Brazil for the Win - Week 2

Emma's CTM district

Olá gente!!!

Feels like I emailed just yesterday! Today is our p-day because tomorrow is the next World Cup game for Brazil and it gets crazy here on the streets. Last week during the game against Argentina, the whole city was going wild with horns, fireworks, and tons of cheering. It was the coolest experience to hear a city that loud for one reason. I even got woken up at night because they were still setting off fireworks! Let's go Brazil!!!

The CTM is still great! My Portuguese is still coming pretty slow, but the progress we have made in two weeks is amazing!! We did an inglês fast last week, where we don't talk in anything but Portuguese for a certain time period...lets just say it was a very quiet 5 hours haha. But it helped point out what I need to work on. 

Lots of my Brazilian friends left yesterday, so it was kinda sad saying bye to them. They are all the nicest people and its crazy to see them leave! bffs even though we could hardly communicate. 

Random fun fact...we got ice cream yesterday and it was yummo.

Today we went to the Campinas temple again and it was just so beautiful! Love the view on the way there, love the temple, love the peace I feel in the temple, love it all!

The winter weather has been very nice and sunny, which is awesome. But also means that is going to be a very hot summer haha. Bring it on Brazil. 

I highly encourage you all to listen to the song Peace in Christ (its the youth theme song for this year I believe), and if you have, listen to it again. Such a great song. https://www.lds.org/youth/theme/2018?lang=eng

Tchau!

Sister Jeppson

Emma answered some questions for us-

How is the Food?  

The food is good for the most part. The breakfasts are kind of terrible. They love ham and cheese for breakfast and have weird liquid stuff that is like milk with flour and sweetened condensed milk. The best days are when they have bananas and more of an oatmeal. The lunches are the best. The desserts are super weird as well for the most part haha. They really like gelatin stuff that is super super sweet.

Did you get your shoes? 

I did get my shoes and its so much better to run with them now! even though the track is seriously the saddest thing ever!! (30 laps is a mile ) :) 

What is your schedule like?  

My schedule is busy, yet we still have some down time, which was kind of unexpected at first, but is very nice. We have breakfast, then personal study usually before activity, then time to get ready again haha, before some classes, then lunch, then classes, then dinner, then classes, then bed. Sometimes is hard because a lot of our classes go right up until 9 at night when we are all dead. But it is good!!

SEMANA 1!!!!

I can't believe that its been one week! It kind of felt like 1 month, not going to lie haha, but now that I am adjusted to Brazil time, time is moving normally now. I love Brazil more and more each day!! 

Recap:

Last p-day after the temple we walked outside the CTM for a couple hours! (we have a few streets we can go on!)We went to Mr. Cheney's, which is a cookie place that gives first week missionaries a buy 1 get 1 free cookie and sends a pic/message to the fam (hope you got it mom!) So that was a fun thing and we are probably going to hit up a yummy acai bowl place today! Every p-day we also have choir (Sister Whitaker is so cute and says that everyone does choir in the CTM haha) before a devotional. 

We started classes last Thursday and they are pretty good! One of my teachers does not speak English whatsoever, so its tricky to communicate sometimes, but we learn a lot because of it! We teach practice lessons with investigators, and it helps a lot with the language. My Portuguese is coming along slowly, but i can see a lot of progress from just one week already! I am able to understand a lot more than I can speak, but it is such a beautiful language! We try and sit by the natives at our meals so they can help us with pronuciation and learning new words. 

Our actividades fiscica time is so fun and a big stress reliever! The track is seriously the tiniest track you will ever see...it takes 30 seconds to run around lol. Sister Shepherd and I run for half, then workout/ play lightning the second half with our district. I never thought I would get better at bball here haha. Oh yeah and since I forgot my running shoes and found out i couldn't run in my chacos hehe, i went out with some natives to buy a cheap pair of shoes until I get mine from Luke Shepherd (who got here yesterday). And almost positive that they are mens shoes because they didn't have my size haha. 

The food is pretty much....rice and beans yep you guessed it. Most of it isn't bad which is nice. The dessert is always this weird super sweet jello stuff that isn't the best, but they do have good bread and cake stuff. 

Sundays are awesome here! We have an awesome branch and we had a great devotional listening to President Nelson's general conference talks on personal revelation and ministering. I encourage you all to listen to them again...they are so awesome!!

We went to the Sao Paulo temple today and it was one of the most beautiful temples I have ever been to! It has beautiful stained glass artworks. The temple is probably my favorite part of the week. 

AND GUESS WHAT!! We met two sisters who are serving in my mission right now!! One of them was Brazilian and the other was from Utah. It was so fun to talk to them and got me so excited!!! The girl from Utah has been out 4 months and is pretty much fluent. She was having a hard time talking in English to us and already has a accent! So it made me feel a lot better about learning Portuguese. The gift of tongues is real!!

Btw, I can't send pics until I get into the mission field because our internet is too slow for that. 

The mission is hard, but also so, so amazing and worth every second!! I love being here and learning how to best love and serve the sweet people of Brazil!!

Com Amor, 

Sister Jeppson

Letter from President and Sister Martins Silva

Dear Parents,

Sister Martins Silva and I are very happy to let you know that your missionary has arrived safely at the Brazil Missionary Training Center.  What a great joy and privilege it is to greet each missionary as they begin their missionary experiences with us! We will surely take good care of your missionary.                                                                                                     

The missionaries now have companions and are settled into their rooms.  They are assigned to a district with capable and caring instructors for language and lesson study.  

Their branch presidents and wives will meet them this Sunday.  These wonderful couples are richly blessed as they work with, motivate, and interview the missionaries assigned to their branch.

The MTC has a physician to care for their health needs. We are also happy to report that the MTC food is plentiful, healthy and very good.

Your missionary will be able to e-mail home on Preparation Day after a morning at the Temple.  This will be either Wednesday or Friday, depending on individual assignments.

Your missionary is about to make an eternal difference in the lives of many others. President Lorenzo Snow said: “There is no mortal man that is as interested in the success of an elder when he is preaching the Gospel as is the Lord who sent him to preach to the people who are the Lord's children".  We love these missionaries as if they were our own.  We will watch over them carefully to ensure they are ready for a wonderful missionary experience after the rewarding time they will have in the MTC.

We thank you for preparing such a wonderful representative of the Lord.

Pres. João Roberto Martins Silva and Sister Maria Lucia Martins Silva

First 2 Days!

      I've made it everyone! And I love, love, love it already! Everyone here is seriously SO nice. At all the meals, other missionaries come up and just start talking to you and saying to ask them anything/questions/etc. (We have a blue dot on our tags that lets everyone know we are new hehe.) The food has been pretty good so far. The pineapple is amazing and they have different fruits out all the time, so I am excited to try all of those. They of course have beans and rice and meat, and they are all good! 

Once we met up with everyone at the airport, we were all so excited and just talking and laughing. I love them already. Sister Sheppard is my companion and she is so awesome! We have had a blast together already. She is the only other Sister going to my mission right now, along with one Elder. 

Sao Paulo is amazing! It is crazy how many huge buildings there are, but also how much greenery there is. It is not just pure city, but has a ton of big trees everywhere! It is so colorful, lots of graffiti on the buildings, and the drivers are crazy! (very glad I am not driving) 

We did a bunch of introductions to the MTC (missionary training center) yesterday, and also had some free time to unpack, which was nice. The people here are honestly some of the nicest people I have ever met. So if all Brazilians are like this, it's going to be an even better 18 months than I thought. 

This morning we woke up at 5 am to get off to the Campinas temple. It was an 1 1/2 drive and was so fun to see all the neighborhoods and a ton of more foresty area. The temple is beautiful!! We had a great session in both English/Portuguese which was pretty cool. We got some great pictures in front of the temple but I need to figure out my camera downloading stuff still, so it might be another week before i send pictures.

The spirit was so strong at the temple and it was awesome to be there the second day here!

We start our Portuguese tomorrow which im excited/nervous about, today is pday, so after this we get to go out on the streets and explore a little!! They apparently have a very yummy cookie place that is owned by a Brazilian and an American who were companions a while back, so they give a free cookie to the fresh missionaries (me haha). 

Okay sorry everything is scattered right now, and I don't have too much time so sorry for the randomness above. Hopefully, I will get the hang of this in future emails haha. 

I love the gospel and it is true!!!!

Love, Sister Jeppson

Missionary Training Center

Sister Jeppson and Sister Sheppard

Companions

São Paulo Temple

I Have Arrived!!

I am in Brazil and I love it already!! My p-day is tomorrow so I will email more then. The flight was long, but there was one sister with me, Sister Shillings, and a lady let us sit together (little blessings already!) so that was comforting. Brazil is beautiful! The MTC President is awesome (he talked about the gap already Dad haha.) Love you guys so much!!



Love, Sister Jeppson