On Thursday we decided to play volleyball with the other district that we came out of Atlanta with. We haven't had the same gym time the entire time we've been here, so we thought it'd be fun to play against them. We knew it would kind of be competitive because we jokingly talked some trash before hand, but nothing too bad. We started playing and it started to get really bad. Long story short, I left that game extremely frustrated and it kind of ruined the spirit for me for the rest of the day. We wanted to play again on Saturday and do the same thing, but do it a lot more low key to make sure we don't have the same problem as last time. We started to play and it was going really well up until the end. A questionable call was made and everyone started to raise their voice and get extremely angry. Right as that happened, Elder Farr (another elder in my district) and I left immediately because we didn't want to be involved in that again. We decided to go lift instead, which was a super good choice. This was my little proud moment of the week for walking away from something like that instead of arguing and getting angry.
On Friday, we had seminars all day long and they were ALL in
Portuguese. I guess it was no different from out normal classes because they're
all in Portuguese too. I think the thing that made it really difficult was that
we had to sit American, Brasilian, American, Brasilian, etc . . . They forced
us to share with the Brasilian next to us about what was being discussed. So I
literally think I went from lunch until bed time (not including dinner)
speaking Portuguese only. In our normal classes, our teachers generally know
enough English to help us out when we don't know something in Portuguese. It was
definitely an eye opener on how the field is going to be like. There are some
Brasilians here that love to help you with the language and are super patient,
but then there are others who absolutely hate Americans. There are only a small
handful, that I know of, who hate Americans. The rest either mostly love to
help you or they don't have the patients to teach you something about the
language right on the spot.
Today at church I was called on to give a talk. Right after
the sacrament was over the conductor of the meeting stood up to say who was
giving the talks that Sunday. I had no idea beforehand because they tell you
you're speaking at the last minute. They called on me, Elder A, Elder H and
Elder L. I was the first one to speak, which was awesome because I really
didn't have time to be worried about speaking. I spoke on humility and it went
really well. We're only asked to speak for 5 minutes, but in all Portuguese, so
it wasn't that bad. I also was the conductor for music today as well. I totally
killed it :).
I shed a small tear because today (Sunday) would be the last
day that I would take a nap in the next two years. I've been told all about how
Sundays will be the busiest day.
So we went proselyting today (Monday, Nov. 26). Not as
successful as last week, but it was still awesome! We took public
transportation to a place that literally looked like New York. There were
blocks and blocks of huge skyscrapers. It wasn't as packed as New York, but
SUPER cool non-the-less. We left late so when we got there, we only had 10
minutes to proselyte which really sucked, but we gave away two copies of the Book
of Mormon in that amount of time. Do you remember that CRAZY car ride when we
were in St. Thomas going to Sapphire Beach and we thought we were going to die?
The huge buses here drive that exact way. But you're standing up on the bus,
holding onto the railing for dear life. I felt like I was on a Disneyland ride.
Super interesting :).
One of my teachers here served in Teresina, so she showed us
pictures because it was our last day. It's actually extremely pretty in a
different way. She told us that us "white people" are guaranteed to
burn no matter what and poop ourselves (diarrhea) at least once. Hahahaha! I
think I'm always going to have some extra panties on me for the first couple of
months. Hahahaha!
I'm going to try my hardest and best to write back as much
as I can, but I have no idea how it'll go the first couple of weeks. Here in
the CTM I've actually been writing a lot when I'm not supposed to. I hardly get
any free time here, so I don't know how it'll be out in the field. I love you
so much and I'll try my hardest to write as much as I can.
I got your package thing last Wednesday! Thank you so much!
I also got your letter today (Nov 26). I haven't had time to read it yet
because of departure meetings and packing! So I leave the CTM at 4:20 am on
Tuesday, Nov. 27 and I arrive in Teresina sometime around noon. It's been crazy
today! I love you so much! I'm having another elder give this to Cheney's so
hopefully you'll get it :).
Elder Steed
