This has been such a good week, I'm absolutely loving the Brazil MTC. But there really isn't much to update you guys on because I mostly just spend my days in a classroom learning Portuguese (which is a riveting experience, don't get me wrong, but I don't think you guys want to hear much about that). I will say, though, that just when I was feeling pretty good about my Portuguese- at least I could communicate very basically with the Brazilian missionaries- our teachers started teaching us the subjunctive tense and and all that fun stuff, so now I'm again convinced I'll never learn Portuguese. (Just kidding, I'm sure I will, but it's gonna take forever.)
One of my teachers here, Irma Fabiana, is hands down the best human being I've ever met in my life. My goal in life now is just to be her. She's from Brazil, but she served her mission in Japan. Back when she served, they didn't have any teachers that could translate Portuguese to Japanese, so in the course of her 9 weeks in the MTC she had to learn English to then learn Japanese...and I thought just doing Portuguese was hard. She also brings food for our district from the "outside world," like Doritos and popcorn and stuff...she's awesome.
Something I forgot to talk about last week: when I left the Provo MTC to come here, everyone in my zone surprised me and the 3 other girls leaving by singing "God be with you til we meet again." It was SO SAD. Everyone was crying, even the Elders. It made me realize how lucky we all are to have people that are so hard to say goodbye too.]
On a happier note, getting to go out and walk around Sao Paulo last week was so awesome. Everyone is friendly and the fact that I know enough Portuguese to buy stuff at the store was very encouraging. Also, there's a place that sells big American cookies right across from the MTC, so that's always a plus. I bought 3.
Something else funny that happened: I was talking with some of the Brazilian missionaries and we were discussing how white I am (which isn't a surprise- this is a common topic of conversation even among other very white Amercians). Anyway, one of the Elders said that I reminded him of the First Vision...because my skin is "um pilar de luz, mais brilhante que o sol." So that's now what I'm known for, which is pretty okay with me.
One last thought I want to share: for our devotional on Tuesday we watched an older talk by Elder Holland about why missionary work was so hard. He said that being a follower of Christ will never be easy because Christ's life was never easy. And if we hope to follow in His footsteps, we have to be willing to endure a tiny portion of the pain and rejection that He did. That's what being a disciple of Christ means. Missionary work was never easy because salvation was never cheap.
Anyway, I love and miss you all.
-Sister Coleman
(which is pronounced Col-ee-mun down here)
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