O CAMPO

Oi gente! This is Sister Jeppson reporting from o campo!

A lot has happened during the last week or so! I will start with the end of my CTM experience...

The last week was a blur of last training and lessons and such. One of my instructors surprised us with the fact that he did indeed speak pretty fluent English, but just pretended not to the whole time haha. He did a great job of it, and despite us all being a little mad, he helped us in the long run.

The last day was a great one, but bitter sweet. We had a great devotional with the President of the CTM, and said goodbyes/packed/cleaned and such.

Last Tuesday morning, we left early for the field! Turns out my mission home is not very far from the CTM, within 40 min. we arrivied and were welcomed by President and Sister Miller and the office missionaries. Pres. and Sister Miller are so great and sweet! They are from Canada and have only been here for 3 weeks, so they are learning with us. The rest of the day consisted of intro stuff, eating a yummy lunch, meeting our companions, contacting, and traveling to our areas.

My companion and trainer is Sister Bernabeu from Paraguay. She is so sweet, and has been out for a year. She knows a little English too, which has been such a blessing.

Right away before traveling to our areas, we went contacting by the mission office to give out 2 Book of Mormons. It was really cool to do so, even though i really couldn't do any of the talking whatsoever haha.

We traveled about 2 hours to our area, Ermelino Matarazzo. It is a pretty big area, so lots and lots and lots of walking!!!

We had a zone meeting the next morning, so i got to meet a bunch of other missionaries, which was fun.

Language:

Portuguese is hard! It is hard to understand people and I have to tell them to slow down a lot because everything just blends together. It really takes a lot of brain power to understand and pick out words that I know. It will defnitely take time and patience, but being immersed in it all day every day helps. The cool thing is I have still had opportunities to teach a little bit, and the gift of tongues is real.

People:

The people here are awesome! So kind and love to give hugs. I met the ward at the ward party this week. Its called Festa Julina and is basically a harvest festival party here. It was so awesome to see everyone and how they celebrate. Plus we got around 15 new people interested in learning more about the gospel. It was gret!

Random:

Food:

Lots of beans and rice! (surprise hehe). But actually the food here has been great! Basically all you need to eat every day is lunch haha, the people expect you to have at least seconds of everything. I had a really good meal Sunday called a churrasco, which is basically a bbq. so good. Also they have a dessert called bringadeiro here which is basically chocolate, butter, and sweet condensed milk, that is way good. Kind of like fudge.

Today for pday amongst other things, we hit up McDonalds. This is probably a surprise to a lot of people, but especially mom haha. Never thought I would, but its actually good here! Like good quality and not gross at all! So thats fun hahaha.

I have learned so much already! Not only how to walk a lot, but to have so much patience with myself, and so much love for the people!

Quote of the week:

Do you want to be happy? Forget yourself and get lost in this great cause. Lend your efforts to helping people...Stand higher, lift those with feeble knees, hold up the arms of those that hang down. Live the gospel of Jesus Christ---Prez. Gordon B. Hinckley

Love you all!!!

Love, Sister Jeppson