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