Just another week, basking in the sunlight and living it up
like a King! Psh . . . I wish. I'm pretty sure that the studying alone is
making me more white. I hope you got my monster letter last week. I apologize
in advance for how short this letter will be because I hardly get any free
time. And not a whole lot of exciting has happened. I've noticed that since
I've been here, I'm slowly forgetting how to spell the most simple words. This
is the start of forgetting the English language. I'm sure you guys will get a
bunch of laughs when we Skype and when I get home.
So on Thursday we went to the Brasilian Police Station to
register with the police. When we got there, we saw a bunch of other elders
that are serving in San Paulo who were renuing their registration. Most of them
were about a year and a half in and it showed because they were so excited to
actually have an English conversation with other Americans. I'm so glad we met
them because they taught us a lot of slang that we should and shouldn't do.
Like "da hora" (pronounced exactly how it looks in Spanish) which
means "that's sick" in slang. The funny part about it is that it
literally means "you give the time/hour" if you translate it. I'm
sure Sarah and Alyssa will know what I'm talking about for this next one. It's
a hand gesture. It's when you snap your fingers with both hands, one right
after the other, and then opening up one hand (like a high five) and closing
the other (like a closed fist) and then hitting them together. And then you
repeat that over and over. I hope you understand what I'm trying to get at
because that was really weird trying to describe that on paper. Anyways . . .
it's really bad because it means you're trying to call-in a prostitute. Hahaha.
There were a lot of things that they told us not to do, even though Americans
do them all the time.
Things are starting to even out between my companion and I.
We're definitely teaching and communicating better. My district has the
tendency to go off, out of nowhere, and start singing songs. It's been super
frustrating because our District Leader doesn't really do anything about it
because he doesn't want to come off as a dictator-of-a-leader. I've talked to
him and told him that you can still have everyone like you, but still be stern
and keep everyone on track. He has the hardest time with this, but I've been
working on helping him. There have been a couple times where the messing-around
has gotten really bad so I've gone with Elder R or Elder W to another quiet
room to study. We're definitely the three that has the hardest time with the
language. Like it's not super bad . . . we're just learning things slower than
everyone else. It's seriously ridiculous how much I've learned. If I was in
school taking Spanish, I'd still be learning about colors, the alphabet, and
the numbers. I honestly don't think I'm learning that slow, everyone else in my
district is just learning crazy fast. It's absolutely stupid how much some of
these guys have learned and how fluent they are in only three weeks.
Last thing. I learned a great way to mark and organize my
scriptures. You take those skinny colorful post-it note tabs that are kinda
see-through and you put those in your scriptures on the bottom where the
footnotes are. You have them popping out of your scriptures just enough so you
can see them. You get about five different colors and each color stands for a
different subject. This is a super great way to bring up a scripture on the
atonement, for example, right on the spot. I'll send a picture when I get them
all tabbed out.
Couple of random things . . . I'm on a bus right now on my
way to the temple and it's hard to write. It's crazy how dirty this city is.
There's literally trash everywhere. And they have a big river that runs through
the city, but it is so polluted. There are also a lot of motorcyclists and
they're allowed to go in between lanes. I have no idea how people drive around
here. it's so tight and full of traffic. I guess about two motorcyclist die every
day (only in San Paulo). And I'm sure Dad will love this, but almost every car
here is a tiny little Fiat, like the one in Costco. A luxury car here would be
a "bigger" car like Sarah's beauty.
Oh, a random side note, this past week I wasn't given a
pillow case along with all my other sheets and I didn't feel like trying to get
one so I just put a t-shirt over my pillow and it actually works pretty well.
Kinda ghetto, but you gotta do whatever
it takes to survive here in Brasil! I love you guys so much! Let me know if you
want me to tell different stories or anything like that!
Love,
Elder Steed
