Haley Week 2 @ MTC

Soooo I took the liberty of telling everyone else who emailed me let me write them handwritten letters so I would have time to email this week. OH and I'm not doing it in the laundry, soooo there are only minimal distractions! I kept a list all week of things to tell you, but I'll start with 5 people in our zone got their visas today! GOD SEND. No one had gotten a VISA to Brazil for weeks, and everyone was getting reassigned to the south (so get stoked for some serious dairy stories I'm sure!) when they called up one of the TRIAD ( the sisters next door in the zone who I LOVE) and told her she got her VISA! We went down with her just to touch it. Sounds weird, but it's good luck. When we got down to the travel office there were 4 others there getting their VISAS and we all had a good scream fest in the bookstore. People love us. Sister Jones had to pack and be ready to leave by 9:30 this morning and we just dropped her off. So now the TRIAD is just a normal companionship... Sad day. ALTHOUGH, someone misheard us calling it the TRIAD and thought we were calling it the "Trial." Ha! So now Cotton-mills and Sisters Evans and Mickelsen call ourselves the trial. ("Um Prova"). Sister Evans is super hilariously sarcastico and she goes- "that's what our haters call us." Hahaha. They are in the other Distrito that got here the same day as us in our zone, so we are tight. They are also the only sisters in their distrito, so we gotta stick togethah! Also, Irma Cotton's Southern accent is getting out of control and Irma Mickelsen thinks she is black so I sound like a broken juke box when I hang out with them too much. Which let's be real, on a mish is all the time.

Cotton fala: Oi so your daughter is awesome. i couldnt imagine having a different companion. She is so funny and bright. She can be a little strange compared to my country ways but we get a long just great. She makes me put stamps on all yalls letters I feel like i am writing all yall myself. She picks on me so bad all the time for my country accent but I know secretly she wants it. She makes me eat all her dariy free cookies and brownies with her. I try to tell her just cuz we are stuck to each others hips 24/7 does not mean i have to eat like her too but she refuses to listen. Here comes Irmas CottonMills Riding down the mission trails. Well got to go tchau tchau for now.

The Portuguese is still a little cray, I can say pretty much whatever I want, it just sounds like- "We can to go through shopping?" Makes perfff sense right? We laugh all the time about how stupid we must sound to Brazillians when we are repeating things over and over. Like IRMAAA. That's like saying "Seesterrr, Siestar? Seestar? SisTEER?" really slow. I hope you are laughing, because we do a REAL good impression of ourselves in English and I am sorry you have to miss it. Cottonmills started speaking only Portuguese at dinner and it has done SO much good. Either we sit in silence and listen to the rest of our distrito tell stories or figure out how to say things. Which obvi works for the both of us. Positive motivation people! We also got Fernando to commit to baptism! HOLLLLLA! It helps that the next day he showed up as our teacher, but we felt pretty legit. Now we have two more investigators (our teachers) Michel e Rafael. Cottonmills has a serious giggling problem AND it turns out we are pretty hilarious in Portuguese (or we can't speak it, but we chose to believe the best) that we get our pesquisdors CRYING they laugh so hard. They'll come unto Christ for sure now riiiight? Estou brincado. We do get them laughing, but I rattle off in Portuguese and Irma Cotton jumps in with an H-core testimony of whatever I just said. She never knows what I am saying, but for some reason she always knows what to testify about. This truly is the work of Christ.

OH PS Cottonmills had the CRAZIEST experience the other day. We were going in for branch president interviews, but they didn't have time for both of us so we went in together. President Mackay, a counselor, asks us how we are doing and if we like each other and we both go- NO. At the same time. Then we rattle off random redic reasons we would hate each other and got the Pres laughing. Well then he stops and looks right at both of us and says- "I have no idea why I am saying this, but I feel impressed to tell you that you need to learn how to give a priesthood blessing. Someone will need it and there will be someone there to give one, but they won't know how. You need to learn so you can teach them. I don't know if someone will be very sick, but they will need a blessing right then. You have been prepared for this. You are here because God needs you specifically. He has tasks for both of you to do." We both walk our crying and then we both swore he looked RIGHT at each of us and it was for us! HA! We love competitions. Well that night we prayed about it and decided maybe he didn't know which one of us it was for or maybe it will be in Sao Paulo Norte when we are together. But we got the distinct impression that it was for both of us. And I had never felt the spirit like that before.

Eu sei que O Livro de Mormon e a palavra de Deus. Eu sei que Jose Smith e o profeta de Deus. Eu sei que Deus e nosso amorosa Pai Celestial e podemos vive con ele de novo. Eu sei que familias pode viver juhnto para sempre e que nos temos o profeta de Deus vivendo oje. Eu amo isso evanghelo. Eu amo isso igreja e eu sei que eu estou fazer certo. Eu sei que nos podemos sentir pas e se nos temos fe en Jesus Cristo nos podemos estar salvar. Hope you can google translate that? Or it's close enough to espanol?! #luta Desculpa nao desculpa TCHAU TCHAU POR AGORA!