Week 12 of Hortolândia - "I'll kill you!"

It was fun visiting with Miriam again yesterday! She seems to be doing so much better. I mentioned a little before that Miriam would get emotional and cry for days & days the first several weeks in the field. It got to the point that her companion, Sister Casperson, finally had the idea of making a "Gratitude Tree" and that has really helped. It's amazing how healing gratitude is!!

Here's Miriam's Email👇

 "Well, this is my last email before transfers and then everything changes. For one of our lunches this past week, we had to walk for nearly an hour to reach the house. 20 minutes of that was spent walking through a dusty construction site in direct sunlight. If this continues, I'll be a Brazilian babe in no time. At least on my feet, about 2 inches of my ankles, my arms, face, and neck. The rest, unfortunately, will remain whiter than sour cream. 

We ate Açaí again because I reached 4 months out on the mission on the 16th, and I discovered that I love drowning that stuff in granola, powdered milk, and bananas . We ate lunch with a recent convert, Eloisa, this week, too. Her first time feeding the missionaries! I discovered during this lunch that I really enjoy mandioca [or Yuca] (it's a vegetable). 

After the day's work drew to a close, we returned home and made chocolate chip cookies. Saturday was a day full of just way too much food. 

For lunch, I had my first churrasco (Brazilian Barbecue) with Vanderlei and Dayse. 

Directly after, we went and visited Mariane again and we made waffles together. 

Then, after three hours, we had family night with Gisele and Rodrigo, and they fed us Brazilian style hot dogs: hot dogs left to simmer in a tomato sauce, then you put corn, salsa, more meat, mashed potatoes, and potato chips on top. It was so good, but after that day, I never wanted to eat again.

 Sunday, we were simply walking down the road and this man approached us extremely fast and started talking to us. Something was very off about him to say the least. We politely greeted him, then Sister Casperson said that we had to go. He immediately snapped and began swearing at her and shouting, "I'LL KILL YOU!" We just kind of kept walking and he eventually stopped following us. 

So all's well."