Brazil Hospital!!

Hello!!!! I would like to say first, I love you all!!!! Okay, so I would like to start out with saying all is well in Zion and mom please don't freak out because I'm totally okay!! So last p-day at night I noticed my ankle was hurting, I didn't roll it or anything it just hurt like I had a bruise but there was no bruise and then is started to get puffy and hurt but I thought it was fine and that I would just give it another day so I did. The next day we went proselyting again which was amazing!! I got 6 contacts and a couple of people were really interested in my message and said it was beautiful. It made me so happy but by the end my foot was killing me so when we got back I saw the doctor at the MTC. She said she had no clue because it didn't itch so it wasn't a bug bite and I didn't roll it so it was a mystery. She said just wait till Monday so I did because I wasn't in pain I was just concerned that my foot was swollen and red and I didn't know why....So Sunday comes around and it was so swollen that I couldn't get any of my normal shoes strapped on so I had to wear my shower shoes to church, haha rockin the Hawaiian sandals for Sunday, but throughout the day it got to the point where I couldn't even walk hardly. I had been limping and now even limping hurt so I went to the doctor again and President Silva was there. He was all sorts of worried so he called me a cab and got me a sister missionary, sister Lizi to come with me to the hospital so she could translate for me. She is an angel and we are best friends now! We went to the hospital and it was cool to see more of Brazil but at the same time I was having a bit of a mental breakdown....I am scared of hospitals in America....let alone a foreign country haha and I didn't have my mom....that is all I really wanted in life on the way to the hospital was my mom haha.....so we got there and saw lots of people with LOTS of waiting in between but at some point they gave me an I.V. for the swelling, that was weird. They put tubes in my arm so they could connect and un-connect things if they needed to. I roamed around the hospital for 5 hours with tubes dangling out of my arm attached to nothing....WORST feeling ever but I didn't pass out like the last time I got my blood drawn with my mom, but even then passing out wasn't so bad because I had my mom! Oh yeah, while I was waiting we got some orange juice in the cafeteria which was for sure the highlight of my day, haha I was living lavish because the CTM gave me my money before I left and orange juice is my favorite! They ultra-sounded my food which was cool because you could see how gross my tissue that was swollen looked compared to my normal tissue! Anyway, after many doctors and tests, I have a bacterial infection in the tissue of my ankle. We don't know how it got in there. They think a spider of some sort but we don't know so the next day I had to lay in bed all day because every time I walk on it, it puffs up. They next day they hooked me up with a wheelchair. My district have become my parents haha, they made me sit in my wheel chair during actividade fisica which was soooo hard for me, and they always remind me to take my antibiotics on time. They're the best! I had the wheel chair for 2 days and let me tell ya they are fun for about 1 hr but that is about it! I missed walking sooooooo much!! A lot of the Brazilians pushed me around and I have made a lot of friends because of it!! I'm up and walking now but I still have to elevate my foot whenever I can and ice it and I'm taking medicine all this week. It's much better though and I can finally almost see my whole ankle bone haha! I have funny videos in the wheel chair of my roommate running up and down the hall with me and pictures of my lovely hospital experience. The hospital was soooooo sketchy and dirty and I will be okay if I never have to go there again! I will send all the pictures and the video when I get to the field! I LEAVE ON TUESDAY... I'm freaking out!! I feel like I know no Portuguese and I'm scared out of my mind and I really hope my foot is all the way better so I can walk a bunch without it getting fat. If you send letters send it to my mission home!! Mom please include that address!! Okay well I'm out of time.... this week was hard for me but I have been able to see all my physical angels and it has been amazing!! I love the people here with all of my heart! So this week help someone with something be an angel for them, ask God to help you find them and then do because I know first hand how much it will mean to them!! I love you all! Remember to read the Book of Mormon it will bring you joy, I know it! I love you all, and thank you for the prayers! HAVE A GREAT WEEK and I'll talk to you next week from the field!!!!

Love, Sister Peine

Dogs in Brazil!!!!!

Hey everyone!!!

So this week was great!! I forgot to say this 2 weeks ago but I had my first time proselyting! It was interesting..... we went to a really busy street in the middle of the city!! It was really hard because I really only knew how to say, "Hi we are missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints," and a couple things about the book of mormon...and then I would just smile and say how I was an American and that I didn't know very much Portuguese yet. They were a lot nicer than I thought they were going to be!! They didn't want to give me their contact information but none the less they would listen and very nicely say thank you but not right now! Oh my, but my favorite part about the whole thing besides the people were their dogs!!! SO CUTE there are a lot of dogs here that I can't touch because they aren't safe but they told us we could pet the ones on leashes with the owner's consent. A lot of people in the city have dogs so you already know one of the first phrases I memorized was, "Can I pet your dog?" Haha, but then while I pet their dog I tell them about the book of mormon so really it is a win, win situation!! The first dog I saw was a golden retriever and after they told me I could pet it I got a little carried away and pretty much gave their dog a hug! I was so excited about it and how it looked like my dog Kya. I shed a small tear and I'm pretty sure they thought I was the weirdest American in the world as I gave their dog a hug but what can ya do haha. Oh yes last week a quorum of the 70 came and spoke to us and he spoke in ENGLISH is was amazing!!! The spirit was really strong and he taught about how missionary work is not about getting our baptism number up but creating true disciples of Christ. It was really good. Another funny thing that has been happening here is all of the Brazilians here think that I look like Hannah Montana which I don't understand at all but they all want to take pictures with me because of it, haha it's hilarious!! I am also for some reason known for braiding hair now so every night all the Brazilian sisters come to my room and I braid their hair and while I braid their hair they teach me how to say things that are around the room in Portuguese, its super helpful!! Oh yea, I have some advice for all the 8 year olds out there whose mom is forcing them to take piano lessons, hug them and tell them thank you and then don't ever quit because you will regret it when you get called to a mission where no one plays the piano or has very much musical talent and then you get asked to play in devotionals, sacrament, and choir!! Haha, thank you mom for making me take piano lessons. I am barley surviving with my simplified hymn book and you were right, I regret quitting piano. Haha I never ever thought those words would come out of my mouth! So today we got to go to the Campinas temple because the Sao Paulo one is closed for cleaning!! We had to drive quite aways and we got to see a lot more of Brazil and the country and wow it is BEAUTIFUL!! It was also raining which was a new experience for me!! I have never seen that much water fall from the sky before, Brazilian rain storms are crazy but the temple was beautiful and it was cool to see 2 Brazil temples!!! Alright so to wrap it up, this week I have been studying Christ like attributes because I think Christ is amazing and I want to be as much like him as I can, so I decided to pick one attribute to work on and I picked patience! I was thinking about how patient Christ has to be with us, like we can repent every week through the sacrament and become better which is amazing but sometimes, at least for me, we repeat the same mistakes over the next week. For example I still need to be more patient with my companion and server her more but even when we repeatedly mess up he still loves us and forgives us, not just one person, millions!! So if he can be patient with millions of people and love them perfectly I can be more patient with one! I challenge you all to pick a Christ like attribute and work on it this week!! I love you all and if you emailed me and I didn't email you back it was because I was working on this email but I am reading your emails and I love them so thank you!!! Love you all tons and have a great week!!!

Love, sister Peine

Empathy

Hello everyone, I don't have much time left after emailing my family but it is getting better here and I am becoming very close with Christ, we talk a lot! I have been able to help a lot of the sister missionaries that are new and from the US because some of them are almost as homesick as I was my first 2 weeks here. I'm glad that I had to go through that because now I have been able to help so many people since I know how they are feeling, kinda like how Christ always knows how we are feeling so he knows better than anyone how to help us, I have really learned that being here at the MTC. I have been giving them all the advice you guys gave me that helped when I went through it. I have an awesome family that is helping me help other people, so thank you for your emails I re-read them on my camera all the time.

I am learning a lot and I know I have a lot of things I can work on! I have noticed that when I have the Holy Ghost with me and I'm teaching the lessons all these words that I know fly out of my mouth much quicker than they do when Im just trying to talk to the Brazilians at lunch because I pray to have the holy ghost with me!!

Thank you for your emails, love and support!

Love, Sister Peine

2 Weeks Down

Hello everyone!! I apologize for my short not very detailed email last week I over estimated my time! So the CTM is great!! A little sketchy because it is surrounded by guards day and night but none the less it is great!! It is super small and there are about 300 missionaries when it is full I think. We eat a lot of rice and beans here and at first I wasn´t so sure about it but it is growing on me. I love trying all the new foods though and they are usually really good!! The first 2 weeks were really hard for me but this last week has been much better, thank you for your prayers. They are helping a lot. So in my district there are 8 of us, 4 sisters and 4 elders and I love them. Things started off a little rough with my companion (Sister Hollie Adams) just with things like being way late to everything and she wasn´t really wanting to keep all of the rules and a few other things but it´s okay, it has been a great opportunity to practice patience. Like my mom always says, "Kill them with kindness" One of my favorite quotes is "If you want to love someone more, serve them." So I have been trying my hardest to be patient and serve her and it has helped a lot and she even said she would work on some of the things we talked about so all is well in zion haha. The other day she said "You are going to be a great wife some day thanks to me," and frequently reminds me that she is doing me a favor by being difficult. She's a funny one but I have learned to love her and we have become good friends. So every day we have atividade fisica at night were we play volleyball, basket ball, go to the (very small) gym, run laps on the track (also very small, like a 40 yard long circle, it´s great), or we throw the football. It´s really funny to play volleyball with the Brasilians (they aren´t allowed to play soccer because they get way to competitive apparently) They use their feet more than their hands and they are better that way. They are actually better than most Americans who use their hands, it´s so funny!! The other thing they like to do is have me teach them how to throw the football and then practice with them. They think I´m amazing at it which tells you their lack of knowledge about "Americano futebol" hahah but none the less It makes me become friends with all the Brasilians and it´s so fun!! I have handshakes with most of the elders here and it takes me a good 5 minutes extra to make it down a hallway because I have to do my handshake with all of them, it´s so funny! They have the biggest hearts in the world and they are so fun to be around! Another cool thing is there is an elder here from Cedar City who knows my aunt Lindsay and uncle Jake who also live in cedar and all of my cousins. He was in their ward it was really funny because he came up to me and said "I have seen you before, you were in my ward a couple years ago for a baptism or something." I thought he was familiar but I didn´t remember where from. It was really funny but that is how we figured out he knew my cousins. He also told me that Cameron (my cousin) got his mission call to Peru so CONGRATS Cam that is so awesome you are going to love serving a mission!!! Oh yeah the elders name is elder Carver!! Its fun meeting people who know my family and then we become friends, he's a great missionary. There is another missionary who just got here that is from Sao Paulo and he is going on his mission to ST.GEORGE!!! The only reason he is here is because he is waiting for his visa! His name is Elder Da Silva! He is going to get my email because he really wants to meet my family when he gets to St. George. He said he would bring some letters to give to them if he can work it out to meet up one day so I am really excited about that. We are already best friends so I will get to see him when I come home because he will be there for 6 months so that will be cool!! He's very excited to meet the people of St.George and I told him how awesome you all are and that I´m jealous he gets to be that close to you all. I was so lonely here the first week and God has sent me so many friends since then it´s amazing!! We also just go a bunch of new sister missionaries from Utah which I was excited about because, 1 they speak english and 2 they are sisters!!! (There are way more elders than sisters here) and yes I was the first person to run and hug them and inform them we were going to be best friends whether they liked it or not haha. They are awesome and we are already friends. Thank you for all your emails and please keep them coming. I will do my best to respond but if I don't please keep them coming and I will try to respond but if I don't still keep them coming because I will take pictures of them and read them later and then I can respond for sure when I get in the field and have more time. Also if you send me a letter in the next week send it to the CTM but if it is after that send it to the mission home and hopefully my mom gets both of those addresses out, that way I can respond because I will have your address and I can write letters anytime. Also sorry I can´t send pictures here but I will send a bunch when I leave the CTM. Okay last, if you haven´t seen the video "Drawing on the Strength of the Lord" on lds.org, I encourage you to watch it, it is amazing. I also challenge you to make Christ your best friend (that is what the video talks about) He is the MOST reliable friend we could possibly have and he will never let us down. This week was hard but much better so thank you for all your prayers. I can feel them. Okay I love all of you and I hope to hear from you and that you have a fabulous week!!!