I got a phone call through Messenger this morning at 6:00 a.m. while I was getting ready for work. It was Miriam! I wasn't expecting a call that early. I woke Joseph up to join in the video chat. She also called a little later in the day while I was at the lab but Kaylee and Micah were able to chat with her at home.
Mondays are my second busiest day of the week so this is going to be tricky trying to coordinate visiting with her on Mondays. It worked out today because Kaylee and Micah didn't have school.
I could tell during the video chat that she is still quite discouraged about learning the language. I noticed on Duolingo that her Portuguese lessons have spiked dramatically this past week.😜 She said her companion, Sister Casperson, is pushing her pretty hard!! Her companion (from Seattle Washington) has been out for over a year and when she first entered the field, she was trained by a native Brazilian who pushed her with Portuguese even harder. Joseph told Miriam that as difficult as it might seem, this is a good thing because in his first area in Brazil, his trainer was lazy and didn't push him with the language at all and it really hurt him further down the road. He says in hindsight, he wished he had a companion that had required more of him.
Miriam said that she had to make phone calls to people on several occasions and she choked. She couldn't understand a word anyone was saying on the other line and couldn't figure out how to formulate her questions, she tried to hand the phone back to her companion to help her but she would not. The people just hung up on Miriam.
Miriam says that Sister Casperson speaks solely Portuguese to her and will break back into English only if it is absolutely necessary. She has Miriam teaching already even though half the time Miriam doesn't even know what she's saying and can barely understand the people's response.
We just tried to encourage her to be patient with herself. It really is a miracle that these missionaries learn the languages as quickly as they do! Three to four months to learn a language is unheard of in so many other settings.
We are so proud of her!❤
Here's the new letter from Miriam today!! (No pictures this time.)👇
"'Oh, I'm in trouble, cuz that ain't the language they taught me in the MTC'
Another week has come and gone, and the days are still very long and the member meals are still very awkward because I can't contribute, and, for some reason, 10 to 12 flies are dying all together in our shower. Sister Casperson hates them so the bathroom always smells like raid.
But it's fine. We're fine. I'm fine🥴
I kind of had my first stomach problems the past three days, and not because of the KIND of food but because of the SHEER AMOUNT being stuffed into my body. We ate lunch with a Venezuelan family on Saturday and she served our plates, and we have to eat all of it. I was stuffed after 1/3 of a plate, but there was still juice to drink and then she offered bananas.
My one thought on this: bruh.
I wish I could say I had some crazy stories, but alas, my area is quite chill. But we had a meeting with all the new missionaries in my mission this past Friday, and I was listening to the Elders' stories and thought to myself, "the freak?"
Some of them were getting hot boxed during their lessons, or watching a woman worship fire; an elder in my MTC district had a man offer him his daughter's hand in marriage.
Hard to say if I'm grateful I haven't had these experiences or not.
On Saturday Sister Casperson and I found a woman named Adilma and had a short little lesson with her. After reading a couple verses of the Book of Mormon with her, she asked what book it was. She had never heard of it. After the lesson, Sister Casperson invited her to come to church the next day because she wasn't a member of any church and was just floating around from church to church.
She ended up coming. At first, sister Casperson and I were a little disappointed because the sacrament meeting was center around missionary work, and we were hoping for something more along the lines of eternal families, or the restored gospel or something. But by the end of the final talk, Adilma was crying During Relief Society, she was taking notes and crying again. After the meetings she asked if there was a place she could get more information, so we directed her to the gospel library app.
We have a lesson with her in Wednesday, so keep her in your prayers that she will feel something and be receptive.
In closing: the food is still good, it's really hot, I still don't understand a thing, the people are nice, I've never seen so many stray dogs before, Sister Casperson is trying to give me diabetes.
O fim."
No comments:
Post a Comment