MacDonauds," "Berger Keen." My favorito though was this: "You awr too handsome" "Thanks, me too." Hahaha! The CTM is the best!
We got to do a great thing on Wednesday: actually go outside the CTM building! (We only usually get to on Fridays.) Sometime on your fourth week, everyone goes out to some part of the city to actually do some missionary work--- not just practice. (I just need to put this here. 2 things I've noticed about São Paulo: graffiti everywhere and crazy driving. We seriously applaud these bus drivers sometimes! They'll stop a perfect 2 inches away from the car in front of them, barely dodge the motorcycles swearing through traffic, and back into the CTM parking lot on the tiniest baby street! GOOD THING I won't be driving here.) So when we go out, we talk to people and give away Book of Mormons. It was so great to see how happy people were to get them. Sister Curtis and I got 6. We gave the first three away to this sweet old lady (she was a member of the church! How hilarious is that?! I'm pretty sure she said she stopped going though.), a really
really grateful homeless man, and a cute little family of 4 with the cutest little 3 year old I've ever seen! Then things got funky.
So after those three, we felt pretty confident and we went up to this man who turned out to be a
Jehovah's witness. We weren't able to get anything out before he started talking at us and we tried to talk but half of the time we had no idea what he was saying. We kept trying to get away, but he just kind of followed us. Then some other guy came up and we thought, "Oh perfect! We'll just talk to this guy." Turns out he was a preacher who tried to convince us and the JW that he saw Jesus. Just as we started to get worried and we literally couldn’t defend anything they were saying against us in Português, Irmão Mello swooped in and saved us. Then it started to POUR. (Biggest drops of rain I have ever felt in my life within 30 seconds.) We were able to escape. Tender mercies!
Then it was basically time to go and we still had 3 Book of Mormons. The hispanic sisters we so so sweet and helped us give them away within 2 minutes. I love those sister so much. We hang
out with them all the time.
One guy in our district, Elder Chandler (the sweetest 18-year-old I think I've ever met. He'd probably wouldn't call himself that, but I'm going to anyway) had a great experience. He and his
companion gave away a Book of Mormon to this old man, and later they walked by and saw him reading and smiling. He said that that we the happiest he's probably ever been in his LIFE! That's why we're here: to make others happy by bringing them closer to God and Jesus Christ. I've seen this gospel change people's lives. It is amazing blessing to me that I have this knowledge and this church in my life. What I have been given is way worth me sacrificing these 18 months of my life. I can't wait to give other people this kind of joy.
See ya next week,
Sister Hansen
