Email Home: Monday, November 8, 2021

From: Kaitlyn.garcia@missionary.org
Date: Monday, November 8, 2021
Subject: Mission Tour Pt. 2

Olaaaaaa meus pais!! 

How are you?? How was your guys week? 

This week was long but also quick haha! I think it's always like that when we have something big like Zone Conference or interviews. 

This week started off really strong with lots of referrals, and even better, they responded to us! Hopefully they continue to respond to us and we can teach them:) I also decided to try my hand at making some cookies here in Brasil. Man oh man did I try haha! They turned out alright but there's a lot of factors that I can't quite figure out so they weren't the best. But they do have a ton of love in them so I guess that makes up for it right? ;) 

Wednesday was kinda the big day I was waiting for. For starters Sister Da Mata hit her 9 months!! Woot woot! Wr went to this super chique doceria for lunch and it was super yummy. If we ever end up in Carpina we should definitely go there ;) It was also the day that we went into Recife! It's a long story but Irmão Amon was running a little bit late so we didn't end up leaving our apartment until about 9:30pm instead of 8:20pm like we had hoped for. It was kinda hard to keep working because we knew we needed to work and pay attention to our messages at the same time. When he finally got here we made our hour drive into Recife to stay in the chique hotel. It was weird to be in a hotel I won't lie haha! We also had a problem with the lights in the room and had to call (at 10:30pm keep in mind) to ask for the key to turn on the lights. It was such a long night by the time we got everything all figured out and ready for bed. 

6am came pretty early the next day but it was so so worth it! The mission tour was amazing!! Going into the mission office my heart was heavy and I had so much in my mind. These past couple days/weeks have been kinda tough and I've been feeling really down. When I was trying to prep my questions I was seriously struggling to put my thoughts into words. The second that Elder Uceda walked in the room though, the feeling of peace and the Spirit was almost tangible. The moment only got stronger as he started to talk and teach. It was such an answer to my prayers and there were moments that I felt he was talking straight to me. My notes are endless to say the least ;) It was so amazing and I'm so lucky to have had 2 mission tours with 3 amazing Area 70's. Elder Uceda is so amazing and he's the cutest little man too! We had lunch and I got my package too! You're the best :) Thank you thank you! On our way back to Carpina we stopped at the one and only, McDonalds. My first McDonalds on the mission too haha! It's basically the same, but their ice cream machine works here ;) When we finally got back to Carpina it was 5pm and we had a million things to get done as always haha! Amon also came up to fix our fridge woot woot! We ended up moving the fridge to use another outlet in the kitchen but we fixed the plug on the fridge and we were able to put it back where it was. I was mostly just on a spiritual high from our mission tour. It was so good for me and as I looked back at a few of my notes I could've cried. I'll have to tell you about it on Monday :) 

Friday we had lunch with our mission grandma haha! Irmã Regina is just the cutest little old lady and has so much sass haha! In the middle of lunch she goes, "This food is not that great" and then makes the funny face! The best is that the food was actually pretty good and I didn't mind it haha! We ended up staying there way long than any of us expected because she started to really open up to us. She lives alone so when we come over it's a big deal and she has someone to talk to. When we got back it was already time to leave again to visit our friend Neto. He was home too! Woot woot!! We had planned to give a short message but he was so nervous to talk to us we decided to just mark a time to come back and talk to him. We got stopped on the way back by this little drunk grandpa. It was interesting to say the least haha! He kept trying to tell us these riddles and have us guess his name. We actually met him once before in Irmão Fabricio's padaria but we didn't get his name. He kept telling us that he knows us and wanted us to answer all these riddles. It was super weird haha! 

Saturday was a hard day for me. I realized just how different Brasil is and that was not good for my brain haha! We literally didn't do anything today. Well, let me back up a little. We had comp study exchanges this morning with our STL's and the 30 minute video call turned into an hour. It was kinda normal for me because I've done them before, but Sister Da Mata wasn't having any of it. After that the day was just so unproductive. Sister Da Mata literally told me that she didn't feel like working. It was so so hard to just sit there and watch her write in her journal or scroll of facebook. I also had the phone for a little bit more time today and I tried to be productive and respond to messages and send them, but it was hard. I wrote to President last week that I just want to work and that I feel like I have so much I can be doing but because of the circumstances, I feel like I'm not giving my all. He hasn't responded to me yet haha! Saturday was just really clear that work ethic is huge and people in Brasil are very much laid back and will get things done when they have time. 

Sunday!! Fast Sunday too... depending on the person this is either the best Sunday or the worst;) I honestly had so much on my mind to fast for and think about today. Fasting in Brasil honestly isn't the worst expect I  constantly want water haha! But as far as being hungry, I honestly dont think I've felt hungry since being in Brasil. It's a blessing :) Anyways, we went to go get Roberto for church this morning and when we came out he played the sick card and said that he couldn't come to church this week. I'm hoping that next week he'll really be there. We had a pretty sad turnout for church today but of course the kids were there ;) We tried to get a picture with all of them too and that was quite the task. We tried our best and that's what matters. After church we made our way to the bus stop to head to Paudalho for lunch with Bispo Silva. He wanted to give us a ride but it was a car full of guys and we aren't allowed to. We ended up on the most packed bus of all time too haha! Sister Da Mata and I were standing in the isle with so many other people.  The worst is that the majority of that bus was headed for Recife and not just Paudalho like us. Bispo Silva is seriously the cutest and I love getting to talk to him. His son is just waiting for his call right now so we talked a lot about missions. It's crazy to think that I'm really on a mission haha! We finished up lunch pretty quickly honestly, I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that Bispo had a Stake meeting to get to ;) When we got back it was weekly planning time. Elder Uceda had a lot of tips and new things to add to our weekly planning so it took a while this week. I'm excited to implement what he taught us and I think this week we're actually going to work! I'm so pumped for this week :) 

Now, to answer your questions from your email haha! 

We did talk to President Nordfelt about Thais and he told us that we can't go back to her house and we should try to bring up the church's addiction recovery program with her husband. 

The rain here smells totally different from the rain at home. The closest thing I can describe it is that it smells like when it rains in the mountains. But not like the trees, it smells like the dirt. I think it's because we have so much dirt and dust here that it smells like that.

I love the sky in Brasil but I miss the Utah sky so so much!! The mountains make a huge difference;) But I love the Brasil sky with the trees 

Sister Da Mata has family from the Northwest so she kinda has traveled but not too much. We've both been in Carpina for the same amount of time too so we know just about the same haha! 

It's not too hard to travel but it's expensive, everything here is expensive. Like gas for example is $150 reis. In the US I dont know the conversion but when I saw that number for only half a tank of gas I was shocked! 

I did make cookies!! Irmã Renata wants to know how to make them too so I think we have to have a class or something at the church;) Irmão Amon said his kids loved them too! We made a ton this week and everyone seemed to really love them :) 

I can't wait to talk to you today and share all my thoughts about this week and the mission tour. I love you!!