May 23, 2011

People. I am in Brazil.

It´s so true, people. It´s so true. Can you even believe it?! I still can´t. Brazil rocks so hard. I´m just like "!!!!!!" So, I got here on Thursday morning. Wednesday was basically hours and hours of flying. I called Mom and Dad from Huntsville and then Atlanta, where my first flight connected. Then we met up with like 40 other missionaries who got their visas and were headed to Brazil, too. The flight to Sao Paulo was about 10 hours. I started having my own little freak-out when people were speaking Portuguese around me EVERYWHERE in the airport. When we actually got to Sao Paulo, I got my first glimpse of Brazil -- tons of palm trees and colorful goodness.

I quickly got on my next flight to Salvador, and, in two hours, I arrived in BaHiA!! I got there pretty earlier because the flight I was supposed to be on got cancelled, and, therefore, I left earlier. About an hour later, though, I met President Vecchi and his wife, who, by the way, are a superstar couple. I mean, dang, talk about beautiful people. We spoke some Portuguese together, they understood me, all was well, and it turns out their son graduated from Lehi High the same year as me -- Rafael. Small world when you´re Mormon, eh? They told me a little bit about the mission, then we headed to the mission home for a little training and some dinner. Y´all, Brazilian food. There´s tons of ways to prepare food, and so many fruits here that just don´t exist in the US. I had suco de caju (cashew fruit juice) and suco de mango (mango juice) the first night, and I´ve been trying different types of juices every meal since. Woot!

I met my trainer, Sister Moraes (from Florianopolis), and we headed to our area, Lauro de Freitas. LdF rocks. It´s next to Salvador, so it´s an urban, metropolitan area. The people here are generally much poorer financially than those in southern Brazil, and that´s apparent when you see the houses in which they live. A lot of them just have a kitchen, living room, and maybe one or two small bedrooms. It´s cool, though -- you don´t knock on doors because every house is gated. You clap at the gate and sometimes call the name of the person you´re looking for. Everyone here is so nice. They always hug you when they meet you, and they give you a little kiss on the cheek.

On my first day, we visited a whole bunch of investigators so I could meet them and so we could teach some lessons. I wasn´t sure how this whole Portuguese thing was going to go because I knew everyone would think I was a native since I´m morena. Well, when I started talking, people could sense I wasn´t from Brazil after a while, but they were really impressed that I could speak Portuguese without an accent. They said I looked and sounded like a Bahiana. Remember in Rush Hour when Chris Tucker successfully stops that dude from destroying something from C4 in the beginning and does that dance? That was me, with the music and everything, when I heard that (more than once!). YEAH-AH! Everyone here is beautiful. Bahia is full of people who are black, hispanic, or a mix. You see European-looking people every once in a while. Everyone is beautiful. I can´t comprehend everything they say because the accent is different and there´s still TONS of words I don´t know, but my trainer knows what she´s doing, so I just do what I´m told and look at how cool everything is. Yup.

We had a baptism on Sunday before church for two young men, Vitor and João. They´re the younger brothers of another recent convert, Alef. It was pretty cool. They come from a humble home. In fact, we taught their parents a couple of nights ago, and they totally accepted a baptismal invitation after we talked about the Restoration. I just love it because I can see how this perfect gospel can really bless them as a family. Yes! And I think there´s a couple other baptisms that will happen this weekend and the next. Brazil is so good. Speaking of church, I loved church here! Everyone is just so nice to each other. And it was pretty cool to be in a room full of people who looked like me! Hooray for Bahia! I love working with the youth. They´re so fun, and they think I´m both awesome and hilarious because I don´t really know what theý´re saying. Oh well. One of the girls calls me Sister Raven :)

Mmkay, I gotta go because my time´s running out here, but I love y´áll, and I love Bahia!

Sister Jones