ENTÃO....

Well, I was reading over my journal this morning to try and review the week
so I could tell vocês que é happening mas nada really happened this week. I
cannot spell in english anymore mas meu Portuguese is getting
better.....somewhat. I'm still speaking a lot of caveman.

The days here feel like a week but the weeks go by fast. Tomorrow marks
week 4 and that means I have less than 2 weeks left!!! So crazy! I've been
learning so much but I feel like I will never be actually prepared for the
mission field. It's weird because the missionaries that were here when we
got here are now leaving today and it is SO weird. Now we are the oldest
missionaries in our zone. WHAT?! All of them but one have been reassigned
stateside but are hopeful they will be getting to Brazil soon.

So every week on Thursday nights we don't have a teacher and so we've
decided to dedicate one hour of that three hour block to a kind of district
FHE. Sister Lopez and I were in charge of the lesson this past week but we
didn't know until last second. If you don't know me I do love winging
things and so this just seemed like a super fun challenge. So we came up
with acting out stories in the BoM! I know, flashbacks to FHE night at the
Helm House. It was so good though. All of our elders were hilarious and it
was super fun. Now Sister Lopez and I are the cool kids to beat. :)

Something fun was that Carlos A. Godoy of the Seventy came and spoke to us
for our Tuesday devotional. If you don't remember him he was the one at
conference that spoke Portuguese! And he's from Brazil! Anyways, when all
of us Brazil/Portuguese missionaries saw he was speaking we were all super
duper excited and everyone around thought we were crazy. His talk was
fan-dang-stastic and it was so awesome. If all Brazilians are like him I
cannot wait to get to Brazil. It was awesome because his English had the
coolest accent. He kept pronouncing english words like you would in
Portuguese and we all noticed! He asked (in Portuguese) who was learning
Portuguese and we all raised our hands and were like "we are we are!!"
Anywho, it was a great talk and incredibly inspiring. He focused on the
mission field and what we need to do that we can succeed there.

Something else I forgot to mention. On Sexta-Feira we have TRC which is
where we teach members a little message (all of this in Portuguese of
course). It's much more laid back than teaching an investigator and tons
more fun because often we get to teach these little old Brazilian people.
There are so animated and excited about us going to Brazil. When we tell
them we're going to Maceio they get so excited and tell us the people are
so nice, it's so beautiful, and the food is delicious. YES.

Our investigators are doing well. It still takes me awhile sometimes to
pick up what's happening but I can usually figure it out rapidomente
enough. The past few lessons I just feel I need to say something and so I
open my mouth and somehow Portuguese comes out. I'm so blessed to have the
Lord's help to do his work. I know there is no way I could do it without
that help.

I love the MTC. I love this work. I'm so blessed, animado, and just plain
happy to share this gospel with everyone I meet. I'm looking forward to the
plane ride out of here because I just want tell people about how awesome it
is that we have o Evangelho de Jesus Cristo na Terra hoje.


I love this gospel.

Sister Helm

WHAT EVEN IS ANGOLA?!

Entao, esta semana foi CRAZY. So crazy. Let's just start at the beginning.

On Wednesday last week our district was chosen to host the new missionaries
that were coming in that day. Over 500 new missionaries came in. I know. It
was INSANE. It was so fun though. It was sad to see all the missionaries
crying but as hosts we assured them that what they were doing was the right
thing and we told the parents we would take care of their child. At least
for a little bit. It was really fun but also probably the hardest workout
of my life. Have you ever tried to carry 3 massive bags by yourself? Yeah,
bem-vindo minha vida no quinta-feira. It was still great and I loved
getting to know the sisters I hosted a little bit before I dropped them off
at their classroom. All of them were going to the states and it's weird
because they'll leave before I will. All in all, it was a great experience
and I hope we get to do it again!

That night we were in class after dinner doing personal/comp study and our
District Leader came in and was super excited about something. He had been
called to the front desk during dinner along with Sis Bow and Sis Gutke. He
then told us that our district had been chosen to have the CONSULATE
GENERAL OF ANGOLA, AFRICA come visit our class the next morning. Chaos
ensued. PUXA VIDA WHAT IS HAPPENING? If you don't know, the consulate
general is the person who decides if people come into the country or not.
Angola recently decided that they don't want LDS missionaries in their
country anymore. The Church has been talking to them and they don't believe
we're the real deal so they sent the consulate general to come visit the
MTC in Provo. Yup. And for some crazy reason our district was recommended
for this. So craziness is happening and then our teacher shows up and we're
telling him this and he's kinda freaking out too. Anywho, someone came to
our class later to tell us about tomorrow morning and he inspected our
classroom and told us to fix different things and told an elder to not
spike his hair so much and we needed a Brazil flag in there and all sorts
of things. He said that pretty much the whole of the Church was relying on
us showing a good face not to mention the 88,000 missionaries out in the
field. This was a BIG deal. They speak Portuguese in Angola so we had to
wow the consulate general with our Portuguese as well. DID I MENTION WE HAD
ONLY BEEN HERE FOR TWO WEEKS AT THAT POINT?!

The next day. All of us were on edge and jumping everytime someone opened
the door because we were supposed to stand when the Consulate General
walked in. Eventually he came with his entourage and also Elder Hinckley
and President Nally (MTC prez). Yup. And then we all had to introduce our
selves, tell where we were from, and where we were going.......all in
Portuguese. All went well. We showed the Consulate General how we learn
Portuguese and thankfully all went great. Then we took a picture and he
left. Woooo. So much crazy!

Other than that the week was pretty slow. It was still really good though.
We taught a lesson to our pesquisador Amizade last week and Sis Lopez and I
did sooo well. We taught him the Restoration and also how to pray. He said
he'd be baptized. Also guess what when we were talking about Joseph Smith
and his vision I recited the whole first vision in Portuguese and it was
totally awesome! Blessings of the Spirit are real. He's progressing so well
and I'm so excited what we can help him learn next!

We eat a lot here. And read a lot. And speak caveman Portuguese a lot. It's
great. I love it. Loving the mish!

I love you all and hope you all are doing great! Share the joy the gospel
brings with those around you!

Sei que este o evangelho e verdederio. Jesus Cristo e meu Salvador. O Livro
de Mormon e verdederio. O evangelho de Jesus Cristo e como nos podemos
viver com nosso Pai Celestial de novo.

Sister Helm

WEEK DOIS

They say here at the MTC that the only thing worse than the first week of
the MTC is the second week. I can testify to that. Opa it was a hard week.
Mas, it was so good at the same time!! I'm learning so much every day that
it's like trying to drink out of a fire hydrant.

Also I solved my dilemma to waiting in line for the shower. I either shower
after gym time in the afternoon or I wake up at 6 AM and shower then.
Perfect. Whole bathroom to myself. Tambem if you're wondering what it's
like to live in a tiny room with 6 sisters then just imagine living in a
bee box. Because that's what it is tido. Muito muito muito pessoas.

Primeria I would just like to thank all the peeps that sent me mail or
packages! I love you all so much! My district is makes fun of me by calling
the mail "Sister Helm's mail" instead of just "the mail" They're just
jealous that I have a super bom familia.

PORTUGUESE IS HARD. ALSO ALL THE THINGS MISSIONARY ARE HARD. Like for
realz. I've never worked harder in my life and I'm still barely keeping up.
Mas, I'm getting there. I've memorized A Primeria Visao and also Nosso
Proposito and the Seven Habits of a Diligent Missionary. I'm getting
there.....lots of things left to do. Uncle Peter sent a perfect poem at the
perfect time and I was reading it yesterday. It's about discouragement and
I need to remember to not get discouraged when I can't teach the way I want
to because of the language barrier. So obrigada Uncle Pedro! (pedro is
peter in porkandcheese)

Something kind of funny....remember our pesquisador Geraldo? Well, turns
out he's now our other teacher. So now his name is Irmao Workman. Yup, I
know, it's weird. Mas both our teachers are great and I'm learning sooo
much from them. They both served in Mozambique and so they speak
Continental Portuguese instead of Brazilian. It's all good though because
they can speak Brazilian Portuguese too. PUXA VIDA I LOVE PORTUGUESE.
(maybe I should take the time to mention that puxa vida translates directly
to "pull life" but Portuguese speakers use it like "Oh my gosh!"

I can understand almost everything my teachers say now. Sis Lopez and I
have found a few Brazilians here and when we try to talk to them in
Portuguese it doesnt' work because they speak REALLY rapido and slur all
the words together. It makes it sound pretty but we can't understand what
they're saying. At all.

I honestly can hardly remember anything specific that happened this week.
All the days feel like a week and then the blend together and I can hardly
tell one day from another. Well, we went to the temple last Tuesday and it
was OTIMO. So good. It was exactly what all of us needed that day. On
Sunday we went to MTC choir and that was really fun too. I had my first
real Sunday here and it was great!! I love the devotionals on Domingos e
Teira-Feiras.

Our district sang a musical number at church on Domingo! It was soo good. I
love singing in Portuguese!

Something funny is that all of the Portuguese speaking missionaries always
say Oi! (Hi!) when we see each other because hello is Ola! and we don't
want to be confused with the Spanish speaking missionaries because we're
obviously cooler. Other missionaries always look at our tags and are like
oh you're spanish speaking where are you going and we're like, NO IT'S
PORTUGUESE. BRAZIL WOO WOO!

Something else otimo, our district gets to host tomorrow!! That means we
get to go help get all the little newbies and rip them away from their
familias and give them a incredibly fast tour of the MTC and then drop them
off at their classroom as they stare around in confusion and wonder what in
the world is happening! Yay! It's almost unheard of to be hosting after
you've only been here two weeks so obvi we're a pretty otimo district.

Two times a week we wake up super early and get to go do service in another
building. I know this is weird to say, mas it's actually fun to clean.
Especially when it's service. It's a muito bom way to start a dia.

So if anyone is wondering why Portuguese speaking sister missionaries
aren't called Irmas is because in there language if I walked around with a
nametag that said Irma Helm they would think I'm a nun. So yeah. Just a fun
little tidbit of info. So we're called sister, but they pronounce it like
seestair. And plural sounds like seestairres.

Also our devo this last Domingo was a brother from the Media Missionary
Dept of the Church. Look out for something really cool the day after
Thanksgiving and also Dec 7th on YouTube!

The mish is great. I'm so excited to teach everyone about o evangelho.
Tambem all the Brazil missonaries thusfar have been sent to the states to
wait for their visa because Brazil is mad at the U.S. right agora. :((

On that happy note, I'm out of time. I love you all and I thank you for
your amazing examples!

Com amor,

Sister Helm

Bailey's First Letter

PUXA VIDA I LOVE THE MTC!

Seriously though. It's great. After those first few moments of initial
panic.

And everyone is yelling at you, "Welcome to the MTC!!!" And you don't know
where anything is and soo..... Also the food is fine, there's always salads
and wraps for when you don't want to eat anything else.... And tell Papai
the lines for the showers are terrible. Ugh. I just want to take a stinkin
shower.

Haha when I walked into my classroom for the first time my teacher was just
like, "Oi! adfasdjd aslkdjfkdjf sadf adkfja;fj dkasdjf dfkdfakj d tudo
bem!!" And I was like, "uhhhhhhhhhhh." But it's all good now. Irmao Barlow
is a great teacher and yesterday I actually understood what he was saying
for the first time!! Woop woop for Portuguese!

Anyways...my companheira is soooo great. Sister Lopez is so spiritually
righteous. She is funny, pretty, and speaks Spanish! Woo! She can
understand Portuguese because of that and so she's been having to tell me
what our teacher was saying those first few days. I seriously love her to
death.

Something crazy, our branch president told us we need to read the entire
Livro de Mormon in the six weeks we'll be here. I know, it's crazy. Also,
I've already memorized Our Purpose in English and Portuguese! We're also
supposed to memorize a ton more things in Portuguese....ugh! But it's
great. I love it! Portuguese is a beautiful language, us four sisters in
our district decided it's the baby of French and Spanish. Also one elder,
who speaks spanish, told us that the language of angels is Spanish but the
language of God is Portuguese! :) I'd have to agree.

So, our second full day here we taught a pequistador named Geraldo in
complete Portuguese. It was great, I think. I couldn't understand anything
he said. Yay for Sister Lopez! We resolved to do much better the next time.
I was praying so hard to just be able to understand what Geraldo said.
Also, Irmao Barlow had us write down perguntas por Pai Celestial for
Conferencia General. I've never actually done that before and I was
surprised because ALL of my questions were answered. I felt so much peace
and comfort.

CONFERENCIA GENERAL was soooo good. I feel so blessed that I got to be in
the MTC for it. I've never learned so much from it and everytime they
talked about missionaries I cheered inside! ALSO listening to the speakers
in their native tongues was soooo cool. Especially Carlos Goday! Yay for
Brasil and Portuguese! O evangelho e verdadeiro. Muito bom.

We taught our second licao yesterday and Sister Lopez and I were planning
our licao and realized we were pretty much writing the whole thing out
instead of learning the doctrine and relying on o Espirito Santo. We were
walking outside to get ready and get some air while praticing our
Portuguese when an Elder turned around and was like are you sisters
speaking Portuguese? Turns out he was from Portugal and Sis Lopez and I
felt awkward because our Portuege pronunciation is terrivel. But it was soo
good. We talked with him and his companions for a while and we told him we
were getting ready to teach a lesson. He asked for our notes, on which we
had pretty much just written our entire lesson. We gave them to him and
then he put them down and said sisters, tell me about the Restoration in
Portuguese. Yup. So Sis Lopez and I changed our tactic. When we went in to
teach Geraldo we put away our notes and taught by the Spirit and in caveman
Portuguese we taught him about the Restoration and bore our testimonies.
Also, let me just mention that I understood nearly every word he said to
us. It was beautiful and amazing. I am so blessed to be here on dedicated
ground with O Espirito Santo by my side.

I love this work. I love learning Portuguese. I've only broke down once.
Yesterday, after the lesson we taught I felt frustrated that I wasn't able
to tell Geraldo what I wanted to because of the language barrier. It's all
good though. I need to remember that this mission isn't about me. I'm here
to serve the Lord and the people I meet.

Today we get to go to the temple! Also, for our gym time last week some
sisters in our zone went our and played sand volleyball. Turns out none of
them ever played volleyball before. And it showed haha. Just over here
working on my patience! But yesterday I got to go and play real volleyball
inside with a bunch of people in our zone and it was SO FUN. Ahhh finally
real volleyball! (make sure Papai hears about this!)

I've met the coolest people here. Seriously. I wish I could tell you about
each of them, in detail. But it would take forever! I'll just say that my
district is the best, we're getting so close! Kinda like familia. Also,
when our branch presidency was picking our district leader we were all like
whose it going to be?? And when they said Elder Boyd the Spirit confirmed
to us that he was definitely the best choice. He's great...and he's from
Blackfoot, ID! All the Elders in our district are the best. And the Sisters
are even better! I wish I could tell you more, but I'm out of time.

Sei que Jesus Cristo e meu Salvador. Sei que A Igreja de Jesus Cristo do
Santos dos Ultimos Dias e verdadeira.

Com amor,

Sister Helm (What!!?/!) :)))))))

P.S. Eu te amo!

P.P.S. Sorry about the rando Portuguese words....actually I'm not
sorry...there's this thing called Speak Your Language and you're supposed
to use your language as much as possible. It's hard, but awesome!

And she's off....

October 1st finally arrived and Bailey flew out in the morning to SLC on her way to the Provo MTC.  The whole family got up at 5am to take her to the airport.  It was an emotional day.