Beleza gente!
so. just to preview you. the keyboards here are different, and the ´v´ key only works when i press really hard and the shift is in a different spot, so to save on time i am just going to go all lower case and i may miss some v´s. not my fault.
i cannot believe that this is all real. i have to start at the beginning and just go. i have very limited time. i am in a lan house which is a bunch of computers really close together in a teensy air conditioned room. ok.
so, in georgia we got snowed in ironically on monday night and tuesday, we weren´t allowed to use the cars, which more or less we were stranded in our apartment because all of our portuguese folks are miles away. or they were i guess. anyway, focus. i ran errands with elder nickel who also got his visa monday and tuesday. on tuesday i had an adventure. elder vitorio´s flight got rescheduled to tuesday night, so we got to take him down there. we rode the marta, which is the subway/train in atlanta. i got great views of the city and loved it. the roads were closed from ice, that~s why we had to take the train. on wednesday we were frantically running errands, but we got word in the morning that our visas were still tied up in the fedex system which was clogged due to the weather. about an hour before we had to leave for the airport we got a call saying everything was on. it was a frantic rush to the finish line of getting everything together, which to this moment i still haven~t noticed anything is missing. so we got a ride to the train station and rode the train to the airport again. though several others in the mission got visas, only elder nickel and elder arreaga were with me on the flight. the rest were leaving later. we got our visas and went through security and all that. then got on the plane eventually.
i was right in the middle of the middle section. two seats, three seats, two seats with two aisles was the airplane format. i had no window view unless everyone in the row was sitting up straight. i was between two brazilians. neither wanted to talk with me. one did, however, for a while because he wanted to practice his very limited english. he was so proud of it...shame. not like i have any better portguese skills, but we still communicated in his language. the flight was long, i was very thirsty the whole time, and i couldn~t sleep. the flight left at 9.25 at night (two hours after we boarded) and we arrived around 6 in the morning in sao paulo. the food on planes isn~t as bad as it could be, but isn~t very exquisite. anyway.
i was really nervous as the plane descended into sao paulo. ps we flew directly over jacksonville, florida/ port au prince, haiti/ the bahamas/ and caracas, venezuela/ also manaus, brasil. there was a monitor like a gps on the seat head in front of me that showed where we were and all our stats. i watched it virtually the whole flight. ps there was a sister on the flight with us who went into the mtc a week after i did. she was visa waiting in spokane, washington. i was so tired, hot, and weak in the sao paulo airport. we wandered until we found the line for foreigners. we stood in line for a long time. my backpack and my duffel together weighed 65 pounds. i was afraid i was going to pass out, but i endured for half an hour and got through customs. my bags arrived, unlike elder nickel--one of his was left in atlanta (no idea how that will resolve itself). elder nickel was bound for goaina, elder arreaga for joao pessoa, and the sister for manaus. my layover was short, theirs were long, so they stayed with him at baggage claim. i went through immigration alone. luckily, i had asked elder mcgregor for tips. it is painless. they just check passport and you have to fill out a form saying you have ^nothing to declare^^. curse this keyboard.
there was a church travel person there to guide me. she eventually had to go back to pick up the other three, but she didn~t explain this well to me because she only spoke portuguese. she left me in a part of the airport and told me to stay. i was there for 45 minutes watching people and listening. this is when i got excited to be in brasil. it was a little insane. i got into a conversation with a lady who invited me into a free art exhibit right by the spot i was supposed to wait. we talked about the art, her and the other people in the exhibit. then i said thanks gotta go and she told me her mom is a member of the church and she is inactive. we talked a little more and then i had to go. i wish she wouldve told me that in the beginning! all this was in portuguese, mind you. she was very patient with helping me. anyway, then i got my next two boarding passes and went to the gate. there was elder anderson!!!!!!!!!!! we were re-united. so cool. there was one other elder who was visa waiting in texas for four months. elder fischer. i was so happy. we talked and caught up. excellent. our flight changed gates and we almost missed it because we were so excited to talk to each other.
we flew to belo horizante where we ate a quick lunch--so beautiful there. changed btwn rain and sun five times in the few hours we were there. so green, so warm. beautiful really. finally, we flew to vitoria. it was all dark clouds, but there was a channel of light coming down thru the clouds onto the city. ps, i haggled my way into window seats with the airplane people in portuguese for both the brazilian flights. woohoo! it was beautiful. we landed. the airport in vitoria is so small. we walked out of the airplane on stairs and walked into the baggage area, smaller than a large living room. just then it started to rain. it put to shame all the rain the usa has to offer. it was like an ocean was falling out of the sky. the luggage got wet. elder andersons luggage got left in sao paulo. we had to go back and pick it up the next day after they had flown it to vitoria. i was sweating bad in my suit. we met the president and the secretaries. we took a cab to the president~s home (twelfth floor right on the beach, so stunning) and had dinner and got briefed. both our brazilian flights were delayed so we had only very little time to eat and get briefed, so were quickly whisked out into the rain again. caught a cab to the secretaries´ home. it was very small, very hot, and not very clean. brazil is so different. there are no homes. only little apartments all stacked on top of each other and behind gates. here are some interesting things:
-i walked around some guys tying fishing net on the sidewalk of the street where the secretaries´ house is
-there were several old ladies with hairnets sweeping their porches
-i saw several coconut milk stands
-the stop signs say ``pare``
-there are exotic neon birds in the trees, but also chickadees
-from the shower (which has a small ventilation window) i could see the people selling and buying fish down across the street (the secretaries´apartment is about three stories up)
-most of the cars are shaped like tear drops, like geo metros; except some american cars. the most common american car i~ve seen is the vw golf and the honda civic (just like the one i drove at college)
etc etc. it is a completely different world. i wish i could express it to you in this short email. i am almost out of time as it is. it~s like something out of a movie, except you can feel the heat. we ride buses that take us at high speeds through narrow alleys with people and apartments on average three stories tall almost side to side.
we registered our visas at the federal police station and got finger-printed and all that. i was so glad to be with elder anderson for all this.
here~s the sitch. transfers are tomorrow where i will meet my trainer and go to my real first area. after the secretaries house i took a bus with my luggage to a part of town called maruipe and have been working here since saturday. we will go to transfers tomorrow.
unbelievable. unbelievable. gotta go. ahh!
Falou,
ELDER BODILY
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