O Louco

Brazil is crazy! For reals this country is insane. I love it but man so many crazy things have happened.

Crazy experience number 1: My companion and I along with a bunch of elders are sitting in the bus terminal waiting for our bus and all of the sudden this short little man goes and tries to steal this Tall "woman's" luggage. And the the Tall "woman" starts throwing punches to the short little man and they get into this huge fist fight. All the Elders quickly get up and surround us (they are so nice trying to protect us and everything). We are sitting there watching this fight when we realize that the Tall "Woman" Is actually a Man...so strange. Finally security showed up and they were escorted out. But it was the craziest thing.

Crazy experience number 2: At 12:00am my companion Yells " Sister Hoberches Sister Hoberches (Brazilians can't pronounce Roberts)" "Roupa Roupa!! (clothes)" SO I quick put some clothes on and Haha my half awake self thinks that we need to escape because we are in some kind of danger but really our door bell had been going off and apparently some drunk guy was trying to sell us drugs.

sorta a crazy experience number 3: We walk through an open field to get to most of our investigators house and to our church and as we are walking home one night we see all of these tents in the field blasting music and I don't know why my first thought was the circus..(really a circus mallory?) but I was all excited because I love the circus. Haha Oh my gosh I feel like an idiot.. Gypsies had moved in! And they were having a huge FIESTA! They wanted us to join haha but obviously we couldn't.

Crazy experience number 4: I'm sitting there in the middle of the street explaining the Book of Mormon to  one of our investigators and all of the sudden out of know where a herd of cows comes running in the middle of the street. I was like what the heck is this. luckily my companion was holding my camera and got the perfect picture of me with my reaction to all of the cows.

The herd of cows running in the street

My reaction to the cows

Crazy experience number 5: We were taking some of our investigators through the church and when we had finished our lesson I started locking all the doors and everything when I saw a pair of little eyes staring at me. Some how a dog wandered into our church. We literally spent a good 12 or so min trying to chase it out when finally we were able to catch it. 

Crazy experience number 6: We flooded the baptismal font. Haha Oh my gosh. We had a baptism on Saturday and so we went and started filling up the font and we kinda forgot about it as we were teaching a different investigator and as soon as we were finished with him I looked at my companion and I was like "Sister Pia PIA!" so we ran to the other side of the Church and sure enough water was everywhere it was all over! We had about 20min to clean everything up and bucket out water from the font. Crazy.

Bucketing out water before the baptism

This week has been crazy! Obviously. But in the end we had a baptism. André was baptised and he is such a solid guy. I am so excited for him. He is going to do great things. He has so much potential and I know that he is going to bless so many lives because he has the gospel of Jesus Christ. There really is know greater feeling than helping people come unto Christ.

André Baptism

 André with his member girlfriend and family

Love you all!

-Sister Roberts!

In Brazil they don't have gyms they have exercising parks 

Last weeks baptism with Fred and Christian

Go and Do

This week I've felt alot like Nephi. "I will go and do" I have no idea why we go do things or how we do them we just 'go and do'. For example in the middle of lesson my companion will be like "Now sister Roberts will sing us a hymn" and I'm like um okay. Or during our ward activity she will tell the congregation "Now Sister Roberts will explain the Story of the Olive Tree in Jacob 5. And I'm like umm okay. Haha We do so many weird and crazy things and every time I ask Why are we doing this or How are we going to do this she will try to explain to me and I'm like um 'não entendo' So Ive stop asking the how and the why and I just do what ever I'm suppose to do.

My Portuguese has gotten alot better. I'm able to understand almost everything when it there are really focus and I'm able to communicate with my companion more. Except for on Saturday...oh my gosh crazy experience. I wasn't feeling well at all because I knew that I had too much milk and I was trying to explain that to my companion why was throwing up and stuff and she was like we need to go to the hospital and I was like "não pressico" no need no need. But she called up the district leaders and at 1:00am we all made our way to the hospital. Once we there I tried to explain my problem the doctor but he obviously didn't understand me and so the poor american elder had to try and interpret everything. HAHA it so funny because the American Elder had no idea what was going on and the doctor had said something and the Elder looked at me and was like "you are going through menopause?" I just started laughing it was so funny. It is so hard and so frustrating when people don't understand what I'm trying to say especially when I'm at the hospital.

Its fine there is a quote that i like that says "Don't look for Challenges in your Opportunities but look for Opportunities in your Challenges" That's what I have been trying to do this week. We had a baptism it was awesome. It was a 10 year old boy and his Uncle. It was so cool and we committed 6 others to be baptised this month so I'm pretty excited about that. I love inviting people to be baptized. Its awesome. Especially when its a members family member its amazing to see the joy on their faces when they know that they are doing the right thing.

I love being a missionary. I love these people.

Love Sister Roberts

So much Better

This week was so much better. SO much better. I think that sometimes the Lord takes everything away from you so that you have no where else to turn but him. The Savior and I have gotten to be really good friends this week. Its amazing how much he is willing to help you if you just turn to him and ask for it.

This week I was finally able to understand my companion and other Brazilians. When I work really hard and concentrate on what people are saying I can understand almost everything. Its awesome. Unfortunately my spoken Portuguese is still awful. Haha only my companion can understand me but its all good. Its getting better.

The Relief Society wants me to teach them how to make Chocolate cookies so my companion and I expirimetned. they werent too bad

But surprisingly the language hasn't been the hardest thing, its the culture. I really do not understand this culture at all. I don't understand why people do certain things or what okay to say or what's not. I think I offend people all the time and its hard because I don't want to be offensive I just don't know what's okay and what's okay not to say. Or what okay and whats okay not to do. For example here the members feed us lunch because that is the big meal in Brazil. My body is not used to having alot of food for lunch. Seriously they eat so much! They serve us these huge dishes. And we have to eat all of it! And we have to take seconds, if you don't take seconds its super rude and super offensive. The truth is I love the food! I just don't want more! Haha when everyone is praying and blessing the food I'm praying that I can eat everything that is on my plate!

We have a couple of investigators and we have two baptisms this week so we are pretty excited about that. I love teaching people. I love helping them realizing who they are and what their purpose is. Its so awesome to watch peoples lives change.

My new favorite thing is Caldo de Cana! It is so Good! Its a drink made from pure sugar cane! They press all the juice out of the sugar cane and its this awesome delicious drink..awe its so good.. and its super cheap. Haha its one of the few things that keeps me going on a hot day.


Caldo de Cana!

I am so excited that I get to send pictures this week Woot Woot!

I hope you all have an awesome week!

Love, Sister Roberts

Ps I'm just going to apologize now for my awful spelling. because I am using a Portuguese computer everything is underlined in red and I cant see what Ive spelt wrong so sorry ;)

A view of Sao Paulo from my window

My two favorite countries

Me with President and Sister Deng (presidents of the CTM)

My Provo companions at Christmas before I left for the Brazil CTM

Sister Keeler and I. my Provo MTC companion

My District at Christmas

The awesome new leather scripture case I bought my self for Christmas with the money you gave me.. its freaking awesome

Piracicaba

We had a zone pday today and the Elders brought water balloons. We all got soaking wet!

Me in front of the San Paulo Brazil Temple

Me and my Mission President Canuto and his wife

 

Piracicaba!!

OH my gosh!!! AHh this week has been interesting. I can´t even express to you how hard a mission is. IT IS SO HARD!!!!! Portuguese is so hard!

We left Wednesday morning at 5:30am We drove in a Van for about 4 hours and the drive was beautiful! The trees are so big and everything is so green. I love it! When we finally got to Piracicaba we went straight to Presidente Canuto´s apartment. Him and his wife are so nice. He is probably one of the most chill layed back persons I´ve ever met. I really like him. And his wife is hilarious. They are are super cute couple. Neither of them speak English so everything was in Portuguese. We did some orientation stuff and it was good...haha I think it was good I didn´t understand anything. Sister Serre and I were the only Americans from the Sao Paulo CTM but later 3 more American Sisters from Provo joined us later.

 

We Met our Trainers, My companion is Sister Pamela (Most of the Brazilian sisters use their first name on their name tags because their last names are so common) She is really nice and I like her but she dosen´t speak any English and my Portuguese sucks.. so that's been really fun. 

My area is in Piracicaba! I´m serving in the North Eastern Part of the city. Piracicaba is really big like massive. But where I am sering is beautiful because its not really in the city its in the outskirts. Its so beautiful!! Oh my gosh I love it. There are lots of hills and trees and open fields and from the top of the hill you can see the downtown Piracicaba! It is gorgeous! 

Some nice members took us to our apartment.. Oh my gosh our apartment. Elders had been living there last and it had been almost a month since they left and they completely trashed  the place. The bedroom smelled so bad and there was nasty clothes all over and nasty wet clothes in the bathroom and the kitchen. They left bags of food open and so the kitchen was covered with bugs..honestly it was the grossest thing I have ever seen. People were talking to me trying to give me directions and I couldn´t understand anything anyone was saying. But I was like okay so we have a little cleaning up to do no big deal I´ll learn the language everything is going to be just fine. And then I saw the biggest cockroach of my entire life! It was so freaking big! 7 of them jumped out of the sink and they were all at least 5 inches long. I lost it. I completely lost it. I started crying, I was so overwhelmed with everything and I completely broke down. My companion came in and started yelling "Ah!! BARTA BARTA!! (cockroaches) So we spent the evening trying to kill as many as we could. 

I've felt so discouraged this whole week. I cant even begin to describe how frustrating it is to not be able to speak or understand Portuguese. It is so difficult. I've cried everyday because of it. I feel so bad when people talk to me and I can't understand them. Especially when they are church members. They are so excited to have missionaries in their ward again. They love the missionaries. Almost all of them are converts and so missionaries have a special place in their hearts.

I love the people here, My companion and I got up to bare our testimonies on Sunday and as I was waiting for her to finish I looked out into the congregation and my heart started to swell. I love these people so much. They are so beautiful and humble they are the happiest saints I've ever met. We have been contacting alot. I try to talk to everyone. I'm really good at stopping people, haha mostly because I'm American and everyone stares at me. When i talk to them I see their potential. I look at them and I want so bad for them to realize that they have a Heavenly Father who loves them. That they can have all the Father has. Rejection is so hard but its so worth it when some one wants to hear our message.

Being a missionary is hard. It is so much work and I'm pretty sure my body hates me. I have blisters and sun burns and I threw up this morning.

But all of the physical pain and mental exhaustion is so worth it. It is so so worth it!

-Sister Roberts

FELIZ ANO NOVO!! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I hope you all had a good New Years. Brazilians are Crazy, they start their fireworks around 6:00pm and they didn't stop till 4:00am this morning! haha obviously we didn't get alot of sleep last night because of all the loud partying that was going on in the streets. Wow but I feel like this year went by so fast.

I am going in to the mission field TOMORROW!!!! We leave tomorrow morning around 5"30am and we are taking a 4 hour van ride to Piracicaba. I can't believe its already here. I'm mostly excited. I am so excited to go and teach real investigators and be immersed in the language and the culture. I'm am so excited to serve. I just wish I knew Portuguese! Haha my Portuguese is awful. We had to sit through a 10 hour "in-field" orientation on Monday and it was all in Portuguese. Honestly I maybe understood 10% of what was being said. At first I was pretty discouraged because I was like If I don't understand a stupid orientation how am I going to understand my investigators or the people of the ward. How will I be able to meet their needs if I can't communicate with them. But then I thought about it and I was like if 10% is good enough for God then it must be good enough for me. I know that as long as I am trying my hardest the language will come. 

My companions and I set New Years Goals last night. Mine are

1. To obey with exactness.

2. To always speak Portuguese.

3. Not gain weight.

Good Luck with your goals!

-Sister Roberts