WEEK 5: Oi! One Week To Go at the CTM

Last Temple Visit for Elder Perry's CTM District (Sao Paulo Temple)

Oi! I hope you are all doing well! This last week at the CTM has been mostly the same as all the others. Classes all day every day. Nearly every meal is an identical helping of rice and beans. Actually, last night we had soggy hotdogs. It was the best.

This last week has been incredibly hot here in Sao Paulo. Last P-day (Wednesday) was close to 100 degrees all afternoon, and that is our only day of the week to go walk around outside the CTM. So that was great. The fans kept turning on and off on the bus ride, so we were all cooking in there. Just imagine 50 sweaty missionaries, in a 100 degree oven for an hour and a half. It was brutal. But the P- day nap never disappoints.

We have new roommates now! Elder Yamaguchi, who is from Sao Paulo and speaks Portuguese, and Elder Fogg, who is from Idaho and speaks English and Spanish. They are both great. I have loved practicing my Portuguese with them.

As a district, we have been working on speaking only Portuguese when we are together. We have been doing mock lessons several times a day now, so that is great, but we are all improving in our Portuguese a ton. It has been great learning here. We also get to sit and talk with many native Brazilian speakers during meals. There are people there from all over South America, and also many from Africa too. They all have pretty amazing stories. But most of my conversations with them end up being about soccer. Almost every meal the Messi vs. Ronaldo debate is brought up. Fortunately, most people here have their heads screwed on well enough to side with the GOAT - Messi.

We passed through some major difficulties this week. Starting last Thursday, half of the showers on our floor went under maintenance. There is all this yellow and black tape strung all over them, including my good shower. So every morning, people wake up earlier and earlier to try to get the good showers of the few we have left. I moved my wake up time to 6:00 am, and that's usually early enough to get first pick in there. But, someone actually tore the tape off of the super good shower the other day, so... I may just have to use it.

I found a scripture that I felt was inspired for me last P-day at the Campinas temple. While I was still in the temple right after the session, I sat down and opened the Book of Mormon next to me. It was bookmarked to Alma 38, wherein Alma is giving advice to his son Shiblon. It's a really great chapter, and I felt that it was very applicable to my mission right now, and it gave me good hope.

Love you all lots.

Love, Elder Perry

View of Sao Paulo from the CTM