June 1, 2011

Here is Spencer's letter from June 1, 2011 that I didn't get for some reason. Spencer forwarded all the emails he's sent home so far to me, so I will be posting the ones that I have been missing.  Here is from June 1.

Things are going well. But I still feel a little under par as far as the language goes. It's still really hard for me to understand when its spoken. I just don't know enough of the vocabulary. That and there are a ton of different accents here. Well maybe just a few but they are very different from each other so it's really hard to understand people sometimes. That and my memory isn't that great a lot of the times. But I think that's mostly just because I need to use the language more. Then things will start clicking. Thank you for the prayers, I sure need em. Especially for blessings that are directed toward me learning the language. I pray for you all daily. My comps and I are getting along and we have really started helping each other out with personal flaws that we are trying to overcome. So it's pretty good. Um the food here is getting old. And I don't get nearly enough fiber. Which I'm sure you can guess what that does to a person. Uh, I forgot to say I had kind of a cold slash sickness for the past week and a half. Twas annoying, but it's almost gone. FREAK! Mosquitoes here are dumb. They are small but their bites swell up like twice the normal size and they itch like crazy. Also I hate the dogs here. HATE them. I want to put shock collars on all of them and synchronize a remote to all of them and shock them all at once. They are so dumb. You know the scene in Disney's 101 Dalmatians where the dogs are barking like crazy talking to one another over long distances? Yeah pretty sure that happens here every night, like within a 8 or 9 block radius, and the dogs don't go to sleep until like 3 or 4 am. So it's been waking me up in the middle of the night several times a week. I need earplugs, but then again I need to wake up to my alarm. Kind of a lose-lose situation. Wish I hadn't lost my good in-ear headphones then I could sleep with those and just use my ipod as an alarm clock since it has that option in the clock thing for it. It's what I usually use just minus the head phones. Found out on our last day they give us these sweet filter water bottles. They cost like $60 American they're legit. Oh I should have told you I got my hair cut super short like the week after getting here. The barber here sucked, so like a week later I went to the barber like a block and a half from the MTC and got it cut for 12 Reals and it was 100 times better. I think I have like barely over a hundred Reals left. I need to work out a way to get money from y'all. I think that the church will do it, but I don't know. If you could call travel services about it for me and let me know that would be cool. Then you could just get some money from my account and have them get it to me, however they do. The Temple here in Sao Paulo is really pretty. Especially inside. They have really nice wood all over and probably the coolest chandelier in the celestial room I've ever seen. Lots of cool stone work and some sweet glass mosaics in the baptismal room. Haha one last thing, did I tell you about the toilet paper here? Well I bought some wet wipes...best purchase here so far. Anyways, I love you all I miss you, can't wait to hear from you next week. I think I have only like 4 or 5 more weeks left here in Sao Paulo, Crazy how time flies. Anyways g2g Love Elder Bender