(198) Transferrrrs

So tomorrow is transfers.... and both Sister Dabelko and I are staying here in Mirandopolis! Which is exciting! I´m pretty excited... I was actually pretty worried that I was going to be transfered for whatever reason and it was actually really terrifying when I realized that if I was transferred I would probably never see these people ever again.... cuz leeeeeets be honesst. The odds of me actually being able to come back to Brazil after the mishh are not in my favor. And so that´s a little upsetting cuz I really do love these people here in Mirandopolis a lot... So I am glad that I get to stay here for another transfer. =] ANND speaking of this upcoming transfer, a bunch of exciting things are going to be happening during it, Carnival for example is the first week of March.... That should be fun... a straight week of studying in the house... hhaha no. I actually have no idea what Carnival consists of to tell you the truth. I don´t know how long it lasts or what we will be doing during it or anything really... but it should be a pretty exciting experience! Also, the end of this transfer could potentially be the 30/31 of march... aka practially April! Nossa! How is that even possible?? Oh and this is going to be my 6th Transfer on my mission... sisters only have 12... aka I will be half way done with my mission at the end of this transfer! Freakin What?! How is that even possible?? I just got goosebumps.
     But yeah. Time for some stories from this past week! YAY! So this past Tuesday we went to a Fruit Fair that apparently has been happening every Tuesday since the beginning of time and how we are just now finding out about it is beyond me... But yeah we went there and bought all of our fruit for the week, aka mangos and pineapples and bananas. BUT we got to try Dragonfruit (yes that´s right, Dragon fruit. it was weird and looked even weirder... dont worry i got pics... you´ll probably see them in a year =]) annd this one fruit called Jaca which was HUGE. Like literally. It probably weighed more than Gid... and they just had like 3 that they were hacking away at getting these little pods of slimy fruit meat or whatever you want to call it that had a giant seed in the middle of each one... When the guys working the stand realized that we were american (which took about .002 seconds...) and had never had it before they demanded that we try it... it was interesting... good. but interesting... But yeah the fruit fair was pretty fun. It filled up this huge parking lot with nothing but just tables of fruit and fish and other weird random things... I almost bought a coconut to drink out of... but it was too expensive... maybe next time =]
     Also I am officially in two knee braces as of today! yay for missions! It´s nothing serious my knees just feel like they are falling apart everytime I sit down or stand up or go down stairs so I figured I´d buy some today... And no I am not still wearing my ankle brace, my new shoes and not walking at the speed of light help with that a lot... which is good cuz two knee braces and an ankle brace would be a little excessive... but yeah i think the braces will help a lot.
    Oh and also I´ve lost 6 more pounds since I last wrote yall about losing 34 pounds! Which roughly about 2 pounds/1 kilo a week... which is crazy! Cuz lets be honest, we are eating all the time down here cuz we have lunch with members everyday (and they refuse to let you eat just a little. Nossa I feel like Im gonna puke all the time after lunches here) and then we just are always hungry! It´s crazy. I feel like Harrison!
    Sorry I have like 30 seconds left before it kicks me off... I love you all!
-Sister Rice

(191) THE WEEK WHEN EVERYTHING THAT COULD POSSIBLY HAPPEN, HAPPENDED!!!!

     haha not really. But that sounded pretty exciting right?? But no, actually a lot happened this week that I really want to write about so hopefully I will have time for it all!

     First things first. The weather. It has been like in the 90s this whole past week, which apparently is record breaking... they actually even changed our schedules because of it... we have like one hour of personal study in the morning at 8 and then go out and work until lunch and then finish up all our studies at home after lunch so we dont have to be out walking in the hot hot heat of the middle of the day, which is a BLESSING. So yeah it´s been pretty hot right? But quite honestly I didn´t think that it was THAT hot... I realize why now... It´s been 90 degrees with only 22% humidity... TWENTYTWO PERCENT! bahahaha! Do you know what that means?? ST. LOUIS is freaking a thousand times hotter than Sao Paulo BRAZIL! Nossa! I don´t think there´s ever a time when our humidity is lower than like 80% during the summer! And here I was all worried about having to spend a year and a half down here cuz it was going to be sooooo hot and it turns out Missouri is hotter than South America! hahah And now all I can think about is all the missionaries in St.Louis who have to walk around in that! hahaha! Suckers. haha j/k that was rude.... but not really...haha

      So yeah that´s fun. Also. We caught a mouse this past week. Yup, I sat down on my bed to put on my shoes and there he was, just chilling under my bag... and so we got some tupperware and masterfully captured him and then went and put him in this grassy jungle patch we have down the street... He was so cute and tiny! Don´t worry I got pictures. =] And I´m not gonna lie I did kind of freak out a little bit when I first saw him, cuz I totally thought it was the rat that lives in our ceiling who likes to have dance parties in the middle of the night and that would have been UNEXCEPTABLE. But thank goodness it was only a cute little mousy...

      Oh! I also got new shoes this past week... and um... well... I am officially a real Sister Missionary with the gross little strappy shoes... They look just like that horrible mary janeish shoes that I promised myself I would never get... And to make it worse, they are like slightly elevaded so like they are like platform mary jane shoe things... And I have not worn anything other than like Toms (aka pretty much nothing on the bottom) for like 7 years... you can imagine how completely ridiculous I looked trying to figure out how to freaking walk in those things... AND to make it even WORSE I got blisters.... that required socks to ease the pain... no not ankle socks... full on regular socks.... Basically it was the worst thing I have ever had to do... I am not even joking... Just picture walking down a Brazilian street and all of a sudden you see this chick coming at you walking like a straight up freak (cuz i cant walk in raised shoes, and have blisters) in tan mary jane strap shoes with baby blue socks... nossa. But dont get me wrong... I can totally rock the i-have-no-idea-how-to-dress-myself-look ... hahah it was a great week... I think my blisters are finally starting to die so hopefully I can kill the socks soon. Pray for me.

     Let´s see... what else...?Oh! hahahah So Sister Dabelko and I were in this lesson the other day and we are reading to this old lady right, I´m pretty sure she can´t rread, but yeah so we´re reading to her, and Sister Dabelko is reading and like I start noticing that she´s kind of really slurring her words and struggling a little and I´m just like what the heck is happening?? Is my companion dying?? Nope. She was just falling asleep... while reading... out loud... in a lesson... bahahah oh goodness. I could barely keep it together when I realized what was happening! hahah I ended up just reading the rest of the chapter we were reading myself and it was so funny! I didn´t even think that was possible! hahah You know you are on a mission when...your so tired you fall asleep during lessons while reading outloud! hahahh

     Also Sister Dabelko and I had Big Macs this week.  We were at Irma Cida´s and her daughter was all like ´have you guys had McDonalds here yet??´ And we hadn´t (we were going to a couple weeks ago but that fell through) so she rode her bike to Micky D´s and bought us both Big Macs... and let me tell you it was the most delicious thing I have ever had. Sister Dabelko and I both just demolished them in like 2 seconds... It was great to feel like an American again... haha just kidding, I feel like an American everyday with my horrible Portugues that everybody laughs at... hahah =]

     But yeah I have to go! I´m out of time! I love you all!

-Sister Rice

(184) once again I am lame, cannot even come up with a title for this...do not judge me :]

So this past week was pretty good. Well, actually it was pretty hard, but good. Sister Dabelko are finally hitting that wall and finding out why everybody always tells us that our area, Mirandopolis, is so hard. Which I mean it really is... It´s all rich people who have everything they want and dont want to listen to a bunch of Americans butcher their language and rather spend their time washing their 5 cars... aka the United States! haha j/k (rowling) but seriously when you think of missionary work in Brazil you do not think of slamming doors and rudeness... you think of rainbows and unicorns and baptisms, BUT  we are working hard and even with the wall we managed to get 18 lessons this week which really was a miracle and we are so excited to continue on this week!
     We are actually working a lot more with the members this past week which really is a blessing.  Everything is so much easier when you have member help, especially when they know portugues and you do not... we went on divisions with some members in our ward last Monday and it was really good! I went with a ladt named Cida (She is amazing! Oh I love her!) and we taught one of our investigators Luiz, and it actually went good! Even though like I was the one in charge of the lesson and teaching and it was actually really good and like I could understand everything for the most part and all the things i couldn´t Cida helped with and it was surprising awesome. And like I was able to have full conversations with Cida while we were walking so that´s pretty awesome.
     We also had a Zone Breakfast this past week! That was pretty fun! We made french toast and pancakes and bacon and there was PEANUT BUTTER AND NUTELA! They have nutela here, it´s just very expensive and I havent had peanut butter in like a 1000000000000 years so it was wonderful! Yay for being on a mission in Brazil where they dont have necessities like peanut butter and 500 different types of oreos to eat it with... hahaha =]
     No but seriously, it´s kind of actually funny how much your perspective changes being on a mission... Like ok so before my mission I would stalk all these mission blogs of other sister missionaries down here in Brazil cuz I really had no idea what to expect... And I remember one sister in one of her letters was talking about how one night they had to run home like halfway across their area to get home on time before 930 after a lesson... and I remember thinking ´ha yeah no. That better not happen to me/I am never doing that´ and I was like freaking out about what on earth i had signed up for (definitely not running down random foreign streets in the dark, righhhht?) weeeeeelll guess who had to run home this week??? In the rain.... That´s right. This guy. And you know what?? It was the best I´ve felt on my mission. It was like the greatest feeling ever. We cut a half an hour walk into 10 minutes and made it home at exactly 930 and it was wonderful. In that moment it was the most grateful I have been to be on a mission... I have no idea why... I was just so happy to be here and having these experiences, even the experiences that I never thought I would be happy for...
      But yeah, so that was cool. But time for a funny story! So Irma Cida comes out with us to lessons all the time right, and this past week we go to her house, sit down on her couch, and promptly fall asleep waiting for her to be ready to go... both of us... in like 2 seconds... And I´m pretty sure she told some of the other sisters in the ward about it and now they are all worried about our health and telling us we can sleep at their houses during the day if we want and giving us food and everything which is pretty funny... haha
   But yeah I have like no time left! I love you all! Talk to you next week!

(177) I can't think of a good title for this...whatevs

So this past week was really good. Sister Dabelko and I got 20 lessons (the standard of excellence here is 22, so close!) and have seriously been working like crazy... it´s been good. oh! And my one shoes are officially dead. my left one has a huge tear down the side and I totally didn´t realize it until like 3 days after it happened so hopefully i don't get some strange Brazilian foot disease... hahah I should be fine. =] Hopefully I´ll be able to send pics.
      We also had interviews with President Tanner this week and they were awesome! I love President and Sister Tanner so much! Sister Tanner is so amazing. I never thought that I would ever feel so much personal love from someone who had spoken in General Conference before... It´s a little mind blowing. And she loves/knows all about y'all too! She tells me every time I see her how much she loves you guys for how supportive you are and I tell her all about you guys all the time. hahah But yeah interviews went really well. oh and Sister Tanner made us cookies! hahah Real American chocolate chip cookies. It was fabulous. I have no idea where she got the chocolate chips from but we were so grateful!
       Also, Sister Dabelko got bit by Bobby this week...... hahahahahahha not really... Bobby just likes to get excited and start jumping on us and nawing on our limbs and clothes... usually it´s not too bad but he got Sister Dabelko pretty good and actually managed to scratch her an insy bitsy tiny winy bit and she freaked out a little bit and thought she was going to die of a strange disease, even though bobby is a domestic dog and had never left the yard... hahahahah she ended up making me ask our District Leader about it, Elder Lago, and he pretty much just died laughing (especially when he saw the actual scratch, it was like nothing)... it was all pretty funny. But it´s actually pretty funny, the whole mission knows about Bobby... and you are either terrified of him or love him... I´m stuck somewhere in the middle... I usually just quote theIincredibles to him (I´m not happy bob, not happy) and expect him to think it´s funny and stop... that usually doesnt work though... hahahah
     Alrighty, time for just a bunch of randomness... The sun is bleaching my arm hair... like seriously... it glistens in the sun, it is getting so bleached... How long does something like that last?? And is my actual hair gonna start doing that?? Goodness... I´m gonna come home looking like a straight up freak...hahah
     Also, I am losing feeling in both of my big toes... hahaha I don/t know if that is normal and it´s probably just from all the walking, but yeah... part of my big toes feel like they just got shot up with numby stuff at the dentist office... and it´s pretty strange... but at least I don´t feel very much stuff with my big toes... so i guess that´s a blessing... hahah
     Also I ate corn candy today. No, not candy corn, corn candy... candy that tastes like corn. It straight up tasted like I was chowing down on some corn on the cob in hard candy form... it was probably one of the weirdest things I have ever put into my mouth...
     OH! And time for the big news of the week! Are y/all ready for this? I don´t think you are... I have officially lost 34 pounds since being here in Brazil! Yay! Go me! Yay for walking everywhere all day every day! I am officially back where I was when I came out on my mishh (yes yes yes the MTC and New Mexico did me wrong, I know...) But yeah, that´s pretty exciting... 34 pounds in a month and a half... and I still have 12ish months left. Who knows what I am going to look like by the end of it... =]
     But yeah... sorry this has been so random... here's a spiritual thought for y'all. Sister Dabelko and I watched the movie " Finding Faith in Christ" the other day in portugues for our language study and while watching it, it kind of just hit me the fact that Jesus Christ will never have a perfect body.  We all will have perfect bodies after the ressurrection, because of Him and His atonement, but He will always have the scars of His death on His hands and wrists and feet... The only perfect being to ever live on the earth is the only one who does not recieve a perfect body after being ressurrected... Think about that for a little bit... Or maybe I´m wrong and He will, but I don´t think so... If I am wrong, please tell me, but that just kind of blew my mind a little bit. The more I learn about Him and His atonement for us the more I am overwhelmed by His love and my own unworthiness.
      But yeah, I hope y'all are having a fantastic week and I love you all so much and thank you so much for all the prayers and support! I´m gonna try and send some pics now! =] Love you all!

-Sister Rice

(170) Oi Oi Oi Oi Oi

     So uhhhh how´s it going?? It´s going pretty good down here! This week has been pretty great, exhausting, but great! I´m pretty sure this past week is the most tired I have ever been in my entire life, but it´s been good. Sistr Dabelko and I have been working hard and that´s really what it´s all about. =]

      But yeah so I can´t really remember a bunch of what happened this past week so this might be a little scattered... I can really only remember super non important/interesting things like that fact that Sister Dabelko and I have been OBSESSED with smoothies this whole past week and make a giant one at least once a day and may or may not have run out of regular food this weekend cuz all we bought last monday was fruit and yogurt and juice for out smoothies (did I tell you dad?? They have like THE BEST juices down here. seriously. you would be in juice heaven...)... but dont worry... we were much smarter this week and bought more actual food as well... hahah We´re thinking about opening up a smoothie place after the mishh, cuz let me tell ya, our smoothies are dang good. haha =]

     But um yeah other than that.... what else has happened... oh! I think we´re gonna be starting up an English class this week hopefully with Sister Cozzens and her companion... That should be fun. Don´t ask me how I am going to be  able to teach english... I couldn´t even explain the verb/word ´do´ to Sister Viana (it´s a lot harder than it sounds ok...) but yeah it sounds like funn... OHHHH and we´re going to Mickey D´s today!! Whooo party! Apparently there´s one in Sister Dabelko and mine´s area (dont ask me where, I have never seen it before) and Sister Cozzens got permission to go today adn we´re going with her! BIG FUN in Brazil on Pday! hahah Apparently though only rich people eat at McDonalds here in Brazil so that´s pretty cool/hilarious... everyone will think I´m rich...

     What else happened?? Oh! On Saturday the power went out... Yup, there was a HUGE storm that afternoon (It´s stormed like every single day here this past week, Heavenly Father loves me) and I guess it knocked our power out and we got home and had to finish up out language study and progess record in the dark with a flashlight... annnnnd I may or may not have toasted bread using an  entire box of matches.... cuz at that point all we really had left to eat was bread and I really just wanted to toast it buuut the power was out and on top of that our stove was out of gas so I wouldnt have been able to anyways and so I just kind of lit match after match and held them over my piece of bread.... it kind of worked... It tasted like slightly toasted bread and butter with a lot of campfire.... hahah Don´t worry though mom. I know you are probs worrying about how all we had was bread to eat, it´s really no biggie. We eat lunch with members every single day and they practically shove their food down our throats till we are bursting so yes I am eating...

     Oh and so we had that goal of having 5 baptisms this month right?? And like everything was going great, we set two dates this week, got a bunch of acceptances w/o dates and like had all these people lined up to come to church (10, TEN PEOPLE said they were going to come to church) and even called all of them the night before and everything was going wonderful and absoultely no one showed up to chuch yesterday... even the people we got rides for... so yeah our goal pretty much went down the drain, especailly since they changed it from investigators having to come on only two week of church to three, buuuuuuut just because these people won´t be getting baptized in January doesn´t mean that they wont ever and I am really excited about them all and for the next couple of weeks!

     Also. Apparently, the Brazilians don´t have a word for awkward... Like awkward does not exsist here... Which is just like the funnies thing ever in the history of the world since that is literally all my life is now... like literally. especially since i can barely speak or understand portugues... it´s so awkward/hilarious all the time. For example... There are a lot of Apartment buildings here in our area Mirandopolis right?? And each one had their little guard guy who and gates and like you have to know exactly who you are visiting and what floor they are and what room and all this stuff, and considering Sister Dabelko and I can barely pronouce simple names like Ana and Marie here correctly and struggle with numbers above 40, you can imagine what getting into these buildings to visit people is like... hahah ohmygoodness, they are some of the most awkward interactions I have ever had in my life... Like this one time we were trying to get into this one building and Sister Dabelko gives the name, Bruna, and I give the number ( um cinco tres... cuz I dont know how to say it all together 153... hahah) and the guy (who is new, not the usual guy,)  is like ok yeah I´ll call and see if they are there/want you, and then this guy who was talking to the guard guy starts trying to talk to us in english (cuz it´s pretty obvious we are americanas and have no idea) but at the same time he´s hacking up a lung and the guard guy is calling the wrong room and trying to explain who the heck we are (americanas, seeeester daaaabekuuu e seeeeester heeeeseeee, nao entendo muito portugues, muito dificil... americanas) and the guy dying next to us, hacking up his lungs is trying to explain to him that he has the wrong number and we´re trying to calm him down in broken portugues and then the guard finally gets the right number and is trying to explain everything over again, while also trying to calm the other guy down while we´re trying to tell the guard that it´s ok that they dont know who we are and that we´ll just try back later... and at this moment the guy who ususally sits at the desk walks up and just stops and stares at everything that is going on and just looks at us like ´oh goodness, these two again...what the heck are they doing´ and finally we manage to explain they everything is fine and calm everyone down and leave as quickly as possible and it was so hilarious and just terrible and that is basically my life every single day... hahah

      buuuuut yeah, i don´t have much time left but I hope yall are having a great week and loving life and sorry this email was so lame. OH!  and i almost forgot!! Today, is a HUGE day! Today I officially only have one year left of my mission. Janurary 13th of next year I will be getting on a plane to fly home! My 6 months is on the 17th!! SIX MONTHS! How crazy is that?!? It really has gone by so quickly already! 

     But yeah I love you all and can´t wait to talk to you next week!! =]

-Sister Rice

(163) I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU, BUT I'M FEELING TWENTY-TWOOOOOO!

Ummm... I think that´s a song right?? that goes something like that...? maybe... I´ve never actually heard it before but this elder in the MTC would sing it all the time... but it seemed pretty appropriate since uh... IM FREAKING TWENTY TWO NOW! booyahh. Yup my birthday was Saturday and it was pretty good! Sister Dabelko (my new compy comp =]) made me a cake and card and bought be mentos and a snickers! It was great! And it was cloudy and rainy all day so that was fabulous too! and I was totally supposed to use my fake snow that lincoln gave me for christmas before I left New Mexico since I forgot to use it... but I totally forgot again... That´s ok. We´ll prob do it tonight. =] I´ll send pics!

     But yeah so transfers was also this past week and like I said earlier I got a new companion, Sister Dabelko! She is pretty much the most awesome thing to ever happen to this world! She´s from Layton, Utah and has been out 8 months and we have so much fun together. Annnnd we´ve only gotten lost a few times since I took over the area (that was slightly terrifying but really no biggie hahah).  But we are working super hard and have a goal of 5 baptisms this month... Do not ask me how we are going to do that, especially since pretty much all of our investigators decided to drop us or just straight up tell they dont want to get baptized... but that is the number that we both got while praying about our monthly goals and that is the number of people that we are going to help be baptized this month! It´s gonna be really hard work but I know that we can do it! We´ve worked really hard this past week and got 13 novos (new investigators) and had 65 conversastions with people, which is only 5 short of the standard of excellence for the mission that I thought was completely ridiculous like a week ago... but we are doing it! We are talking to everyone and hunting down all our formers and it is going to happen!

     Oh! and we have like the BEST ward mission leader in the history of the world. No offense dad, but seriously. We had a meeting with him yesterday to just kind of go over everything and talk, especially since sister dabelko is new and i practically know nothing and it was amazing. like by the end of it he was filling in our planners for this coming week for us and we told him about our goal of 5 baptisms and I totally expected him to think we were crazy (cuz everyone else does, two americanas who dont know portugues and have no investigators and want to 5 have baptisms... yeah its a little crazy) but he totally just was all like ´no no it´s not a crazy goal especially since it´s what you recieved from Heavenly Father and we can totally do this´and we spent like another 45 minutes talking with him about who we could visit that he knew of and what members we could take with us and it was just amazing... I think we both almost started crying... hahaha But seriously it was so amazing and it just went with all the other amazing stuff that has happened this past week.  Seriously, this past week has been so amazing. There have been miracles every single day. People who used to run away from us (this happens a bunch hahah no biggie) talking to us for like ever and asking for book of mormons or so many of the people we talked to having experience with the church or having been before or had a book of mormon or just stuff like that. Or like actually having lessons with people right after meeting them (most people just tell you to come back) or the lesson we had when I just spewed portugues like I actually knew it, or the fact that Jose our ward mission leader is amazing. Just so many things have happened this week and I am so excited for the rest of this transfer!

     Now for some funny stories! There are a bunch of them! Out first night together we decided to make popcorn on the stove (my favorite =] ) and sister dabelko burned hers and so of course i had to show her up and it ended up popping all over the place... hahah it was literally all over our kitchen. so that was fun hahaha  and then the next day we were half way to the chapel for district meeting and we realized we had left our phone at home... but we decided that since we were going straight back home afterwards it would be ok... well after district meeting we decide to go to the bathroom and whatever and after that go to leave that part of the building (our building is really like just a bunch of different buildings surrounding a courtyard) and it´s locked... the elders had freaking locked us into the building and left! We were locked in the church, without a cell phone! Buuut thankfully we had not been the only sisters to go to the bathroom after district meeting and thankfully they had not been stupid and forgotten their phone but seriously we could not stop laughing about what would have happened if they had not been there... we probably would´ve been stuck in there for days...! hahahah can you imagine explaining that to President... hahaha it would have been hilarious.  We figured we would have been good cuz it was the part of the building with the drinking fountain so at least we wouldn´t have died... hahaha so yeah that happened our first full day together... and then Friday we had to call and buy some new water ( all the water here from the sinks and stuff is bad and will make you terribly sick if you drink it so we have to buy like 20 liter mineral water cooler like things every week...) and so we call and they ask for our address and we totally have no idea how to pronouce it and Sister Dabelko just kept repeating ´Casa um cinco zero Itchy-poo´ into the phone cuz that´s what it looks like and we both kind of died of laughter and now the people that run the water place know that a bunch of americana crazies live there... hahaha so yeah i live at 150 itchypoo... hahaha pretty funny.

     But yeah so this past week has been great and I am so excited for this transfer. I am kind of starting to feel like a missionary again so that is great! I hope everything is going great with all yall! I hope that yall had amazing new years and didnt cry too much on my birthday cuz you missed me so much. =] I love you all! Thank you for all the support and prayers you give me! Talk to ya next week! =]

-Sister Rice

Me and my companion Sister Viana! Can you tell that I am trying not to die from exhaustion(question marks cuz they dont exsist on this computer

 My first meal that I made in Brazil...Bread & butter with noodles, tasted horrible...haha, welcome to Brazil!

                                                      Our house isn´t it beautiful