A few explanations for her email:
* she has always wanted Hugh and or I to take care of spiders/bugs for her... I've been telling her the last few months... "You should take care of those spiders yourself... What are you going to do when you on your mission?" Her response "Oh no worries, my companion will take care of stuff like that..." read below how that turned out...
** Mlle Hill is her high school french teacher.
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To sum up my first week I would like to quote a well known novel `it was the best of times, it was the worst of times`
This has probably been, simultaneously, the best and worst week of my life. My companion has definitely been a trial which I was kinda disappointed because it would be really nice to have a good companion in the CTM, but I won't be going into too much detail because I want to be positive. We learned that a companion is either a blessing, or an opportunity to be a better person so I am definitely going to try to be a better person lol. As I get impatient with her, i just remember that in a couple months i don't want to look back and be disappointed in my actions and thoughts. I just struggle because I have to push both her and me, make all the effort, try and learn the language and teach her and tell her what's going on at the same time so it's 2x as hard because I don't have someone who can help me. One day I was about to snap because she just is a little socially awkward and i prayed and the very next second I felt no negative thoughts, only love. I think I am with my companion because I can help her, so i am trying to think of it in that way, not as a trial. My roommates are super awesome though and so is my district so that’s great!
District!! My district is so great! Our room is the only girl's room, but the guys are so sweet. Our district leader is a quarterback at Stanford so uhm he's like 6`6 and super intelligent, but also really nice. We have a hard time focusing because everyone is just having fun and being hilarious. Two of the elders are from Australia and New Zealand which is super cool. Our elders are amazing. They decided to give us all priesthood blessings. Elder Chambers gave mine and was shaking the whole time, but at the end he blessed me with patience with my companions which is exactly what i needed to have. Everyone was crying at the end.
COCKROACHES save me pls, i’ve seen 8 and that is 8 too many... omg. Mom there is this cockroach or bug repellant thing that plugs into the wall or something that works really well idk what it's called but I'm gonna look for it here.Funny story... we found a spider in our room so I squished it with my shoe and picked it up and threw it away. no big deal right? well my roommates were actually screaming the entire time because i touched it lol i cant believe i'm the one who has to kill the spiders just because of that. also chacos...everyone has them and they'd be nice to have while out on the mission just as an option
The language is...ya know. It's a language. Our teachers haven't spoken any ingles at all so it was rough the first day. most people can understand because of spanish but I don't have that luxury sadly. We had to teach our first lesson on the 3rd day we were here and oh boy was it rough, I had to answer all the questions because minha companhiera was too shy to try. If MLLE hill had told me that on my 3rd jour de classe francaise I would've hopped out the window for sure. One of the sisters told me that the gift of tongues means you learn the language slow enough for it to be a trial but fast enough for it to be a blessing. I’m getting there, we just don't have enough time to do all the goals and memorization so it is real stressful. So stressful they give us stress workshops every week hahaha. I keep getting french, english, spanish and portuguese mixed up and don't even realize it.
The food is muito bom, I love brown rice and beans and seeing them vending machines stocked up is like heaven. They have the best cookie place across the street too that we get on pdays. They do this finger slapping thing that I am trying to get but i usually just end up hurting myself, tudo bem. Im getting it. It is FREEZING here lol I have to sleep in a sweatshirt wow. not prepared for that, but Im totes ok with it. We will do whatever it takes to see the sun because all the windows in the ctm are like blocked and dark so we are inside all day and it is sad.
I will now be emailing on Thursday but still have pday on wednesday because of the massive amount of missionaries starting next week.
The temples are so beautiful, we went to the campinas (which sounds super inappropriate if you say it right lolol) and the sao paulo. They`re my favorite celestial rooms so far. Also no pics for the next 5 weeks sadly. but we can receive paper mail\
I’m sick agora, bad bug going around but bless afrin spray
Love you all
Sista Cecil (everyone pronounces it suhseel
