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!!!