Well, everything here is good. I know I always say that but for some reason it's not as difficult for me as it seems to be for other people. By "it" I mean living away from home in a different country with little communication and sitting in the same room all day just studying and being bored. I attribute this to living in Paraguay for six months and then going to college in Idaho for 9. How lucky I am.
My Portuguese is coming along quite well. Spanish helps sooo much. Yesterday we taught the second lesson in Portuguese and when I was trying to explain the Atonement I'm quite certain that I had a little help. Looking back, I'm not sure I could have explained it that well in English. At the end of the lesson, we asked him if he would pray and he said he didn't know how so we were like, "We'll teach you," and so we knelt down and explained the steps of prayer, and when we started, he threw his arms towards the heavens and began to pray. Apparently this actually happens. Frequently. If/when it happens to me, I'm going to have a hard time controlling myself. Anyway, it's hard here a lot sometimes, but not as bad as it could be. The worst part for me is the food. It's the same. And it's bad. So it's bad... all the time. Today though our whole district took one of our instructors out to lunch at a churrascaria (it's basically the same as Rodigio's in Utah...) which is just a buffet of vegetables and fruits and appetizers type stuff and then people just keep coming to your table with huge skewers of meat, and they cut off a piece if you request it. Delicious meat. Best meal I've had yet.
I finished the Book of Mormon on Sunday. That was exciting... Now I'm just studying Jesus the Christ and some of my favorite BoM chapters over again and I've been studying the New Testament a lot in our MDST (Missionary Directed Study Time) which, depending on the day can be between 2.5-4 hours long in the afternoon of just... nothing. Just studying whatever I want to study. It's great.
This one elder that we really like in another district has only gotten a few letters this whole time that we've been here (he came on the plane with us, but is in 47B. Mine is 47A. Also, he's going to Bel) so the other night our whole district wrote a letter to him from a fictionalized girl and put them in envelopes and addressed them and put actual stamps from letters that we've received on each letter. We put them in his box today... It should be 11 letters. I'm excited to see what happens...
We went to the São Paulo temple today, which was nice especially since we hadn't gone in 3 weeks because of Christmas and New Years.
I leave for the field in 2 weeks!
One of our district goals for the week is to sit with Brazilians at least 2 meals a day. Already it has helped a ton. Also, in our night class, the teacher got in trouble because we weren't speaking enough Portuguese so now we speak only Portuguese at night in that class (about 3-4 hours a day) and that also has blessed our whole district. We're doing very well, I do believe.
Sunday was a great day. Every Sunday is a great day actually, but this one especially because it was fast Sunday, and I bore my testimony and that was nice, and then I spent the whole afternoon reading the Book of Mormon, and then we had a devotional, a district meeting and then Jazz Night! We instituted Jazz Night a few weeks ago when this kid and I were talking and he mentioned that he enjoyed jazz and I said I had brought a few cds. And it was a Sunday. Since then, every Sunday night after our district meeting we have about an hour of jazz. Unfortunately, I only have 3 or 4 CDs so we've heard them all at least twice. But regardless, it's the best hour of the week. This time, one kid gathered up a ton of transluscent blue and black binders and taped them over the lights in our room. The ambiance was amazing. And it was the best turnout we've had yet. I think there were like 15 kids in our little room at one point. Everyone just enjoying the jazz... It's so good.
We are now the oldest district in our branch, which means that we're supposed to know something. The oldest district just left last week, so now it falls on us.
Today Elder Markowski and I walked around trying to find watches. The only place we could find that had watches carried only what were undoubtedly stolen watches and other merchandise. So I'm still looking.
We also went to a tailor to get his pants taken out (have the cuff taken out to make them longer) and I got the word for "wide" and "long" mixed up, so the lady kept telling me, "I can make them longer but I can't make them any wider" using hand motions, and I kept saying "I know, it's not a problem he just needs them to be wider!" We're all very knowledgeable and capable of having great conversations about gospel related things, but when it comes to living in the real world, we're all pretty lost. For example, I can say "Christ atoned for our sins in the garden of Gethsemane and died on the cross so that we can be cleansed of sin and be worthy to return to live with our Heavenly Father again if we repent of and forsake our sins," but I can't say "he needs his pants to be longer."
On saturday, we did TRC which well, I'm not sure what it stands for actually, but it's when members from the local ward(s) come and we teach them a simulated first lesson (but as real as it can be in the MTC), complete with door knocking and everything and they record it and we have to watch ourselves afterwords and critique. As far as speaking and teaching and getting our message across we did great. The lady we taught actually said "these boys speak with the gift of God" or something like that, meaning basically that we spoke really well for having been here 6 weeks. I guess the gift only applies to speaking though, because we didn't know she had said that until our teacher who was watching in another room told us afterwards. That's all I can think of for now. I look forward to hearing from you guys. I pray for all of you every day.
Love you all,
-Elder Sisco