Clarify

Okay guys, especially a great uncle of mine who loves to pinch me, if you look at the map I don't live by the beach. The beach pictures are from a weekend I went with the Yuppies (young professionals group) to the beach. So Uncle John you get an extra pinch from me next time you see me. I heard about your comment ;) I do love you!

Beach Pics

Beach group, most of them, plus fanny pack pic!




The view from outside my window

Questions from Stephanie...

My roomies from last semester each chose a day to write me every week. I know, they are pretty fantastic! One email I got this week had a list of questions and I thought they would be great to blog about.
1) how are you? Well Im doing great! No health problems except a slight sunburn at the beach, mom and dad dont kill me. I actually used the 70 sunscreen or whatever ridiculous strength, and the Brazilians thought I was so cool. They had never really seen sunscreen you can spray on. I re-applied all throughout the day just as you have taught me. But... being that I did, I ran out the second day. I was able to cover half my body and borrowed some the rest of the day and made sure to stay under the shade. Unfortunately it didn't quite do the trick and I got burned. Ouch. Just wanted to make it known to everyone I did indeed try so no nonsense when you see my beach pictures. okay good :)
2) are you having fun? I am having a great time. At the beach this weekend it fully hit that I am in Brazil! I am fulfilling the dream that I have had since high school. I am incredibly blessed to have this opportunity! wow
3)who is your best brazilian friend, and why? My best friend is Pedro. He is a close friend of Mark and Ali's and an engineer. It is interesting to hear how his mind works. His way of working things out is very different than mine. Grandpa Jim I am better understanding you ;) P, as we call him which sounds like pay, will be interning for this month at the church. Exciting. Some projects he will be tackling are putting together a website, making a video for our ministry fair and making a CD of songs to pass along to other beginning churches.
4) would i like them? Steph you would love him, very real and intelligent. haha Also sarcasm is not known in Brazil at all, but Ali has been introducing it to him for the past year so he is pretty much the only Brazilian you can be sarcastic around. He can dish it out too. haha very much you!
5) what is your favorite brazilian food? One of my favorites is Asai, which I don't know if I spelled that correctly, but it is a slush time drink. You can add basically anything you want to it, like powdered milk, any fruit, peanut butter type stuff (peanut butter is not common here) or chocolate. Tons of things. Another thing that makes it my favorite is that it is purple!
6) how cool am i? ummm uber cool. You make me laugh so so much and are the only person I know that takes 30 min showers.
7) what do you do in your free brazilian time? I usually try to spend sometime by myself. It is probably the thing I miss the most. Every day I am around someone at all times which is good but everyone needs a little time to themselves. Other than that I try to catch up on my budget, emails or talking on skype!
8) what does your typical day look like? Because I love what I am doing it is kinda hard to separate free time from working. I get up and Mark makes me eggs. For you those that know me, you know I hate eggs so huge deal that I eat his. Every day is different. We worked on the calendar today. I can give you a brief summary...
Sunday- church, do Sunday school, sports in afternoon with youth and go to Sao Paulo for a college bible study.
Monday- day off! weekends are crazyyy, last weekend we had 5 people staying at the house not counting the people who just hang out.
Tuesdays- drug rehab place, and bible study in a dentist office. also Tutor Tuesday for the youth!
Wednesday- business day, and play pool with some people from the english school
Thursday- Youth day/ devo at night
Friday- team meeting, planning for upcoming week, orphanage starting up in March
Saturday- always different! weekend is whatever our guest want to do or help out with

9) what is your favorite thing about brazil? My favorite thing would be the friendliness of the people.
10) name three things that you have learned while in brazil. They would be... how important it is to hand things over to God, you can love on people without communicating and everyone here loves Obama
11) name every single way that i can be praying for you. Okay first off to have an open heart and mind for how God wants me to serve him, being positive even when things get tough, leadership in our youth, and an ear for the language. Just to name a few ;)
12) do you miss me like i miss you? Of course! I love my updates, silly ones or not
13) free-write for 5 sentences. I had no idea how looongggg this blog would be. If you read the whole thing than way to be champ! It has been raining like crazy all day, love the occasional rainy day. My new favorite music right now is Coldplay. Lately I've been obsessed with finding out as much as I can about the Holy Spirit and am going to start reading The Holy Spirit by Billy Graham. Last but not least, I love you all!

Just have to add

Okay so in Brazil fanny packs are in! Wow i could not believe it, fanny packs, really... every time i see one it makes me laugh on the inside hahaha

My Supervisors ;)

Alright everyone, I have officially met the couple I will be working with 24/7, Mark and Ali! Anddd they are fantastic! Both of them are fun, incredibly passionate about the church and the youth, up for change and new ideas, and all about mentoring/ encouraging the interns. Today we just bonded and Ali and I are kind of having a girls night. Yay! I'm crazy excited about the next six months. I love seeing how God works things out for you and knowing he really does have you in mind.

Things in Brazil that are like Texas/ The Thompsons
- People are incredibly friendly
- Brazil Church is the same size as MP Church
- People run at least 30 min late. gotta love Thompson Time
- Love to eat ice cream
- Itu is known for big things (gift shops sell objects that are 10x their orginial size); bigger and better in Texas
- People wave to each other
- Brazil considers themselves very different than the rest of South America
- Dinner is around 8 or 9pm
- Uno (the card game) is very popular

First Few Days

So I am here in lovely Brazil where the temperature is just right for me and everything is green. I arrived with no problems and Ali and Mark's (my missionary family) best friends were there holding a sign with my name on it. They of course were incredibly sweet and fun to be around. Barbara spoke a little bit of English but she was the only one. Not too bad but I was definitely wishing I had more time in the States to learn Portuguese. After picking me up we went shopping in Sao Paulo, craziness! The streets were packed! It was fun of course and we only stayed for a couple of hours. For lunch we had a traditional/popular sandwich, kind of like a warm ham sandwich but in french bead, very yummy. I was so exhausted though. My flight from Dallas left the 14th at 5:30 am, meaning I got to the airport at 3:30 am haha that was rough. Then arrived in Houston at 6:30 for my 14 hr layover. My friend Stuart picked me up and we played around downtown Houston and met up with some of my girlfriends, fun stuff. The plane to Sao Paulo had two little boys sitting behind me without a mother right there, you can fill in the rest haha no it wasn't too bad. Anyway I was oh so tired and feel asleep with my head hanging out the window. It was great! That evening I met about 8 of the youth group.  They were so nice and tried to translate for me when they could. They were all silly and full of laughs, I already love them :) Now I am at Ali's parents house, which is beautiful. They live in a gated community, security cameras, tall walls with barbed wire at the top, security guards driving around so I was able to go on a short run this afternoon.  All in all I love it here!! Ali and Mark come back from their vacation either Tuesday or Wednesday and then the work begins! I can't wait!!

Panic Attack

I completely forgot to finish about my panic attack until Juan called to tell me he was still waiting. Haha oh what will my life be like without Juan, a little less exciting :) So on to the panic attack.  So I'm sitting in her office, looking at Morgan's desk and 50 billion quotes when I started to freak out. Its a little desk in a little office with another girl about a foot away and if she sneezed without covering her mouth, you would probably feel it. Gross. Then as I'm examining everything I realized, Morgan spends at least 8 hours of day in there, 5 days a week, facing a wall. Thats when I flipped out for a second, picturing myself in her situation. Wow sitting in an office that long looking at the same old things, I think I would explode or become a very sad person with no spunk or creativity. I am going to do everything I possible can to avoid working at a job that includes working in a tiny office that you have to stay in alllll day long. Morgan does get to leave and meet with clients, go to happy hours, and you know fun things, so thats not so bad. I know there is a possibility I will have a job like that, you have to suck it up sometimes, but hey I'm gonna do all I can to prevent it. And if I do then my office is going to look like a rain forest and have a mini trampoline. haha