Hello everyone!!

How are you?? It went from feast to famine on the emails!;) It´s fine, now I have the whole time to write you! But, I still haven´t gotten anything in the mail from you guys! It´s so weird! I got my first two letters this week, from Laura and Kevin. So I don´t know what´s up! When did you guys start sending? Hopefully it´s not lost in the mail, cause I want to hear everything! Especially about the North Dakota adventure!

So, I´m starting my FIFTH week here! I can´t believe it. This week has been good. We´ve been practice teaching a ton, which is so good for me! We´re learning how to just go into any situation and answer questions off the top of our heads. It´s hard, especially in Portuguese! We taught our teacher Brother Lopez in English and he was probably one of the toughest "investigators" I can imagine, just saying over and over again he wasn´t really interested. Kind of discouraging, but that´s probably the worst we´ll get. We´ve been finishing up the first lesson and moving on to the second. On Saturday we have TRC or Teaching...Resource Center, I think? Where you go practice teach in a super formal setting and are videoed so you can watch yourself after. But everything´s going well! Portuguese is coming well and I´m starting to love it for all its quirks, rather than be annoyed by them:) I´m starting to believe people who say it´s prettier than Spanish! Gasp! It´s all full of "sh" sounds and the French j. It really is beautiful.

So what else exciting can I tell you guys about? How about P-days! So on P-days we get to go out in the city! And sometimes go to the temple, not last week but all the others. So about the temple -- that picture of it I put on the blog is so misleading!! It looks like it´s out in the middle of nowhere with a football field of garden in front of it. But it´s in the middle of the biggest city in the southern hemisphere! They must have edited out all the buildings around it and made the gardens look huge. I just thought that was funny!

What else? Oh, we´ve been shopping for a few things, and it turns out they have pretty much all the things you´d find in an American grocery store. Not all, but a good amount. A lot of the same shampoo and lotion and stuff. And candy! But, weird things are super expensive! We think it´s the American stuff. But like some lotions in the drug store will be 30 reais! And toothpaste like 13! It´s way weird. But you can usually find a Brazilian brand for normal prices. I bought some Brazilian toothpaste! I guess the tube I brought was tiny because it´s already gone. So I bought "Close Up" and it´s pretty good! Hopefully I don´t get any cavities or anything;)

What else? Oh, food updates, right? Let´s see, just now for lunch we had more greens!! Mom would have been so proud!:) And also, probably the weirdest thing we´ve had. I was all excited when I saw them because they were skewers, which we´ve had before as churrasco (or -a, I can never remember!) But it wasn´t, they were these weird skewers of alternating pieces of hot dog and cheese, deep fried!! I don´t know if it´s a Brazil thing or the cafeteria staff trying to be creative, but it was weird. But we did have churrasco again this week which was amazing, definitely the best thing they make!! Second is probably feijoada, I think those are the only two real brazilian things they make. But feijoada is rice with black beans on top cooked with sausage, then these cooked greens on top and then some kind of like...either manioc flour or some other kind of strange flour! It says in my dictionary, but I´ll have to go look it up.

Hmmm, so what else can I update you on? Everything is going great, it´s really hard sometimes, like after that hard lesson, but it´s so worth it. I can´t wait to start teaching people!! I love everyone, our district is great. Sister Johnson continues to be great! The elders are all so funny (sometimes *cough* immature *cough*) but always sweet. Our teachers are great! Except...I mean, Portuguese is going well for me, but I do worry that our class is kind of behind. Irmão Lopez was gone this week so we´ve had a few different substitutes who have all tried to speak portuguese the whole time, and the others in the class can barely understand anything! I worry, but we´ll all be fine. It might be kind of a bad combination though, because Irmão Ruiz is brand new and we´re his first class, and then Irmão Lopez is a "zone leader" who feels like he owns the place (even though he´s only a little older than us) and so he´s gone all the time and somehow between the two I think we´ve fallen between the cracks. But it´s ok! Everything is so great, I´m so glad to be here!

I want to hear everything from you guys, and more pictures of Caroline please!!:) I really hope I start getting your letters soon. I´m sure I will. I want to hear all about the North Dakota adventure and read more about Cedar City, because I had to skim that pretty fast. I hope everything´s going great!! How is everyone? Everyone safe and sound? Doing well? How´s work for everyone? I love you all SO much!! Write me a ton, and hopefully it will get here soon!

Com muito muito amor,
Heather (Sister Madsen:D)