Elder Collins in Brazil: January 12, 2015- week 19- P-day in Sumaré, Brazil!

Family!!

Well, this week was transfers week, but as you all know, I'm still here in Sumaré!! Our zone is called Siãomaré haha (Sião means Zion)!! Elder Murray was transferred to another area and is now a zone leader!! But, Elder Chipana has now a new companion- Elder Firmino from Recife! His accent is so thick, I can hardly understand him sometimes haha. Anyways, I also received mail!!! And I finally got your guys' card and Package!!! YEAH!! Thank you so much! It was greatly appreciated!! I especially loved the cereal and Mac and Cheese!! I miss American food, so getting this was really nice. Thank you so much! I'm not sure how long it took to get here, but I just got it on Tuesday during the Transfers.

Also, this week I finally went on a division! We're supposed to be doing it at least once per transfer, but yeah... I went on a division with Elder Nixon, who is our zone leader. He's been on his mission for a year and 6 months now, I think. He's American, but during the whole division, we only really spoke Portuguese, so that was cool. He taught me some things and was able to help me improve my Portuguese. I stayed the night over at his place (his area is Villa Flora, which there Chapel is huge!! about the size of the stake center in Florida if not bigger) and then came back to the center of Sumaré the next day in the morning.

So, you asked about my schedule. Every day, we wake up at 6:30 and then take a shower/exercise/eat breakfast(sometimes) and then at 8:00, we start Personal Study, Estudo Pessoal. Usually, I'll read the Book of Mormon in Portuguese, then study Preach My Gospel, and I also like to mark good Scriptures in the Bible and the Book of Mormon. I probably mark more things in the Bible than the Book of Mormon though, because that's what everyone here uses, so its good to have things marked down to use during lessons that people will accept more easily. Also during Estudo Pessoal, I'll sometimes read some of the books here from the Missionary library or church manuals, all in Portuguese of course. ;) At 9:00, we have companionship study where we'll start out by singing a hymn, then reading from the Missionary Manual. What we study usually varies, but we do a lot of practice lessons and study Preach My Gospel. We'll leave the house around 10 to start our day, have lunch at a member's house around noon, then continue on till 8:30, when we return home. As soon as we get home, we plan for the next day, and then after that we get ready for bed. No, there aren't any siestas here. The only time we can take naps are during P-Day, which I gladly do. haha

That's so cool hearing about Erin getting called to Paris, France!! She's gonna love it! The language will be hard at first, but then it'll just come. My companion, Elder Holder studied French in high school, and he thought he was gonna go there. Haha, but his mom just recently sent him a French Book of Mormon, and he's trying to learn French again.

Anyways, it was good to hear from all of you again. Until the next week.

Love you all,

Elder Collins

PS Sometimes I wish I would've brought some of my sheet music, because there's a piano here and I can play on it. I guess I'm stuck with hymns!

PPS My favorite foods...hmm...I really like the churrascas that they have here. It's basically a barbeque, but they just smash meat with salt then slap it on the grill. Really, really good.

PICTURESSSS!!!