November 9, 2016

Today, we went to the Temple really early in the morning, and just got back, its almost 4 now.  It takes a long time to drive there because traffic is so bad here. Even though it’s really close.  I see so many favelas (really poor houses and areas) I’ve been taking a lot of pictures so in a few weeks, I’ll send the SD card to you.  You should send me pictures of you guys and things through email though.  I like being on a mission.   Thank you, mommy for helping me go on a mission. It was very nice of you to do all that work. All my clothes fit well so there are no issues with that. It’s really hard to learn Portuguese here. They just start talking and hope you catch on. It took me like 3 days before I understood anyone which was really  hard. My head hurts all the time because we have to learn gospel and language.  This is a very poor place. There is garbage everywhere, there is a big river that goes through the city (Sao Paulo is the biggest city in the world) and it is just filled with trash and floating stuff.  

Hey mom,  MTC (CTM in Portuguese) life is pretty good. I’m so surprised that I’m able to understand Portuguese pretty well. The gift of tongues is real!  I’ve made a few good friends one of them is in the Army. Ha Ha but it’s my companion, he gets really home sick and never focus on lessons so I have to do almost all the teaching when we talk to investigators. In DEC 13, I will fly to Brasilia.  No one here speaks English which is probably why I can speak so much Portuguese now. I can almost say anything. Very cool.  I wanted to go home at first because it was very hard but now I feel better. It’s harder than the military I think. I will try to get the email to you today or next week.  I write in my journal a lot so I’ll have lots of stories. I don’t have much time because they keep us so busy here. And they have rice and beans for every meal here. Ha Ha.       

Love,

Elder Giles