Ohhhhhh the Christmas season here is aparently not good for missionary work. Everyone is either gone or not quite sober....but we still landed one new investigator this week! We have 5 solid investigators, others that have potential but 5 that we've met with more than once. This month ALL OF THEM WILL BE BAPTIZED (well, that's the goal). January 2016 will be our month. So I officially passed 2015 without baptisms. But we opened the area so that's probably to be expected. We have to get people to come to church! That's the biggest struggle here. Like, people will believe everything and be willing to keep other commitments but commitments that involve setting a date/time and leaving the house are another story. Reminds me of how I always was with plans with friends. "Hey friend, there's a party on Saturday! Will you be there?" "I don't know...maybe....we'll see". Oh goodness I was annoying. I've learned my lesson now! When I return I will make and keep commitments ;)

We spent the evening of New Year's Eve in the house of a member and they gave us presents (a box of chocolates) and while most of the food was still the normal Brazilian food there was a turkey and the christmas music was in english, so I felt a little bit at home <3

Again this week, we worked more with less actives than with new people. We're still visiting "Grandma" all throughout the week, and we've been meeting with 6 other people, and trying to meet with 2 others but they're never home. Teaching inactive members is really cool because normally when we teach about the gift of the holy ghost, we say "you can have this after baptism" but with less actives, we get to say "you've felt this in your life before and it can come back right now if you do the things you know you should be doing" and sometimes "you have the priesthood, you have the authority to bless your family and those you love. Let's help you remember how to use it."

I'm wondering if we're having trouble getting people to come to church because God knows the ward needs to be strengthed before it can really help new people. If the branches of a tree grow faster than the roots, the whole thing will fall. So maybe we need to be doing more to help the ward members in addition to the inactives we're trying to reactivate. Not to say we'll stop trying to find new people! Of course not! But I'm going to try to think of ways to help the ward help new people. Hopefully my companion has some ideas because I've never done this before!

That's it for today. I love you all! When the holidays are past I'll have more to say for you <3

Sister Steele

the week nothing made sense

This week was...interesting. Literally what was this week. But I'll get to the weird stuff after!

So our "old" investigators are having trouble. One is having trouble believing in God and is considering leaving us, and another has been talking to people who hate mormons so that's fun! (Its not fun) Its very likely that we'll have to leave them. BUT WE HAVEN'T GIVEN UP HOPE YET. WE WILL FIGHT TIL THE END. Everything will work out.

This week we met Valessa's daughter Valesca who is 11. She reminded me a lot of my dear 11 year old sister. While we were waiting for her mom to finish up some things we talked to her about school and how her tests are going and what she likes to do and all that, and it made me miss my sister more! What was funny though is that this 11 year old knows her bible almost better than I do! Everything we talked about with her she could quote bible verses about and knew the references for everything! She told us she's mad because her church says she's not old enough to be baptised and she wants to really badly and we're like "well hey guess what you are old enough!!"

We got 4 new investigators this week! They're still super new, so I'll talk more about them next week after I see how things go but all of them seem pretty solid!

Now the weird stuff.

So first of all this week we played marriage counsilor, which I didn't know I, the dating expert that I am, was qualified to do. I hope everything we said was valid...and that they talk to people who know better what they're doing.

Secondly in the oddities and annoyances of this week was on thursday we taught this teenage girl and her mom, right? Everything went super well, the daughter was SUPER pumped about what we taught, mom wasn't interested but said her daughter can do as she pleases so we were all set to continue teaching her when out of nowhere her grandma pops up and starts yelling at us about how her granddaughter is a minor and doesn't know what she's doing and how dare we try to change her mind and practically kicked us out! It wasn't even her house??? Unfortunately her mom now sides with her mother-in-law and we can't go back, which seriously bites! The girl was soooo excited and said everything we taught was what she'd been looking for and it was perfect!! Someday. :(

Ok so then we were teaching someone, and literally their entire house fell apart a few months ago and they havent rebuilt it yet so we taught them on a couch in the middle of literal ruins. Like just dirt and piles of broken bricks. They're in the process of rebuilding but still like??? They don't have a bathroom??? Also there we learned the story of their sister who ran off with an older man she hardly knows and married him right away (which sounds like something from a few different books I've read) and the boyfriend who is 17 but already has an exwife? They were married for 2 years starting when he was 14? I think the girl was 12 or 13. Most of the time if I'm quiet while we talk to someone its because I'm struggling to understand what they're saying but this time I literally was speechless because I cannot imagine my 16 year old brother saying "my exwife and I seperated because..."

And lastly, we had just been half chased from a house (the other half being us running) because when we said the word Christmas the woman started sobbing/screaming and we weren't exactly sure what to do in that situation, when a young man, I will assume he'd been drinking, wearing nothing but a bedsheet-toga ran up to us waving a gigantic rainbow umbrella and yelled "you guys are believers?!?! WOOOHOOOO" and ran out into the street without looking and almost was hit by a car.

Yeah, so this week was weird. I hope you guys were slightly entertained by my experiences this week. 

I'm sorry I still haven't sent pictures!! I can't seem to figure out how? SOMEDAY I WILL I PROMISE. 

Now, for any of you that maybe will serve a mission some day or will spend next christmas away from your family or alone even, I offer one piece of advice: BRING EVERY SINGLE SONG FROM YOUR FAMILY'S CHRISTMAS PLAYLIST. Because if you don't you'll find yourself sitting on the floor at 6:30 am eating panetone listening to "Breathe of Heaven" on repeat because its the only song you have that feels like home. I learned this week that christmas music isn't really about christmas, its about the memories. Somewhere online there's this collection of "bad analogies" and one of them is something like "there was an eerie feeling in the air, like when you're on vacation and Family Feud comes on at 7 instead of 7:30" and thats how I feel about christmas music in portuguese. Because its the same songs but I can't sing along!!

A mission is a crazy crazy thing. But every annoying thing has a positive side! For example, I have 47 mosquito bites (not kidding) but I don't have dengue so clearly I've got good luck and God on my side. I haven't been properly dry in 6 weeks because its so hot, but that gives me the excuse to say "some people are worth melting for". My sense of humor has been reduced to reading my dictionary and writing pop culture references in the margins, but it turns out thats a really good way to memorize new words! Literally, this is the craziest thing I could possibly be doing right now, and that's not just the toga man talking. But on wednesday when we said a prayer together with one of our new investigators and she said super cutely and sincerely "God, I want to know if the things the sisters taught me are true. I feel really good about this and want it to be true, please help me know" I was reminded of why I'm really here. So as crazy and weird and bizare of a week this was, it was also absolutely fantastic.

I love you all! <3<3<3

GRANDMA CAME TO CHURCH

WE DID IT (well no, God did it but WE DID IT). Yesterday "grandma" came to church. I was quite relieved because all the members talked to her and said how glad they were to see her there again and how they hope to see her again next week and like me too, members, me too. I hope this continues! She's not always the happiest of people, but I've seen her grow happier as we've been working with her and I know that will continue if she keeps coming.

Other than her...again, a bit of a dry week. EVERYONE LEFT TOWN. We didn't get to work with any of our usuals because no one is home! Not sure if its for the holidays or what, but we've still got a while before christmas so I hope they won't be gone until then!

But it was also a dry week because we didnt have quite as much proselitismo time because of the christmas conference WHICH WAS A BLAST. We were there literally all day, watching videos, seeing baby pictures of everyone that remembered to send them, and the "talent show" that lasted a million and sixty years. The Sister Training Leaders grabbed Sister Dewey and I and some of the hispanic sisters from our arrival group and said "so we're going to sing I Feel My Savior's Love in spanish, english, and portuguese. you don't get a say you're coming" so that happened. it was fun! Both Sis Dewey and I laughed and said that if they had asked, we would have said no so its a good thing they didn't ask. The mission is 100% outside of your comfort zone 100% of the time, so like what did we have to lose, I guess. 

We had a reunion of the "deer in the headlights" missionaries-meaning Sister Dewey, Sister Ruiz, and me since we're the only new americans and had a good half hour of rapid speed english spewing out all the things we've been wanting to say but couldnt and it had the theraputic effect of screaming into a pillow, so that was good. Our companions kept coming over and saying "speak portuguese!!!! stop it with the english!" and we were just like "tchau" because oh my goodness was that needed. I miss english. so much. Eh, not english so much just being able to comunicate /exactly/ what I'm feeling with all the nuances of idiomatic expressions.I think all of our egos have taken a beating this month. BUT eventually we swiched back to portuguese and several people told me my portuguese is actually really good #egoboost

That's pretty much it...we did lots of street contacting, I complained about the heat, we taught a few lessons that /maybe/ will lead to new investigators but maybe not, quem sabe? I saw lots of (albeit silly) tender mercies of the lord this week. Like how my one tube of cookies seemed to last 3x as long as it should (2 loaves and 7 fishes, anyone?) or when I spent ALL WEEK saying that I needed to read "His Grace Is Sufficient" by Brad Wilcox and on friday felt a little nudge to look through the huge pile of ensigns again and BEHOLD there it was. I'm also counting it as a blessing that my conversational portuguese is still struggling because in a week Roberto and Matteus will see Star Wars and have promised to try to spoil every single part for me. They even threatened to learn english just to spoil it. But considering how much portuguese I know in 2 months with total immersion and the missionary mantle aND help from god on my side, I figure I won't be in this area by the time they figure out how to spoil it in english. Dorks. They keep getting into Star Wars v Star Trek or Harry Potter v Lord of the Rings fights. is it irony that in those moments I quote Twilight by saying "IM SWITZERLAND OKAY?" (though sorry Matteus Star Wars definitely wins)

We said Tchau this week to my 1st (well, 3rd. don't worry Elders Hyland and Fonicello you guys count too) District Leader. He's heading home to Porto Alegre. I told him to watch out for Sister Grubbs and Sister Johanson if he sees them.

Also I tried tapioca for the first time. With ham and cheese? I definitely thought tapioca was only eaten in pudding form not like some sort of weird taco, but it was good! 

That's about it! Love you all! EMAIL ME. <3

Sister Steele

week 10: Sister Frozen and the Spiritual Turkey

This was a dry week. We did TONS of street contacting because, I swear, every single plan we made fell through. No one was home, and hopefuls turned out not to be interested. But we spent a lot of time with less active members instead, so it worked out fine. 

We've been working with this inactive family of 3 generations-Grandma, Mom, and Daughter. The grandpa isnt a member, the dad isnt in the picture. Adorable, all 3. The daugher, Agatha, is 14. Super cute, and super up on all the social media sites. Enough so that through my /very/ poor descriptions (poor because my conversational portuguese needs help) of vines, she is able to find exactly the one I was thinking of. She agreed with me that the best compilation is that one kid who makes cup song videos where the song starts playing at inconvenient (I'm so sorry I've never spelled this word without spell check) times and "can't help" but start, resulting in water, cereal, coke, or an entire tub of oatmeal going EVERYWHERE while he screams "nooooooo every freaking time!!". literally its my favorite and she made everyone watch it. She's super cute.

Mom is nearly always working, so I don't actually know her. But Grandma, oh she's seriously the cutest thing. I LOVE her and she's taken a liking to me too. She refers to us as her children every time we stop by. 

All of them 100% believe in the gospel, I don't know whats stopping them from coming. We thought we'd convinced Grandma to come yesterday but she backed out at the last minute :( Seriously, sad. But we'll get her ;)

Speaking of sad, we were teaching this inactive member, right? He hadn't gone in YEARS but he saw us teaching Matteus and called us over and asked us to help him. So we got him new scriptures and were helping him remember all the things that once had made him so happy and everything was all set for him to come to church on sunday, but when we stopped by his wife says "my husband is not going to that church of yours, take your book and leave" and when we tried to say "no no, its a gift we can't take it back!" she threw it away!! I can't imagine if my husband or someone I loved wanted to do something that would make them happy, that I could ever possibly do something like that! I don't understand it. You don't do that to someone you love! I hope her heart is softened and she realizes how ridiculous she's being, and I hope he can come back still. It should be his decision, not hers.

BUT that isn't to say this week was a disappointment. Valessa is amazing me. The day after we gave her a book of mormon she read the first 6 chapters or so, and thats seriously not normal, usually it takes some coaxing and a few days at least. We had some ridiculously good days this week. Like /ridiculously/ good. Days where everything went right and even when it didn't we had the spirit with us so strong nothing could get us down. One day in particular, we had three solid lessons. three amazing lessons, na verdade. All about the Book of Mormon. There's a power in teaching about the book of mormon that I can't explain nor do I fully understand. Like, I was wayyy more exhausted that day than any other, even though we walked way less and had way more success than usual and all in all should have been more full of energy than normal. But it was a good kind of tired. Someone on "The District" described this feeling like there's something inside you thats a little too big, and somehow I feel like thats accurate. Like after Thanksgiving dinner when you ate a little too much, but emotionally/mentally/spiritually. Feasting on the spiritual turkey! 

Also this week, our district made our video for Natal! It was soooo much fun. Our district has me and Sister Pereira, DL Elder Rosa (though he's about to go home :( this will change super super soon) and his companion Elder Kosnocha (I have absolutely no idea how to spell his name) who are all from Brazil, Santa Maria I think. Then Elder Batten who is from Oregon and Elder Chave from Moçambique (I'm like 70% sure that's spelled right, its in Africa). All our Elders are hilarious, seriously. Every district is making a christmas video, and ours will be awesome. I think my favorite part was either Elder Rosa making a street contact with a golden retriever, or Elder Batten chasing down a bus trying to give it a christmas pass along card. I think we'll cut out the parts where the people we talked to said "christmas is for children, I hate christmas" though...seriously quem não gosta de Natal???!? 

Children love me. I don't know how I do it (yes I do, I'm just cool) and all the 3-6 year olds have taken to call me Sister Frozen because they think I look like Anna. I still speak either like Tarzan or like Yoda, but its getting better! I understand a little better now how the Book of Mormon prophets felt, speaking Hebrew but writing in scriptural egyptian because I don't actually speak portuguese, I speak english using portuguese. (have I already said this, probably). Also, I understand how the pioneers felt (I'm so kidding) because we still don't have clean water, so every night I have to boil a ton for us to drink. I'm like a regular old pioneer ;) AND I HAVE TAN LINES. I didn't think that was possible, given that I'm the whitest person on the planet but here I am. Looking every so slightly less like a corpse than before.  

I hope all of you are doing well! Natal é chegando!! Its almost Christmas!!! I hope you all have the christmas spirit with you. <3<3<3<3 love you all! Eu amo vocês!!

Tchau,

Sister Steele

Re: Week 9? 10? who even knows anymore

oops! Sorry guys! That wasnt supposed to send yet 

On Mon, Dec 7, 2015 at 10:58 AM, Taylor Lynne Steele <taylor.steele@myldsmail.net> wrote:

This was a dry week. We did TONS

Week 9? 10? who even knows anymore

This was a dry week. We did TONS

week 9

Olá todo mundo! Como vocês estão??

This week was cool! On wednesday we did splits with the sister training leaders (which I quite enjoyed in part because Sister Lopez is american so I got to have a normal conversation again!!) and I feel like I learned a ton from her. She and I made TONS of street contacts that day, and taught a few lessons to. She didnt baby me at all, in fact treated me as though I'd been in the field for ages and ages already. Normally in a lesson, one missionary will be talking and just signal to the other that they should take over. They don't plan who will say what/when. So I just about croaked when she signaled that I would be teaching the first vision. What??? Me??? How?? But I took a leap of faith and accepted her challenge, and it went perfectly! Teaching that part felt realllllly cool and really powerful too. After that, she did the same with various other parts and wouldn't let me get away with not talking to someone she talked to. I feel that I grew a weeks worth in that 6 hours with her and am ready to face all the challenges ahead of me!

After that day, Sister Pereira has been doing the same thing. Just passing the baton to me, never when I'm expecting it and things have been going awesome! I'm quickly learning that I know way more portuguese than I think I do, and if I just open my mouth without thinking beforehand what I'm going to say, the words will flow naturally.

We got a new investigator this week! Valessa. Sister Lopez and I talked to her during splits, and the next day I brought Sister Pereira over to meet her and we started teaching right away! Things are going really well with her, and with our others as well! Matteus is progressing really quickly! We have one investigator that was going to be baptised last saturday, but he canceled at the last minute. Cold feet. So we're going to try to focus on him a lot this week to figure out what it is thats holding him back, because he wants to be baptized and he *knows* everything we've taught him is true, he's just afraid of the commitment. 

I find it really funny how, with this nametag, lots of people are actually afraid of me. Like there's this woman we pass on the street every single day that goes out of her way to avoid walking near us, like walks across the street until we're a good distance apart and then crosses back, staring at the wall to avoid making eye contact with us. Never before have I had people try that hard to not talk to me! 

sorry this is so short again! I keep forgetting my outline. Next week I'll be sure to tell you all more :) 

Olá tudo mundo!! 

So, last week was almost only street contacting but this week we had LESSONS. Lots of them, actually. As part of training, we watched the district videos about finding people to teach and felt that we needed to be a little more assertive in our teaching-teach people immediately, not just wait for them to say we can come back. So we did. We worked hard to talk with people not just at people, and to testify from the beginning and dang did that work. We have 5 new investigators now, 4 of which have a baptismal date and only one of those was a referral. 

I'm contributing in lessons! lessons with real people, not instructors pretending! Seriously, this is so cool. To think that 8 weeks ago I spoke literally zero portuguese and now I'm here, talking about peoples fears and problems and doing my best to help them. I dont always understand /everything/ but I understand enough, and every day I understand more.

Its basically as hot as the surface of the sun here, but I've found I dont really notice during the day because I'm so busy talking to people. And everyone here hugs everyone so like, sorry to those who have hugged me for the smell I can only assume was disgusting, but all is well! And to think all of you at home are freezing right now, and I'm showering twice a day. 2017 better be a killer winter, I'll have earned it. Though maybe I wont be able to survive a killer winter after 1.5 years of this!

The members here are great, so willing to help us. Especially 16 year old Roberto, seriously the kid is a goldmine with referrals-investigators or less actives. He's a way better member missionary than I ever was! I hope to come home and be more like Roberto. 

Tchau!

weeks 6&7 #padawanlife

Alright so since I didnt get a pday last week, here's my last week in the ctm! I had to give a talk on sunday, and how it worked was everyone prepared a talk and then while you were walking in you got told if you were speaking or not so i had approximately 2 hymns to get myself excited, but I survived! 

Other than that, same as usual. We sat in a classroom for 12 hours. Sister Dewey and Elder Sheperd communicated soley through eye contact and telepathy, Elder Bishop made water bottle tornadoes, Irmão Oliveira pretended to have a worse accent than possible when speaking english, and Irmão Tavares made it a daily goal to turn me bright red with embarassment/frustration/anger/all of the above. We taught real lessons to fake people, I got "to accomplish" mixed up with "to buy" so I spent a week saying I accomplished sunblock and did we purchase our district goals? 

Monday we had to say goodbye to everyone which was seriously so sad. In only 6 weeks I'm not kidding when I say these people have become some of my best friends ever, and to say goodbye for who knows how long?? Especially since we can't hug each other (well sisters can hug sisters and elders can hug elders but yeah) so goodbye handshakes were given and tears were shed. We did one final positive circle and ohhhhh my goodness were there tears. 

So tuesday we arrived and Sister Dewey and I said our goodbyes and headed off with our new companions (mine is sister Periera). Then wednesday we spent unpacking, cleaning, getting to know the area a little etc. We really werent outside long, maybe an hour? and yet...remember when I got my call and every single person said "oh hun im scared for your skin"? Remember just last week when a woman at the temple asked if I'm allergic to the sun? Remember last week when Oliveira stopped me to say "Sister, você é MUITO branco, MUITO MUITO branco. por favor use sunblock, buy lots" and Tavares said I'm going to die here from the sun? Or when on the plane ride here sister Dewey commanded me to use sunblock so that she doesnt have to send out the email to district 39b announcing my death? Yeah I forgot sunblock and am already burned. Twas entertaining having a few different members tell me they're going to buy me a parosole.

Then the normal mission life began. Our zone leaders came to show us the area and brought us to meet some current investigators, Osvaldo, and Ari and Houra(???). Osvaldo is funny, when the elders told him theyd been transfered his eyes got wide and he said "hows this one supposed to help me, she doesnt speak pórtuguese!" and I was like oh please, I know portuguese have some faith in me! So he made me say the prayer just to see if I could. It made me laugh though.

In all our lessons, I'll confess I dont always know exactly whats being said. But when its my turn to speak, I dont trip over my words, I dont hesitate, I just speak and words come out, not always exactly what I was planning on saying but always ends up being good. Seriously, the gift of tongues is a real thing. Not always in the way I want it to be (meaning snap my fingers and be fluent already) but real nonetheless. Just gotta have patience. And remember that I literally asked for this so I can't complain ;)

street contacting is an interesting thing because most of the time, no one cares and we get blown off, but at times its clear that one of the people there so very much wants to listen but is holding back because of the other person there-their friend or sibling or something. We talked to a man the other day and briefly mentioned eternal families, and he said all his family has died already and he got a little emotional and started to ask to know more when his friend kinda pushed us away. But we got an appointment with him! Hopefully we manage to get there :)

Theres a lizard that lives in our house. I've named him João Pedro for Irmão Oliveira. He seems to like it here because he's always here.

Alright next week I'll have the greatest email ever (i hope) because next week we /might/ have baptisms! 

Tchau Tchau, até a semana próxima, Sister Steele

Hey! Im in Maceió!! Its só green! Really cool. We are at The mission home now. They treated is to lunch which was way better than The ctm 😅

😂 i dont have much time right now nor does HRIS iPad know how to use English which is frustrating but mi here!!! Im here and everything went smoothly.I hoje to be abre to write you better sono but i dont know when my pday will be!

week 5-my last week as a jedi learner

So I left my notes for this email upstairs so this is going to be ALL OVER THE PLACE very sorry!

This week, up until right this moment actually because I forgot while talking to my companion during email time, I HAVENT SPOKEN ENGLISH. We talked a lot about sacrifice on sunday and how much youre blessed when youre willing to give things up, and so Sister Jones and I were talking and realized that the only thing we really can't do properly in portuguese is tell dumb jokes and stories about home. All our basic communication needs we can do in portuguese. So she and I are doing A WEEK LONG english fast because we need a muito grande miracle between now and tuesday if we're going to survive the mission field (thats an exaggeration but actually not). So its been annoying but SO HELPFUL because honestly, the less you speak english the faster you learn and if you 100% refuse to speak english, you're forced to look up other words and keep using those words and then you remember them. So its all good. Seriously, I feel like my portuguese progress has skyrocketed this week. I hope that continues though because today while buying things I understood exactly 1 word the cashiers were saying: debit. And for some reason my card wasnt working so they were saying a lot more words than that and words that I presume were important but I couldnt tell what they were saying. Mas, tudo bem. Its not like the ctm people have been teaching me words that are useful for shopping. So I can't communicate transactions but I am a PRO at talking about the plan of salvation and also saying "are you laughing at me? why are you laughing at me?"

I literally cannot remember anything we did this week! lots of lessons, I presume. Which have been steadily going better and better. I haven't had a lesson where I sat there silently not understanding anything/not able to say anything in a while! Thank goodness for that.

Okay wow I literally cannot remember ANYTHING what did we even do this week??? I suppose it was uneventful because I wasnt speaking english....wow this is lame I'm so sorry but I'm out of time and out of things to say already. Tchau?? Love you all??? Até who knows when because I actually don't know when my next pday is. NEXT TIME YOU HEAR FROM ME ILL BE IN THE FIELD

Week 4-that time we were real missionaries for an hour

 wed: we met the newest member of our district, Elder Fonicello. He's
from belguim. None of the instructors know what to do with his name. I
mean neither do any of the americans, so the poor kid has to respond
to literally any thing that vaugly sounds like his name. THURSDAY:
District english fast all day long! (so no speaking english) we did
surprisingly well! But by the end of the day I was so exhausted Irmão
Tavares had to repeat everything he said 3x before I understood it. So
basically I learned my lesson and take a break at dinner or something
now. AND TO THINK 2 WEEKS FROM NOW EVERY DAY WILL BE AN ENGLISH FAST
BECAUSE NO ONE SPEAKS ENGLISH. Thatll be rough. We also that day
learned that "Valmir" has cancer, and wow none of us were prepared
during that lesson! Thankfully Sister Dewey and I had a sort of backup
lesson on the enabling power of the atonement (except we only
kiiiindof had that planned) so it went ok. (Valmir is a character,
don't worry my instructor is fine!) FRIDAY: WE WENT PROCELYTING. Like
for real. Oliveira took us out of the building and gave each of us 3
Books of Mormon and basically said "good luck" and that was it. Within
45 minutes every one of us had placed 3 Book of Mormons. It was
literally that easy. And everyone that took one seemed genuinely
excited. Someone in our branch had the coolest experience with this.
He has a speech impediment, and when he speaks portuguese and when he
gets nervous it gets way worse. So he's on the bus out of the ctm
trying to talk to the person next to him but hes soooooo nervous all
he managed to say was "hot. outside. no like. you?" and the man next
to him reached out to take a BoM, started reading it right there on
the bus and kept it. It didnt even matter that he couldnt speak
portuguese well! He could tell the kid was trying sooooo hard and
apparently that was enough. SATURDAY: today I was reminded that we
teach people not lessons, so we taught "Rosmer" a lesson that wasnt
specifically in the 5 lessons. It was on how to increase your faith
and recieve answers to prayers using Nephi 17-18 as examples and I led
the ENTIRE lesson for the first time, and it went super well! I think
it was exactly the kind of lesson Irmão Tavares was digging
for/thought Rosmer needed. Irmão Tavares told me after wards that it
was a really good lesson (for which I was relieved because I can never
tell, because my portuguese was so choppy but its ok he understood
what I was trying to say). SUNDAY: so plot twist, our new elder is our
new district leader. Cant say I was surprised. He already has had some
suggestions that I think will help our district a lot. The change is
weird, but he's definitely up to the task. MONDAY: my poor companion
had to drag around me as dead weight because I had the worst sinus
headache and as a result she took charge in all 3 of our lessons
(soooo sorry about that) because wow when anything distracting happens
I cannot speak or think portuguese, I need all my brain power for
that. So wash your hands kids, the ctm is a breeding ground for
colds/flu with the dorm style housing and up to 80 new people coming
in every week. TUESDAY: For 2 days straight we spoke NO english and I
learned that one of the gifts God gives his missionaries is the
ability to laugh at the stupidest of jokes because our vocabulary isnt
good enough to tell quality jokes and yet we were laughing SO MUCH all
day long. ALRIGHT I'm about out of time so I guess that's it. AGAIN
sorry its so all over the place and that the enter key doesn't work!
Oh how I miss my quality internet connection. <3 LOVE YOU ALL. ~Sister
Steele

Week 3 where I learn to be brief sort of‏ (Sister Steele)

 Last weeks email felt like a downer! Im sorry! I promise it was a
better week than that. So. This week I'm going to be brief for once in
my life. FINALMENTE this week it hit me that my bad attitude (sempre
dizendo "não posso fallar português") was killing my progress so I
stopped complaining and BAM instant portuguese. My district named me
"most improved" and both teachers expressed how impressed they were.
Friday and Saturday Sister Madarani was in doctors appointments so
Sister Jones was with us as a trio, and none of us were expecting it
so we were in the middle of our lesson with "Valmir" Sister Jones
knocked on the door and just barged her way in because she had no idea
how to explain the situation in portuguese, and I was so impressed
because I was laughing so hard but Irmão Oliveira never broke
character! Our lessons have been going SO MUCH BETTER THIS WEEK
because for all of last week we taught exclusively from a script, but
this week we had our scripts covered up the entire time and taught
much better lessons actually. "Valmir" asked us to explain Lehi's
dream to him and we were 0% prepared for that and yet the lesson
actually went better than any lesson we'd done before! Our instructors
have been really fun this week, especially Irmão Tavares (he was Yago
if I didn't explain that well and now he's "Rosmer"). He taught us
head shoulders knees and toes and then we played a very dangerous game
of "batata quente " (hot potato) in which I nearly killed Sister Jones
and nearly peed my pants but its all good! We also started TRC this
week which is teaching members, and I was so proud of myself I managed
to share personal stories IN PORTUGUESE without a script. It was good.
It was really good actually. And tuesday we did an english fast
meaning only portuguese all day (or most of the day at least) and I
was impressed at how well I managed to communicate in portuguese (also
I learned words I never would have before for example cocô de ave is
bird poop). A FEW GENERAL STUFF I WANTED TO GET IN so the building
literally doesnt have a back wall for some reason, so the hallway in
the back was FILLED with the biggest caterpillars ive ever seen, like
2x as big as ive ever seen but apparently those were small. And
apparently the huge roaches ive seen are small too. yayyyy. They made
us move from floor 3 to floor 4 (and here the ground floor is 0 so its
really floor 5 ew) which used to be a mens floor so its got all these
signs like "elders, please dont pee on the floor" and "no being naked
in the hallway". The girls floor didnt have those signs and yet we
never seemed to have those problems...just saying ;) Our instructors
are all super fresh off the mission so they're literally 20-22 which I
think is hilarious. AND THE RING THING so here in brazil, a silver
ring on your right ring finger means youre in a serious relationship.
gold on the right means engaged. when you get married you move it to
the left. boys too. so all our instructors are engaged but our
"investigators" are married so they always switch their ring (as if we
actually would notice) to stay in character. Personally I think this
needs to be a thing in Utah because my dating life would be much
easier if men had engagement rings too and also I just like it its
cute. OK LOVE YOU ALL BYYYYYE thanks for your emails! Sorry the enter
key isnt working again :) <3 -Sister Steele

FW: week 2

Forwarded from my Sis Tayo. Hopefully, she gets this to work soon; although, I very happily do any errands she asks of me.   I can't lie. She made me cry. But this time it wasn't because I miss her to pieces but because I am so proud of her. She's is trying so hard.  I still do miss her to pieces. So many times I catch myself wanting to text her about something really  funny that *no one* would understand like she would. Or vent about something because we are two peas in a pod and feel the same way about most topics. Then I quickly realize that she's not at the end of a phone or holed up in our basement.  She's doing something far greater and our vents and laughs will have to wait for another day.  Love that girl of mine.
 

> Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2015 13:48:53 -0300
> Subject: week 2
> From: taylor.steele@myldsmail.net
> To: steeleml@hotmail.com; jer_steele@hotmail.com
>
> So I talk A LOT in person so I wrote this all out beforehand so I
> wouldn't run out of time like last week but WOW I TALK A LOT. I just
> want to tell you all everything!!! I can't believe I've only been here
> 2 weeks and yet similtaniously I can't believe its already been 2
> weeks. The 1st week felt like a month oh goodness. This week the days
> were long but the week was short.
>
> SLANG IS SO HARD TO GIVE UP BY THE WAY
>
> I was in such a rush last week the email
> made no sense! If I didn't make it clear, "Yago" was our investigator
> played by our someone who would later be our teacher.
>
> So on Wednesday we taught "Yago" for the
> last time. We went in with no script, just tried to answer his
> questions about heaven and living with families forever and all that.
> It went super super well. Even Yago could tell we were in better moods
> than usual. But then he told us he'd see us the next day and we were
> like????? "Não?? We'll see Irmão Tavares tomorrow not Yago?" and he
> pretended not to understand. Classic Yago.
>
> Thursday we had to go to the police station for
> the Brazillian government to let us stay here, so we missed out on our
> personal scripture study in the morning which was SUCH A BUMMER. I
> sooooo need that time in English in the mornings, nothing goes well if
> I skip it. And surprise nothing went well and I couldnt understand
> anything and poor Irmão Oliveira had to talk to me in english because
> I was literally crying (I promised I'd be honest in these emails,
> right??) but its ok it had just been a long day.
>
> Last week from 18:00-21:00 we were
> usually taking turns teaching Yago and failing to focus because we're
> too tired at that point, but this time right at 18:00 we get a knock
> on the door and I opened it and SURPRISE (no one was surprised) it was
> Yago! Oh how the tables have turned, Yago. Now we're the ones inviting
> *you* in so you can share a message while *we* fall asleep halfway
> through! No, but it was fun. He told us how happy he is to finally get
> to know us as Irmão Tavares rather than an actor and told us "Yago"
> was someone he taught on his mission (like last year or something,
> he's practically our age). We kept trying to answer his questions in
> English and he was like eu não fallo ingles and we're all like serio??
> Yago falle ingles. he said "yago" spoke some ingles but he doesn't and
> we were all just like Irmão stop lying but he wouldn't so whatever. I
> mean, so he actually doesn't know very much english we now know but
> after Irmão Oliveria saying he knows nothing and then actually being
> COMPLETELY FLUENT in english we just dont trust anyone.
>
> The last hour thank goodness he didnt do
> more grammar, I would have died. Instead he made us all read the
> portugues book of mormon out loud, which was terrifying actually, but
> then he went inhto testimony mode saying he loves us already and is so
> excited to be able to help us and he knows we can do it and "O Senhor
> confia em você!" (the Lord trusts you) which was cute. He talked a lot
> about how much God loves us and believes in us because he wouldnt have
> sent us here if we couldnt learn portuguese and it was really really
> nice. And even with the major language barrier, he's hilarious which I
> need to keep me awake after 12 hours in that same classroom. And he
> thinks I'm hilarious because I am.
>
> On friday I maaaaaaaaaaaaaay have burst into tears
> because Irmão Tavares asked me to teach him about faith and I didn't
> know any words. Ok so yeah I did. He tried to speak some English but
> really doesn't know a lot but it was fine (dont cry! if you cry ill
> cry!) and told me to say a prayer with him in english so it would
> actually be a sincere prayer instead of memorized and then walked me
> through the words while I calmed down. It was a long week, ok?
> Portuguese is hard and my companion is literally Hermione Granger in
> portuguese while I'm Neville Longbottom. But thats ok because that
> means by the end I'll "Neville Longbottom" and become super smart and
> strong and awesome (and attractive), right?
>
> Saturday we got two new investigators, Valmir
> (Irmão Oliveira) and Rosmir (Irmão Tavares). Valmir's lesson was
> frustrating because he asked a question and my companion said we'd
> answer it later and I was like "no no! We'll answer it now!" but I
> didnt have the words to answer it so i couldnt so we left it
> unanswered which is never good! Rosmir's lesson went better because we
> learned our lesson and answered his questions immediately. Also we
> bullied Irmão Tavares into saying a prayer for us in english since he
> always makes us pray in portuguese. It was weirdly reassuring because
> even though it was half in portuguese half in english and everything
> was conjugated wrong, we knew exactly what he was saying. So people
> will understand me when I conjugate literally everything wrong. Also
> he kept apologizing for his english and we all told him stop
> apologizing that was 900000x better than our portuguese.
>
> Sunday we had a devotional about how God
> always works throught he weak and simple and thats sooooo true. Moses
> was slow of speech. Joseph of Egypt saved egypt by being a slave. Most
> of the 12 apostles were just fisherman, and many of them were probably
> quite young. Alma and the sons of Mosiah were a bunch of loser trouble
> makers and they became the greatest missionaries ever. The strippling
> warriors were 13! Joseph Smith was 14 and practically illiterate. God
> calling me to Brazil and making me speak Portuguese is hardly the
> craziest thing he's ever done
>
> Monday we had THREE lessons but one was a member so it was
> easier. We taught on the enabling power of the atonement. I used a
> favorite scripture of mine- Alma 26:12 "as to my strength I am weak
> therefore I will not boast of my self but i will boast of my God for
> in his strength I can do all things" and bore testimony that thats
> true and I know it is because I am an american living in Brazil
> learning portuguese. missions are hard. Portuguese is hard. I cannot
> do that on my own. I say I know no portuguese but I know way more than
> I could have on my own, because God is on my side.
>
> So we have that prepared and we get
> there and our member is literally Irmão Tavares again (we cant escape
> him) and I couldn't help but laugh given what our lesson was when 2
> days ago he was trying to say all of that to me. But it was easy. He
> made it easy by talking to us a lot about our interests and such
> before hand (tried to say I look like I would be a justin beiber fan
> thanks a lot). But our other lessons that day, both investigators
> threw us a curve ball question so we had to scrap the entire lesson
> and just answer their questions-something i cannot do- so I said
> literally nothing the whole time. Rough.
>
> Tuesday ONLY ONE LESSON which went reasonably ok
> because I know how to teach the plan of salvation fairly well without
> a script but its so frustrating because I cant explain it well at ALL
> and thats my favorite thing about the gospel! But its ok. The gospel
> is beautiful in English. It is also beautiful in Portuguese. Just not
> in *my* portuguese.
> LOVE YOU
> ALL. THANKS FOR ALL YOUR EMAILS. I READ THEM ALL EVEN IF I DONT HAVE
> TIME TO RESPOND!!!
> -the mtc
> makes it hard to sent to groups but after this I'll send it out
> myself! Mom, please send this to everyone (and the blog email) like
> last time :) :)

Re: From my darling Sister "Tayo"

That was weird.... Sorry for the strangely placed line from me thrown into Sis Steele's letter. Technical difficulties after it was sent, I guess. ;)

Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 7, 2015, at 1:34 PM, Melanie Steele <steeleml@hotmail.com> wrote:

 Ohhhhhh  my gooodness this was the craziest and longest week of my
life! Each day feels like 3 days and each night feels like 3 hours
here at the good old CTM. Language bootcamp is the only way I can
describe it. From day one they had us memorizing the missionary
purpose in Portuguese and every single class was given in Portuguese.
Thankfully Irmão Oliviera speaks slow for us...ususally.

                  On day 2 (Thursday) we taught a lesson to an
"investigator" (we know its fake but it feels sooooo real) ALL IN
PORTUGUESE. That was rough. Sister Dewey and I were so nervous we
tripped over every single word. "Yago" (its actually Irmão Taveres,
he'll begin being our teacher tomorrow most likely) asked us "so,
Joseph Smith wrote the book of Mormon?" and it took us probably 10
minutes to answer just because we didn't know the word for translate.
We used a lot of charades. I'm impressed Irmão Taveres didn't laugh.
Too good of an actor, that one. Also we were super late to our lesson
because they told us to go to room 11 but he was actually in room 12,
and we had no idea how to explain that in Portuguese so we just kept
repeating "eleven" (onze) and pointing to the other room and "Yago"
doesn't speak English so he acted confused but "Irmão Taveres" clearly
does so at least he knew why.

         Two elders in my district though made the best mistake they
could have possibly made. They meant to have Yago read Amos 3:7 "for
surely the lord god will do nothing, but he revealeth his secrets to
his servants the prophets" but instead because their portuguese was so
bad they handed him Psalms 3:7 "for thou hast smitten all mine enemies
upon the cheekbone; though hast broken the teeth of the ungodly" and
then immediately started talking about how God works through his
servants the prophets...probably not the message they were trying to
convey.
                                                       We probably had
way too much fun on Friday, but when you spend 16 hours in the same
room studying a language you don't speak, you'll go stir crazy if you
don't joke around a bit. My district gets along well. Elder Francis is
quite the fan of puns and keeps trying to make them work in
portuguese. Elder Ferris seems to be a fan of toilet humour which is
fine by me. The other two-Elder Shepard and Elder Bishop are funny as
well. District Leader Elder Hyland keeps us on track though.

                                     We're district 39B, and the
others on the plane with us are 39A. An elder from 39A came into our
room and we asked how the Portuguese is going over there. He groaned
and said "no bueno" and we were all like "well thats spanish so
clearly not". That basically sums up all of us on day 2 though.

                                       Our second lesson with Yago,
Irmão Taveres was really hard on us. Given that this was day 3, asking
"was Eve a sinner?" and then bringing up the infant baptism issue is
mean!! Those are hard questions to answer in ENGLISH. The only
scripture we could remember about infant baptism was when Mormon
totally loses his temper in a letter or talk or something to Moroni
and keeps saying how abomitable it is, so we didn't think that was the
one to have him read...we fumbled out a "we'll answer that next time"
and practically ran away. And we were the only ones he was asking the
hard questiosn for a while! Finally the other sisters in our
district-Sister Jones and Sister Madarani (she's the English one I
mentioned) were asked, of all things, "when I die will my grandma's
spirit go into my dead body?" and then asked about being reincarnated
into animals? Not exactly vocabulary we went over on day one...

                                        After that I think Irmâo
Taveres felt bad for being so difficult on us so he was nice and
halfway through our very choppy language on baptism he got super
emotional-literally cried, man what a good actor-and said he wanted to
be baptised. So much of a mood lifter!
Taylor couldn't get this to send so she asked me to copy and send to all of you. Love my girl so much. Thank you so much to all of you who support her. I love you all for it.
                
 
                  Sister Madarani has been introducing us to English
slang (which we're not supposed to use because we need to sound
professional) so that had to end, but until then we got a kick out of
"cheeky nandos" and "minging" and started using them ourselves.
"Cheeky" is like spontaneous so we kept saying cheeky tender mercy of
the lord.
                                                              the food
is WEIRD. Sometimes its super good and sometimes you dont understand
what the lunch ladies are saying and they put mashed potatoes on your
hotdog. Or give you a crepe filled with hotdog meat. Ew.

                                    So much fun here in the CTM, but
also a lot of not fun (stress) and lots of hard work and lots of
"you're making jesus sad" when you speak english....I'll get it down
soon! Portuguese is gorgeous though. Not when I speak it but when the
Brazillian missionaries speak it. One thing Ive loved seeing though is
how many countries people here are from! The common language is
portuguese-not because we all speak it but because we're all learning
it, at least half the ctm seems to be spanish speakers but we've also
met several people from Zimbabawe (they liteally spoke 7 langauges and
saying their name involved making some sort of buzzing noise that none
of us could figure out. They laughed at us a lot.) The spanish elders
in the classroom next to us speak a tiny bit of english but mostly all
they can say is "give me all your money, punk!" and "fierce" complete
with the hand signal thing.

Tchau, Sister Steele.

From my darling Sister "Tayo"

 Ohhhhhh  my gooodness this was the craziest and longest week of my
life! Each day feels like 3 days and each night feels like 3 hours
here at the good old CTM. Language bootcamp is the only way I can
describe it. From day one they had us memorizing the missionary
purpose in Portuguese and every single class was given in Portuguese.
Thankfully Irmão Oliviera speaks slow for us...ususally.

                  On day 2 (Thursday) we taught a lesson to an
"investigator" (we know its fake but it feels sooooo real) ALL IN
PORTUGUESE. That was rough. Sister Dewey and I were so nervous we
tripped over every single word. "Yago" (its actually Irmão Taveres,
he'll begin being our teacher tomorrow most likely) asked us "so,
Joseph Smith wrote the book of Mormon?" and it took us probably 10
minutes to answer just because we didn't know the word for translate.
We used a lot of charades. I'm impressed Irmão Taveres didn't laugh.
Too good of an actor, that one. Also we were super late to our lesson
because they told us to go to room 11 but he was actually in room 12,
and we had no idea how to explain that in Portuguese so we just kept
repeating "eleven" (onze) and pointing to the other room and "Yago"
doesn't speak English so he acted confused but "Irmão Taveres" clearly
does so at least he knew why.

         Two elders in my district though made the best mistake they
could have possibly made. They meant to have Yago read Amos 3:7 "for
surely the lord god will do nothing, but he revealeth his secrets to
his servants the prophets" but instead because their portuguese was so
bad they handed him Psalms 3:7 "for thou hast smitten all mine enemies
upon the cheekbone; though hast broken the teeth of the ungodly" and
then immediately started talking about how God works through his
servants the prophets...probably not the message they were trying to
convey.
                                                       We probably had
way too much fun on Friday, but when you spend 16 hours in the same
room studying a language you don't speak, you'll go stir crazy if you
don't joke around a bit. My district gets along well. Elder Francis is
quite the fan of puns and keeps trying to make them work in
portuguese. Elder Ferris seems to be a fan of toilet humour which is
fine by me. The other two-Elder Shepard and Elder Bishop are funny as
well. District Leader Elder Hyland keeps us on track though.

                                     We're district 39B, and the
others on the plane with us are 39A. An elder from 39A came into our
room and we asked how the Portuguese is going over there. He groaned
and said "no bueno" and we were all like "well thats spanish so
clearly not". That basically sums up all of us on day 2 though.

                                       Our second lesson with Yago,
Irmão Taveres was really hard on us. Given that this was day 3, asking
"was Eve a sinner?" and then bringing up the infant baptism issue is
mean!! Those are hard questions to answer in ENGLISH. The only
scripture we could remember about infant baptism was when Mormon
totally loses his temper in a letter or talk or something to Moroni
and keeps saying how abomitable it is, so we didn't think that was the
one to have him read...we fumbled out a "we'll answer that next time"
and practically ran away. And we were the only ones he was asking the
hard questiosn for a while! Finally the other sisters in our
district-Sister Jones and Sister Madarani (she's the English one I
mentioned) were asked, of all things, "when I die will my grandma's
spirit go into my dead body?" and then asked about being reincarnated
into animals? Not exactly vocabulary we went over on day one...

                                        After that I think Irmâo
Taveres felt bad for being so difficult on us so he was nice and
halfway through our very choppy language on baptism he got super
emotional-literally cried, man what a good actor-and said he wanted to
be baptised. So much of a mood lifter!
Taylor couldn't get this to send so she asked me to copy and send to all of you. Love my girl so much. Thank you so much to all of you who support her. I love you all for it.
                
 
                  Sister Madarani has been introducing us to English
slang (which we're not supposed to use because we need to sound
professional) so that had to end, but until then we got a kick out of
"cheeky nandos" and "minging" and started using them ourselves.
"Cheeky" is like spontaneous so we kept saying cheeky tender mercy of
the lord.
                                                              the food
is WEIRD. Sometimes its super good and sometimes you dont understand
what the lunch ladies are saying and they put mashed potatoes on your
hotdog. Or give you a crepe filled with hotdog meat. Ew.

                                    So much fun here in the CTM, but
also a lot of not fun (stress) and lots of hard work and lots of
"you're making jesus sad" when you speak english....I'll get it down
soon! Portuguese is gorgeous though. Not when I speak it but when the
Brazillian missionaries speak it. One thing Ive loved seeing though is
how many countries people here are from! The common language is
portuguese-not because we all speak it but because we're all learning
it, at least half the ctm seems to be spanish speakers but we've also
met several people from Zimbabawe (they liteally spoke 7 langauges and
saying their name involved making some sort of buzzing noise that none
of us could figure out. They laughed at us a lot.) The spanish elders
in the classroom next to us speak a tiny bit of english but mostly all
they can say is "give me all your money, punk!" and "fierce" complete
with the hand signal thing.

Tchau, Sister Steele.

Hey!

 

Arrived here in Sao Paulo safe and sound at 6 am this morning. I think I may have slept like...an hour tops, so in 10 hours when I get the sweet release of sleep I dont think i will have been more excited ever.

 

The keyboard is suuuuuper weird so forgive me if I dont use punctuation. Im actually not even sure where the apostrophe is and theres a whole extra row of keys so I keep hitting the ] thinking its the enter.

 

SO quick update on how the day went! No one was on my chicago flight, but when i got to atlanta i was greeted by 8 or so dweeby teens in suits and a handful of sisters as well, and more and more kept coming. We had at least 16 of us by the end. Everyone was giving us such strange looks because clearly none of us knew each other since every five minutes there was another round of introductions and the flight attendants were like /really, another one???/ (also where are the quotation marks I havent found those yet either). It was an awkward first hour or so but after that everyone started warming up to each other. That is also my district, so its a good thing we actually started talking to each other.

 

10 hour flights overnight in a skirt?? Not fun. Never again. Or at least, you know, until the return trip. Trying to sleep on a plane is hard enough without worrying about flashing everyone. But I was seated next to Elder Matthew Gonzolas who was very excitedly talking about Legend of Zelda so, you know, time passed all right. He was funny and talkative so that helped us kill a few hours before he fell asleep leaving me in the dark wide awake because of all the turbulence the entire flight.

 

My companion is also headed to Maceio! Her name is Sister Dewey. Poor girls suitcases got left in Atlanta. Theyre supposed to get here tomorrow but still, thats a lot of added stress and mess for the first day! (and what a long first day at that) Hopefully it all works out! shes super cute and super sweet and already better at remembering the key and our meal cards than i am so thank goodness for her reminding me. Shes from houston if im remembering correctly.

 

Oooh! Our roommates (I cant remember either of their names right now) are super fun, and one of them is from England. Its been fun all day to hear her say things we dont understand, like slang or referencing a favorite shop. Also she brought a Troy Bolton pillowcase so basically shes my hero. And her companion is funny. Theyll make good roommates.

 

Landing in Brazil was sooooo strange. I mean, Ive been out of the country before but right away Brazil felt /super/ foreign. Also its one thing to be visiting a place thats on the metric system and use a money system youre not familiar with and entirely another to move to a place that uses a system youre not at all familiar with. Someone who didnt speak english took us to an atm and did most of the button pushing for us since it was in portuguese and pulled out 100$ in Brazillian money (cant remember what thats called either....) and I was holding it thinking ?I have absolutely no idea what this is, what can i even buy with this? Perhaps though with Sister (English one???) around Ill get metric down quick. She already confused all of us by telling us it was minus five when she boarded and that "wasnt too cold" (found the quotation marks!), took us a minute to remember thats like 25 F or something.

 

Thats really it for now! Theyve been going easy on us today because we all look like literal zombies. One sister in my district was flying from idaho and her first flight was at 4 am. The poor girl has slept like 4 hours in the past two days. We will all be better off after a good nights rest. We definitely need it.

 

Im so anxious and ready to get going though! Im here in Brazil and its time to start actually being a missionary.

 

Tchau,

Sister Steele