Sister Hannah Parks Mission Blog: MTC Provo

Heyyyy!!

Reassignments this week!!!! Usually they'll come Wednesday or Thursday but they could be late and come Friday! No matter what though, we've all decided to wait and open with Irmao Workman. I'll take pics! I also believe we'll be able to email y'all to let you know where I'll be going and then I get to call in the airport!! So either tell me who to call and the number or turn on the house phone's ringer wayyy up!!! I think my itinerary will also be emailed to y'all but I'm not sure, I may just have to let y'all know when I find out more and email y'all.
I'm nervous to leave but excited to go! Haha it's crazy that I'll actually be out there around people who DON'T know my religion and I'll have to be teaching and talking to them for real!! At least it will (most likely) be in English!! That will be a relief. Depending on how long missionaries are out in the states, we will be sent to the Brazil MTC for 2 weeks when we finally get our visas so that we can touch up/re-learn Portuguese!! So crazy, right?? We had two sister get their visas and leave this morning to finish at the Brazil MTC!
So sad Trenton is leaving me!! Not that I ever see him haha. But every time we do our Sunday temple walk or have gym time outside (which is now open as of yesterday!) I look for the green truck possibly driving by haha. Speaking of the truck, what's going to happen to it if Trenton is flying home?
Also, so jealous of the thunderstorms!! SO COOL! It SNOWED Wednesday... THANKS UTAH. Elder Meredith wanted to be in a snow picture with a sad Texan hahahaha I love how it turned out.
This week was very eventful!! Saturday we had a substitute for Irma Kimble, and her name was Irma Cowan. She's important because we saw Irmao Workman talking with her one time and we were so excited!!! As she taught us she just confirmed to us how perfect she is for him. So when he came later in the day we told him to ask her out hahaha. Every time we do stuff like that he just laughs and says, "Voces..." hahaha which is just "you guys..."
Thennnn Saturday night, we're packing up to head back to our residence to go to bed, and one of our sisters came hobbling up to us and asked where the clinic is. We're like "uhhhhhh what's wrong with your foot?!!" She had had it propped up on the bar underneath a chair and slid forward and it somehow twisted! As we're talking to her she starts to feel woozy so we're like AH and get her a chair. We use the red phones in the hallway that call the front desk, and we ask what we should do since the clinic isn't open. They tell us to go to the front desk where we can get a bag of ice. Our wonderful Elders run to the front desk, then the cafeteria, and back with a bag of ice. We ice her ankle for a bit, then see if she can hop back. However, our building is pretty far, and she can't make it far because her ankle really hurts. Since we're not that strong, we decided it was okay for the elders to help prop her up and carry her back. We still don't make it far because we realize it's pretty serious, and she can't just ice it for the night and next day. So we sit her down on a bench and the elders run back to the front desk. Not long after, two medics come with a wheel chair! So then we left her and her companion with the medics.
Later, back in our residence changing into our PJs we realized, "Oh... our branch president will want to know about this!" Well the only way we can get a hold of our branch president is going to the front desk and asking to call him. (Even though we have a phone, all it can do is pick UP. Ridiculous, I know haha) So we quickly change into semi-normal clothes and run to the front desk. Turns out our sisters are there - Sister Rigel in a wheelchair! She wasn't able to see a doctor, so they just gave her instructions, medicine, and crutches. We're able to call our branch president and tell him the news. Thennn this other branch president, who happens to be over the other Brazil/Portugal zone comes up and is like, "I'm a doctor!" (QUICK WHAT MOVIE?!) He takes a look at her foot, then asks for some Ace bandage and wraps it up for her!! It was so sweet! She's doing much better now though! No wheelchair, or crutches! But yeah, that was one eventful night. But I love the sisters so much I'd do it all over again! However, as of Sunday, we are released as sister training leaders! Only because the Branch President wanted to give the new sister training leaders two weeks to serve like we had before they too have to leave!
Yesterday while in class we noticed some commotion outside our window. So after class we went out and saw that there was a mama duck and a bunch of baby ducklings stuck in this area!!!! There were people already there in charge of getting them out so we saw a bin full of baby ducklings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They were SO CUTE!!! We're totally thinking it was Fredtholomew's wife and children :')
This week has been so great!! One day was hard, but that's usual. I really feel like I've been progressing a lot in the language! Not close to being fluent of course, but I'm still happy! I've been working really hard this week memorizing all the tenses and the endings so that has been helping a lot! No big deal, but there's 3 tenses for the past! They're all slightly different, of course, and have rules for when to use them. But it's weird because in English we just have one past tense but we add other words to make them different. For example, "I would have...." is a whole tense. They have a whole tense for when you said "would" in a sentence. Crazy, right? Some funny Portuguese stuff is when you say "Bless you!", it's "Saude!" which literally means "Health!" haha. Also, there's a word for "thingamajig" hahahahah it's "joca" with an accent thing underneath the c. Portuguese is mainly hard but it's funny too! Also, to ask questions, they don't have words for like "Will" you.. or "Do" you.." or "Have" you... so you just have to say, "You read the Book of Mormon tonight?" or "You have a testimony?" Hahaha so funny when translating to English but it makes sense to them! Also, there's a tense called Command and it's very common in Brazil but in the US it can kinda be rude. But it's basically like how it sounds; you command or tell them to do something. Read the Book of Mormon. Pray to God. But it's not rude sounding there! So interesting, right? Going off that, people in Brazil are VERY open we've come to learn haha; they say what they are thinking, but they don't mean it in an insulting way! For example, they'll straight up tell you if you've gained weight or don't look good that day! Hahaha I'm sure I'll be getting a lot of those.

Anyways, I hope you all have a wonderful week!! To everyone who I haven't been able to respond to, I promise I'm getting your emails and reading them and I love them SO much!!! I'm sorry if you don't get a response though! My time is so limited but just know that I appreciate all the letters and prayers!!! I am so blessed to have you all in my life!!!!

Com todo meu amor,
Sister Parks