I Love Chocolate Milk

E aí? Welp, it was another fantastico week in the CTM. I love it here. This week we had a visit from President Mills. He is the coordinator of all of the international missionary training centers around the world (of which there are 16 I think?) He was really charismatic and showed us pictures from all the other training centers. The one here in São Paulo is the biggest one outside of the US and its great. He told us how the church is trying to keep missionaries healthy, with all this sillyness about the swine flu going around. We were told that we are not allowed any physical contact - like hugs or handshakes or elbow bumps. He told us we were allowed to BOW to each other. baaahaha. So now we bow. and I think we look like weirdos, but whatevs.

There are some other fun little changes about food here too. One night after a large group meeting they told us that we would now be served a "fourth meal" at the end of the night. The teacher making the announcement said (and you have to picture it in english with a portuguese accent), "You will be served cake and chocolate milk, not rice." Ohhh let me just tell you how much i love it. Now every night at 9:30 we get cake and the best chocolate milk i've ever had in my life. even better than the byu creamery. If we werent getting fat before... let me just tell you, the kilos are going to be coming on soon with bolo and chocolate leche todos noites. but its WORTH it because its SO GOOD.

In other news, I've taken up drum-line. Sister Lasley has a side shoulder bag that she was swinging around one night, and then she swung it around the front and pretended to set it up like a drum for a marching band. Then we put one of our books to use, and set it on top for her to drum. Then we joined up with some other sisters and made a drum line complete with baton/flag twirler girls. Sister Hill took the lead as our drum major. Sis Hill used to be in ballroom dance, and so she was allll over the place. We marched up and down our hall making announcements to different rooms, and having an all around goooood time. thats going down in history as a classic mtc moment.

Another good moment with language confusion was when we were prying into our teachers personal lives. Somebody was trying to ask him if he was single. The word is sabedoria or something, but depending on where you put the accent and the pronunciation of the vowels, there are different meanings. She accidentally asked him, "Are you a tapeworm?" he was SO confused and told us like 50 times after that to be careful with what we say. whoopsies...

I had a really exciting breakthrough on sunday. Every Sunday and Tuesday evening we have big group devotionals/firesides, and they're always in portuguese, with an interpreter. So the speaker will say one sentence or a phrase and then someone will say it in english right after. K so the breakthrough moment was that I understood the portuguese before the translator said it in english. Woot holler for that. i was STOKED. I felt like my brain was working like quadruple time though. Because I was trying to get the words in portuguese, and then i would scribble down the words i didnt know as fast as I could and try and look them up. then i would listen to the actual message and take notes on what he was saying in english. plus I was trying to look up references he used in my english and portuguese scriptures. I had my notebook, dictionary, scriptures in both languages, pen, and a highlighter in my lap and stuff was every where but it was great. So then I was all excited because I was understanding so much from the speaker. Then this brazilian sister missionary got up to say the closing prayer, and I only understood like 3 words. it kinda popped my bubble. her accent was tricky and she was going so fast. oh well, more practice please.

K welp, I love you muitos.
If anyone wants to read an incredible talk, look of Cecil O Samuelson's talk called "What Does the Atonement mean to You?"
Also can I have the siaosi's address por favor? I have to tell you about a few d-rock moments, but i'm out of time.