WEEK 8: August 19, 2019

 Another week for the books (I can’t remember what week I am on haha)

Well this week I finally mastered Portuguese and I have started to learn Spanish!!  Just kidding haha that would be a dream, but in truth still struggling a bit but I'm seeing some good progress!  This week we taught the gospel in 3 languages which was quite interesting and a little bit of a challenge.  We taught a bunch of Venezuelan families this week that spoke only Spanish, which surprisingly I can understand Spanish pretty well.  The next day we changed over and taught one of our investigators in Creole, which is nothing like Spanish, Portuguese, or English!  Super interesting haha. 

Anyway another week full of first lessons, and a ton o’ paperwork for new investigators- our method for contacting investigators in kind of overpowered haha.  We ´bater Portas´ meaning clap until someone comes out of their house to see what is going on, then we simply ask if they would like a prayer and a blessing on their family, and because basically everyone around here is Catholic, people say yes!  And so we come inside and offer a prayer, hopefully they feel the spirit, and then they invite us back again!  We have a lot of success with this method haha! 

Creole/Portuguese Lesson

Anyway, here’s a story about the guy that speaks Creole, he’s been meeting with the missionaries for a couple months, and was supposed to be baptized this week, but, apparently he didn’t understand our lesson about our church being the only true church, because when we visited him, he told us that he was baptized into another church haha.  We will keep working with him and pray for him to understand our Portuguese and hopefully still be baptized this next Saturday haha.

Other than that, another week down and only like... 95 weeks to go! Just hanging in here! :)

-Elder Hammond

Mom Questions:
*How much Portuguese are you understanding/speaking?
I understand probably 70 percent of what is said to me, and most of the time I can say what I want to.
*How does your trainer communicate with you?
In Portuguese, sometimes he tells me stories about his girlfriend at home and I just have to laugh cause i don't understand haha
*How far are the other companionships in your district spread apart?
closest missionaries are an hour away.
*What is your ward like?
about 50 members, i'll take a picture of our building next week.
*What is the most common meal you are served at member homes?
Grilled chicken or steak of some kind, spaghetti, and lasagna haha

Real Brazilian BarBQ

Missing CTM friends?

Highlights from our conversation:

• They’re getting a new mission president in 3 months (which is weird because I was under the impression that mission presidents only change over in July every third year. Hopefully the next one will be as good!)
• He really liked the Tucanos-style food they ate this week.
• He likes his companion.
• His ankle is still bugging him, but they’ve been getting a lot more ride around town from members to decrease the number of miles they’re walking every day.
• He has been making a huge effort to follow all the rules including getting up at 6:30am with or without his companion.  Then he studies his scriptures, does companionship study, language study and at about 11 they have to leave to walk to a member’s house for lunch.
• He and Becca got to talk to each other today!  It was great!! They were already swapping stories and slang and laughing together.  He even recited the part of the first discussion that he is always assigned to say in lessons to Becca.  They were both in LAN houses (LAN = Local Area Network house or internet cafe’)  I LOVED seeing all of us in different locations being able to communicate although it was hard and a little chaotic...Andrew and Becca in Brazil, Roy at home, me at BYU Education Week, Joseph at school in his photography class.  Will couldn’t join us from the Junior High.
• He’s already gained 6 pounds, but he says he thinks it’s mostly muscle from all that walking. Or maybe the real Brazilian BarBQ and Acai bowls are just more calories than he is using - maybe.  haha.