Mission Field Week 2

This week was a little frustrating with trying to speak portuguese but it ended on a high point. I got to baptize Leonardo. He is 14 and super awesome. He is going to be a missionary someday. It was a really awesome experience.

Brazil is really interesting. The food is super good. Rice and beans everyday for lunch, with some kind of meat, usually chicken. There is always fresh fruit. Lots of fruit we dont have in the United States.

We~ve had lots of potential investigators this last week, so this coming week we will visit with lots of people. Hopefully we can get some more investigators. I had to speak yesterday in church. It was really rough. My portuguese isnt the greatest and I was super nervous which makes my portuguese worse.

We walk a lot. We only take the bus to lunch appointments and to district meetings. My feet are usually really tired by the time we get home.

We are actually in a cold part of the mission. We have actually used our jackets in the evening and it gets cold at night. The rest of the mission isnt really like this, so it will be different when I get transferred. I~ll probably be here for the coldest part of the year and get transferred to the hottest part of the mission during the hottest part of the years. =)

Well, all is going well in Brazil. Tchau!

Elder Siemers

Mission Field Week 1

Brazil is really awesome. The members here are fantastic and very supportive. We received a bunch of referals just this week. They also come with us for teaching appointments. Every lunch is in a members home and they stuff us full of food every time. We have a lot of investigators right now, so that has been really nice. I dont understand anything sometimes, so the language can be frustrating, but my companion, Elder Davis takes good care of me. Some Brazilians speak sooooooo fast and there is no chance of understanding them even if I know the words they are saying. Other times, I understand about 90% of conversations. My speaking abilities are still lacking quite a bit. All the members keep telling me to speak more, but I´m such a quiet person I don´t have anything to talk about sometimes. I give the spiritual message at members homes every time since Elder Davis teaches all our lessons. I usually share a scripture I read in the morning during personal study. We have been challenged by the mission president to read the book of mormon this transfer. I came into the field a week into the transfer so I have to hussle to get it done. I think I have to read 7 chapters a day to do it. He promissed us that we will be closer to the savior than ever before if we do this.

I am so glad to be out of the MTC. I was going crazy there. In the CTM especially, since we didnt learn a whole lot. The teachers didnt have much of a curriculum for us , so we covered a lot of the same stuff. I think our district fell through the cracks also because we never knew what was going on. We missed one or two important meetings that we had no idea about until afterwards when people asked us where we were. It seemed pretty unorganized for being a missionary training center. I am glad I experienced it though. We definitely gained a love for the brazilian people by being there. We also cam e up with all kinds of ways to entertain ourselves. All the lights were on motion sensors, so if it had been a while since someone had passed by the lights would be dark. After Gym, our favorite part of the day was trying to sneak pass the light in the stairwell without them turning on again. We never mastered passing the light on the top floor. We lived on the 7th floor, 108 stairs up. Those things were killer, hiking them every day. One of our brazilian roommates worked in a hospital before the mission so he started talking with elder Welburn because he was studying to be a nurse. He asked if he had ever assissted in a cessarian( dont know how to spell that) before and he said no. So, Elder Chaucoski started gesturing onto his own stomach on where to make the cuts and such. So, to be helpful, I stuffed a pillow up my shirt and pretended to be pregnant. So we ended up acting out the entire operation and I gave birth to a water bottle. We named him Elder. The first baby born in the CTM. It was hilarious.

The food is delicious in Brazil. lots of rice and beans and fruit. We get a lot of ´juice´ also, but its pretty much just kool aid type stuff. The fruit smoothie type things are soooooooo good. The members also feed us some type of meat for lunch with our rice and beans. Usually chicken, but we get beef also. Once I figure out some recipes i will send some home.

We had a baptismal interview yesterday, but the young man~s parents dont want him to be baptized so that was a little heartbreaking. We are are hoping to have some baptisms over the next few weeks. Elder Davis usually teachers most of the lessons, but I usually add my testimony or share a scripture, so I get to be a little involved. Pocos De Caldas is a beautiful area. It has a lot of hills, so my legs are definitely getting in shape, and it is really green. It is one of the coldest parts in the mission, so It is actually nice during the day, and get s a little cold at night. I cant imagine how hot its going to get. Its pretty warm and we are going into winter right now. Generally the East part of the mission is cooler than the West. Ribeirao Preto is kind of the dividing line, even though it is not in the center of the mission.

Brazil is really awesome. I am going to experience a lot here. I cant wait to understand the language so I am not limited in anyway to work and enjoy it here.

Elder Siemers

CTM Week 8

Wow, I only have one week left in the MTC. Crazy. We went proselyting last friday. It was a crazy experience. It is so weird not being able to understand someone else. We pretty much figured out the general idea of what people were saying so we were able to muscle our way through our conversations. We were able to give out our 4 copies of the Book of Mormon in the hour we had in Sao Paulo. Things are really laid back here at the CTM, but it is also kind of hectic. Nobody every knows what is going on, so we kind of wait until somebody says ´vamos´. We are going outside of the CTM again today for pday. I am going to pick up my scripture covers today. I am excited. I am leaving on tuesday for the mission field. That is going to be crazy. It is going to be so different. I realized when I flew to Sao Paulo, I hadnt talked to anybody who wasnt a missionary or a teacher in a really long time. In a lot of ways, the MTC helps you prepare for the field, but in other ways, you are completely unprepared. Brazil is really cool though. We went to the temple today. Im not sure if I´m going to go again during my mission or not. So i tried to take my time and enjoy myself while I was inside. Well, I cant really think of anything else to say. Tchau. Elder Siemers.