Missionary Monday - Primeiro semana na Brasil
Well, Brasil is pretty much the opposite of Michigan. I don`t have a whole lot of time to write and the spell check is set for portuguese anss sthe s ss key is stuck so this letter might be a mess.
The splane ride was like 12 hours and swe came straight from Detroits. It would have been fine, but The Elder I came with wouldnt shut up. Turns sosut that that elder is in sthe sssame house as me now. He~s sokay though. he swas just excited.
Sao ssPaulo is freaking huge. and everybody lives sright on top of each other. It took us like stwo hours to go 15 miles to the mission office. There is sstons of trafficss and shalf of the people shave motorcycles and sthey zip in and out. sIts sspretty much a free for alls.s I dont know, but I´m sure there shas to be a ton of deaths from motorcycle accidents.
I`ve had rice and beans every meal so far, with either steak, pork, beef, or chicken. I havent shad anything I dont like yet. We went to the temple on thursday and then a barbeque restaraunt afterwards that was almost as good as rodizio grill, but it was only 10 american dollars.s some ssthings are way more expensive here, and others are way cheaper. They have a pizza with chocolate inside the crust and ssits actually pretty freakin good. Missionarises here like to celebrate things by getting pizza.
Our house is ssmaller than our living room was in Michigan and there are four of us that live it. Its pretty gross. severything has some sort of perma-grime on it. My companions ssmame is elder russell and he is from Washington. the other elders are e. alonzo and barker. E. Russell and E. Alonzo are zone leaders.
We walk sor take a bus or train everywhere. the buses and trains get sfreakin packed. its a good thing I cant smell. The cars are super stiny, but even the crappy ones have super expensive sound systems and they blast them all shours of the day. About a third of it is american musics. I thinks is funny which american songs they like.
Contacting people is super sdifferent. Everyone is out on the street sso we just walk up and say, hey dude, will you come to churchs withs us sthis Sundsay? and if they say yes we sask if we can share a message and sstell them why they need to be baptized and commit them to a day. We ssteach a lot of kids though which seems a little dirty. Theyll pretty much do anything an american tells sthem. The kids are awesome though. They love to help me learn portuguese.
On saturday it rained ssuper hard for a few hours and in the midst of it I was with Elder Alonzo president Pinho called and wanted us to come to his house and teach some of his friends that were visiting, the plan of salvation. We couldnt get a hold of E. Russell so it ended up being just E. Alonzo and I. President lives down town and we are on the outskirts of town so it is a significant journey by bus and train, especially in the pouring rain. And when we got off the train, we couldn´t get a taxi so we ran around for like an hour trying to find one. We were soaked. President Pinho is like a multi millionaire so his apartment in the city is super nice and his friend was a big shot as well. I wondered why President didnt just have the assistants teach them, but he asked E. Alonzo becaue he is like a professional piano player. so he played for them and then we taught the plan of salvation amd the importance of families. It went pretty well. I even participated a little. It was like midnight when we finished so we stayed the night with President. Hes an awesome guy.
I pretty much operate by the monkey see, monkey do philosophy. I can understand E. Russells portuguese pretty well because he speaks with an american accent, and then I only get about half of what the Brazilians say. I dont really feel lost, I just feel like my tongue is tied.
One of the things I like most about the scriptures is that I get a feel for how God works. Throughout history civilizations are totally different, but God is always the same. And I get that here in Brasil too. These peoples lives are so different, but we have the same God and the same plan of salvation. It helps me see which things really matter in our earth experience.
I hope that made sense. I'll send pictures.
Elder Beck
