August 18th
Time is really starting to go by quickly now. The first week felt like it was actually the first month but now when I look back it seems like I just left. The email last week wasn't very informative so I should probably go into more detail. The first thing I realized after the awful flight here was that the drivers are insane. They follow each other so close and never come to a gradual stop or gradually accelerate. I think it's less about the rules and more about how big your car is because the bus driver would just change lanes whenever he wanted and just expect the other cars to slow down for him. I guess if you were the small car it would be a lot worse for you if there was an accident so it works. I learned to cope by just not looking out the window.
The first week showed me very quickly that learning a new language is very difficult. They make you start teaching 20 minute lessons with "investigators" all in Portuguese on the 2nd day you get here and it's pretty scary and we definitely did terrible but it was awesome. My language teacher speaks about 2x as fast as the other teachers and has a Rio accent so I didn't understand anything she said the first week. Even now it's difficult. But since I felt so bad about the language I quickly learned how important prayer is. I've been praying so much here and it really does help. I've also become a crier. Yeah it's weird I know I don't know what is happening but the spirit is just too strong here. It gets me every time.
Pretty cool story about one of my companions, Elder White. Elder White has had ear problems his entire life so he has these tubes in his ear that help with whatever the problem is. But these tubes also have to be drained about once a month because they keep filling up with crap and his doctors don't know why. About half way through the first week one of his ears started filling up again so by the second week he couldn't hear out of that ear. It also was a bit painful. So on pday he emails his family and asks them to pray for him, and a couple of hours later his ear popped and all the crap started draining out of his ear. He said that's never happened before in his life. Again, prayer works.
And by the way there are a ton of Americans here. The elders that were here when we first got here said that it used to be about 20% Americans but now its like 70%. They tell you to sit by Brazilians during lunch but it's hard to do that when there are none to sit by. We still get to have Brazilian roommates though so that's good. They're super cool. We started teaching them stuff like "Sup Homie G" or "Homeslice" and told them that that's what all the cool Americans say. At first they didn't believe us and asked some of the other elders if they actually say it and they went along so the Brazilians apologized to us for not believing us. Now that's how they greet us. It's pretty funny. Our district also has fun teaching our language teacher new English words. We taught her the word "toes" and she thought it was the greatest thing ever cause they don't have a word for toes in Portuguese. Even though she talks fast she's an awesome teacher.
I should probably talk a bit about my district and companions also. We have 7 Elders including myself and 2 Sisters. Almost all of the elders either went to BYU or are going there after the mission. They're all super smart kids that are upset with a 32 on the ACT so I feel a bit dumb when I pull out the amazing 24. But they're all super awesome. One of the elders, Elder Bangerter, is the son of one of the Brazil mission presidents so he's already been in Brazil for the past 2 years. And so he can speak some pretty good Portuguese. He had the option of getting put into a Brazil district and leaving the CTM early but declined because he liked being with Americans. I totally would have gone out cause I just want to teach but hey, what do you. His companion is Elder Kinnear who is a 6'5 basketball player. They are so different from each other. Elder Bangerter is the type of kid that goes out of his way to find a hole punch so he can organize his papers and Elder Kinnear just doesn't care about that stuff at all. They act like an old married couple cause they're always fighting with each other but not in a bad way. It's super entertaining to me and I can usually get a good laugh out of their conversations. I was blessed with normal kids in my district. No one is weird... well Elder Bangerter is weird but it's okay. And 4 of the elders and 1 of the sisters can sing too. Like sing really well. So the district randomly breaking out into song is pretty common. It's almost like I'm in a musical. It's fantastic.
Anyways overall the CTM has been awesome. Everyone I've met is muito bem. But one thing I have noticed is I have the clunkiest shoes in the CTM. I mean I don't care cause they're comfy and durable but I just thought that was interesting. Definitely expected more missionaries to have some hushpuppies but everyone just has nice looking shoes.
I really miss listening to music. I mean I get to listen to a bunch of music sang by my district but I miss just chillin with some headphones. Oh and I also miss you guys of course. This third week has gone by so fast. It'll probably slow down once I'm out in the field cause I'll have to adjust again but until then I'm just enjoying life.
Love, Elder Odom
