Hey Family and Dear Friends!
I'm STILL loving Brasil! Don't miss you at all...there're plenty of people here to help me forget y'all;)
Life is going smoothly at the CTM, and I'm feeling more and more at home all the time! It's way fun, because there are still ways to get further involved in CTM (centro de trenamento os missionarios) even though here, they have every hour of your 16-hour day planned out for you. My favorite is when all these missionaries are whining about being tired all the time...and I have to have SO much discipline not to say anything...because our days consist mostly of sitting in a classroom all day, studying. Sound physically exhausting? Hah, child's play. I'm a farm hand from Nebraska. Suckers don't know a thang here:)
So, as I was saying about getting to be involved, I meant mostly about getting to do a men's choir last Tuesday night for our devotional. It was SWEET! I got to sing with a bunch of Elders who had been involved previously with various music major business and stuff, so guys who KNEW what they were doing. There were 14 of us, a four-voice setup, and we sang "Ye Elders of Israel" for the CTM crowd. It was the coolest singing experience EVER! We must have done a little tooooo good, because the day after, at lunch, a table full of sister missionaries turned to us and started a compliment tirade. In my head I was like, "LOCK your hearts, Sisters, you're on the Lord's errand, not some silly dream mission to chase after missionaries who know their way around a choir!" But I had to be polite and all that boring stuff, and just be like, "Yeah it was pretty cool I guess. I've never really done a choir like that before, so it was a way fun thing to do." Psh.
So I'm loving the Brasilian crowd here, and it turns out it's not that hard to gain their copious friendship as long as you're real and down to earth with them. I've met TONS of awesome guys here, a ton on my floor, and almost every night we get Brasilians flooding the room to take pictures with the roomies and me. Also, it turns out the movie American Pie is pretty dang well-known among the young crowd here, which is semi-unfortunate for me, because apparently almost ALL the Brasilian Elders think I look like the guy Stiffler from the movie, so naturally ALL of the Brasilian Elders call me Stiffler. Eatin' lunch? *from across the lunchroom* "Eyyyyyyy Stiffler!" (in heavy Brasilian accents). Playin' basketball in the gym... "EYYYY Stiffler!" Goin to the bathroom to brush my teeth for the night...."Elder Stiiiiiiiiffler! Oi!" They love it :) They also LOVE that I can beatbox... so every few nights they carry me off to one of the dorm rooms to have a jam session with one of the Brasilians that brought his guitar, and an African Elder who knows how to throw down a rapping storm. Pretty dang legit!
So, one more story before I sign off. Today was temple trip day! So we got to do a session for an hour or so. I slept about 7 hours last night, so I wasn't entirely alert and sharp this morning, so I went ahead and offered up a prayer or two to stay awake, so as to show proper respect for the temple work. It was a pretty honest heartfelt prayer, but I didn't realize just how many ways the Lord has. about 5 minutes after my wee prayer to stay awake, sitting in quiet reverence, getting less and less sharp...my nose ERUPTED. Just on my white temple tie, though, of course. I was LUCKY, because it didn't mess with my shirt, just the tie (which isn't mine, HAH!), and I got a tissue with good timing. It was perfect, because I was just freaked out enough to stay completely awake for the rest of the temple session, which I knew previously that my chances of standing up to the forces of sleep were frail. So it turns out the Lord has a sense of humor, eh? ;)
Love y'all, stay classy:)
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