Week 3: OHHHH WE'RE HALFWAY THEREEEEE OOOOHHHHH LIVIN ON A PRAYERRRRRR

So the subject line is partially a joke, but probably 96% serious. We are halfway there. And basically living on a prayer this week!! Yeah, this week definitely hasn't been my favorite. I still have the best companion, the coolest district, and the Spirit and love here is crazy awesome, BUT sickness has overtaken the sisters of district 7B and it ain't pretty.

Basically, I went to the doctor on Friday to check out some nausea, they took some blood work which all came out fine, it got worse this weekend (as in we stayed home all day Saturday and Sunday. Not super fun. I mean it was fine for me, I slept like 20+ hours in those 2 days, but poor Sister Selk just had to sit in bed all day....) so I went back to the doctor and now I have to see a GI specialist???? I was kind of just hoping they'd give me some pills and I'd get better (isn't that how doctors are supposed to work?) but alas, I have to go see someone or another important or something. The good news is, this means Sister Selk and I get to LEAVEEEEEE. FOR A WHOLE COUPLE OF HOURS!!! WE'RE BUSTING OUT OF PRISON!! We were a lot more excited about this until they made us sign a contract promising we wouldn't purchase food. Dangit. We were hoping there'd be Jamba Juice by the hospital....

The good news about all this sickness is that I get to see just how amazing and wonderful my district is. Sister Selk has been the most patient person alive as I force her to stay home, drag her to doctors appointments, the works. The other sisters in our district, Sister Doman (from Layton, country girl, works out too much and is subtly hilarious) and Sister Barratt (from Heber, one of my favorite people to ever live, likes T Swift way to much and we all call her Sister Cucoracha (barata is Portuguese for cockroach, so spanish for cockroach??? Yeah I don't know why we do that either)) have been the best and always getting meals for us while we don't want to go get them ourselves and whatnot. And our lovely elders!!! They are the sweetest and the absolute best. After I got worse on Sunday they came down to the Residence Hall from breakfast, all 6 of them, so they could give me a blessing. They're the cutest. My district is my family here and I'm already upset about having to say goodbye to them in a couple of weeks!!

Anyways, that's that!! Unfortunately that was a big majority of the week so I don't have a whole lot else to report. Sister Selk and I have definitely been a little frustrated lately. We can't seem to connect with out new investigators, Claudia and Abrao, hardly at all. Claudia is constantly questioning what we say and we committed Abrao to baptism, technically, but he doesn't really seem too interested, and is always asking for short lessons so he can head off to basketball games. And as much as teaching isn't about our Portuguese, it can definitely be a little frustrating when we can't understand or respond to investigators needs!! I'm starting to feel like I'm getting worse and worse at teaching.... Probably not true, but hopefully we can get out of this rough patch and get some good lessons going. 

We did TRC for the first time this Friday and it was a BLAST!! Our first member wasn't totally interested (he probably couldn't even understand us honestly) but our second member was hilarious, a BYU student, impossible to understand with her crazy Brazilian accent, but so cool and we talked for a good 20 minutes extra from what we were supposed to. Plus, we laid down a pretty sweet lesson on the attributes of Christ and she's going to email us in 2 weeks or so with how developing charity has been going for her. WOHOOOOOO. 

As for Portuguese, it's coming. So unbelievably frustratingly slowly, but it's coming. I have the purpose, the baptisimal invite, and the first vision memorized at this point and I can at least hold conversations with people in Portuguese, but it's still tough to teach without feeling like I know the language. I have to remember to be more patient, I guess. 3 weeks of Portuguese and I'm already having conversations with people???? Yep, I should be more grateful. Apparently my Portuguese prayers are beautiful, so that's something for y'all to look forward to when I get back, I guess! 

I wish I had more to say but that's basically it! Thanks to everyone for all the letters and packages, I still get teased in my district for having a package nearly every day. Shoutout again to Melanie, who is constantly sending uberly fun things to the point that my district, when I get packages, will say things like "is that from the fun aunt???" and to Emily for the soaps and to Makaila for all the dearelders which are SO nice to have everyday and to Justin for the COOKIES!!!!!!! Which took my district all of about 12 seconds to eat. Y'ALL ARE THE ABSOLUTE BEST. AMO VOCES!!!!!!!!!

Funny moments from this week:

   - I have been craving a smoothie since I've been here and Irmao Belchoir found out, so every day he literally brings in Jamba Juice cups just to shove in my face. Actually it's not funny it's mostly just sad. Someone make him stop. 

   - Does anyone know the Office episode where Michael is at a conference and he opens with "GOOOD MORNINGGGG VIETNAM!!!" and nobody laughs??? Well, we were joking about doing that in sacrament if we had to give a talk and Elder Mills was like "nah, it'd be more like GOOD MORNINGGGGG PROVO STATE PENETENTARYYY!!!!!" 

   - So last week I said OI VEY in my email. I should probably explain, for any of you that may have been confused. No, it doesn't make any sense in Portuguese. No, the Portuguese people don't say it. One of the sisters said it one time and it's literally gotten out of control. We say oi vey about 290345809348 times a day (including lessons, whoops) and are trying to force our teachers to say it with little success. We'll get 'em eventually... Or maybe just strut into Portugal saying things that aren't words and getting weird looks. Probably that one.

   - Our district all loves Nacho Libre, so you know when he says "take it easy" and it's so hilarious?? We stumbled upon "take it easy" in the Portuguese dictionary and it's "tem calma". We say that WAY too much too. Probably the only phrase that rivals oi vey in our district

Quote of the week: 

   - "Hey I have a riddle for you, how do you read 3 letters at the same time? They're all the same letter" - Elder Hinkey after his mom accidentally sent the same DearElder 3 times. I promise these quotes are a lot funnier than they sound.....

Man I'm off my game this week!! Sorry this email is boring. Not a whole lot happens here at the CTM, but I love it, I love being a missionary, I love Portuguese even if it drives me crazy 98% of the time, and I love all of y'all and all your support. TE AMO FAM!!!!!!!!!!!! LOTS AND LOTS OF LOVE!!!!

Sister Parkinson