Wed Sept. 30th 2009

Hey Momma,
I arrived in Brasilia yesterday and here is a picture with my president and his wife
and one with my new companion. No time to write today so I will write next week.
All is well and I love you!

Sister Jennifer Nayeli Rhule

Week 7

I bought shoes last week. I had to or else I wouldn´t have bought them. I also gave a pair of tennis shoes away to one of our Brazilian roommates cause she didn´t have a pair of tennis. She was so excited!

Patrick e-mailed me and said that you talked to him on facebook and he thought it was funny that you were on facebook. You should call him sometimes and invite him to visit you because he loves you all and he is having a hard time right now. I don´t really know what is going on, but he said that he´s having a rough time.

This week things were fine. We played some games in our districts to help us not give up and just to help keep us awake. One of the our teacher calls "Find the Elect" so the game is we have to find him. But any people that we come in contact with before we find him we have to do a street contact with them. It is really fun! There really wasn´t much going on this week at all. I have to play the flute for prelude tomorrow for the whole CTM devotional. I am kinda nervous, but it´ll be good, I just found out two days ago so I have been trying to practice. I hope I get your letters soon. Oh, I have a great story about how awesome my district is: last week they looked in the mailbox and there was a huge stack of letters so everyone was really excited, I knew I wouldn´t get one from you because you told me you were sending it last week, so I was just normal. Everyone else didn´t know that, though. So, everyone got at least 3 letters and they were all saying outloud every time our district leader got to the next letter "Sister Rhule, come on, let there be one for Sister Rhule." I knew there wouldn´t be, and when they got to the last letter and none were for me everyone felt bad so they all tried giving me their letters, some elders gave me leaves, and it was just funny. Then when we got up to our classroom later that day they had written me a letter and put candy in the envelope cause they felt bad. It was so cute. I love my district. Don´t feel bad that I haven´t received a letter from you, it´s totally understandable. Anyway, I have to go, but I love you and tell everyone I say hello!

Love,
Sister Jennifer Nayeli Rhule

Week 6

Todo vai bem! Today we took district pictures. I printed some and they are going to be sent in the mail today along with a letter for Kaven and Megan and a letter for Eric and I was going to send a letter to Matt and Heather and Kenyon but I forgot it in our classroom and the door is locked and only our district leader has the key. I´ll just have to send it to them next week. Tell Heather she is slacking on writing to me. She has way more time than I do and tell Sarah she has to write to me too!

This week was good. I felt so much better two days after the dr gave me that medicine and I haven´t felt sick again, so that´s good! My teacher just came in and he said to send you and dad a big hug for him. He is way cool. My companion cut my hair last night. I know you don´t like it short, but I was just tired of it so I had to get it cut. I think she did a really good job.

I leave the CTM on September 29th - only 27 more days! Time has just flown by. Can you believe I only have 17 months left!?! And I was talking to some of the sisters here and they said that it is possible I could get sent home in December of next year so that I can make it back in time for Winter Semester in January. That would be too much of a shock I think to go from Summer time in Brazil to wintertime in Utah!!! I don´t know though, it is still just a slight possibility.

Anyway, I wrote you a letter today too so that will be going in the mail and I am going to get going so I can write a few more e-mails! I love you a ton and appreciate all that you do for me and have done for me! You are the greatest and I tell everyone everyday!

Love you lots and lots and lots!
Sister Jennifer Nayeli Rhule

Oh, and tell all the sisters in the branch I love them and miss them and think about them a lot!

week 5

Mamita!

Todo vai bem! Today we took district pictures. I printed some and they are going to be sent in the mail today along with a letter for Kaven and Megan and a letter for Eric and I was going to send a letter to Matt and Heather and Kenyon but I forgot it in our classroom and the door is locked and only our district leader has the key. I´ll just have to send it to them next week. Tell Heather she is slacking on writing to me. She has way more time than I do and tell Sarah she has to write to me too!

This week was good. I felt so much better two days after the dr gave me that medicine and I haven´t felt sick again, so that´s good! My teacher just came in and he said to send you and dad a big hug for him. He is way cool. My companion cut my hair last night. I know you don´t like it short, but I was just tired of it so I had to get it cut. I think she did a really good job.

I leave the CTM on September 29th - only 27 more days! Time has just flown by. Can you believe I only have 17 months left!?! And I was talking to some of the sisters here and they said that it is possible I could get sent home in December of next year so that I can make it back in time for Winter Semester in January. That would be too much of a shock I think to go from Summer time in Brazil to wintertime in Utah!!! I don´t know though, it is still just a slight possibility.

Anyway, I wrote you a letter today too so that will be going in the mail and I am going to get going so I can write a few more e-mails! I love you a ton and appreciate all that you do for me and have done for me! You are the greatest and I tell everyone everyday!

Love you lots and lots and lots!

Sister Jennifer Nayeli Rhule

Oh, and tell all the sisters in the branch I love them and miss them and think about them a lot!

week 4 letter

I just want to tell you that I am so happy everytime I get an e-mail in Spanish cause it helps me remember. It does take me a little bit longer to read it because I keep getting mixed up between Spanish and Portuguese but hopefully that clears up. I got the package Hiram sent with the cards from the sisters. I love the books and tell all the hermanas gracias. I want to send each of them letters but I am just going to send them to you then you can hand them to the ladies cause it saves me on postage and I don´t know anyone´s addresses.
I met a long lost family member the other day! Elder Fonseca! Apparently there are a lot of people with the last name Fonseca in Brazil, and this elder said that his grandparents were actually born in Argentina! Crazy, huh?
My companion and I went walking last week for p-day and I realized my black shoes might be really a bad idea. I was wondering if you could check online if you can find these shoes, they are Dansko and the style is Mandolin. One of my sister friends here has them and they are way cute, just check how much they are. I was also wondering if you could send me some more ---Maybelline - SuperStay Silky Foundation--- shade is Medium #2. If you can that would be great, if not, that´s ok too.
I started getting sick last Saturday. I went to the doctor here at the CTM today and he said I have an infection in my throat so he gave me meds. I also told him that my asthma has been acting up a lot and my inhaler isn´t doing anything for it but when he checked my breathing he said I was fine. Who knows!
We took pictures at the temple today, so you should be getting one of those sent to your e-mail soon, not by me though cause it wasn´t me that took the pictures. My companion and I are going to be taking pictures today and printing them to send to you so you should be getting them in about a week and a half!
I got Felipe´s e-mail, just tell them every time you talk to them that I think of them all the time! I have to get going because I don´t have much time, but I love you and I totally remembered about your anniversary! I actually was talking to another elder about it today and about Megan´s birthday next week!
I love you and I am so grateful I decided to listen to the spirit when he told me that I needed to come on a mission! I know that I am just one of very many people that will be blessed by my decision! I know this church is true and I am so excited to preach to the people in Brazil the most important message they will hear in their whole lives!

Love you,
Sister Jennifer Nayeli Rhule

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! PARABENS! (CONGRATULATIONS!)

week 3

Hola Mama!

Ok, I need to make this quick because I only have 10 minutes left. I wrote Michelle an e-mail to tell her Happy Birthday and I wrote to Felipe to tell him and everyone in Monterrey hello. So when you talk to them make sure they got that.

This week was fun, I wrote you all a 4 page letter and you should get it in about a week. I am also going to put a letter to Linda and her kids in the same envelope and you can give it to them just to save money on postage. The weather here is nuts! One day it is kinda cold and POURING rain, but then the next day it is super hot! Kinda like Pueblo.

The language is coming along well. I understand most of what people say to me in Portuguese and my companion gets kinda jealous, but she always says she´s glad I´m her companion cause then she would have no idea what people say to her. My teachers all tell me that I sound Brazilian and that everyone will think I´m Brazilian when I get out to my mission, so that´s good. It is kinda hard though, the other day when I was writing the letter to the Branch I couldn´t figure out if I was writing in Spanish or if it was actually in Portuguese! FOI MUITO DIFICIL!

We just passed off the First Discussion in Portuguese and my teachers said I did a really good job. We are starting to do the Second now, so we´ll see if that one is just as good.

One of the elders in my district, Elder Joshua Vaughan from Bountiful, UT, found out the other day that I hadn´t received a letter so he asked me if I wanted him to write me one and put it in the mailbox so I could get one, but before I could answer him he realized that he can´t since we are both here at the CTM. sorry I don´t have much more time to write or enough time to write in Portuguese (it still takes a little bit of thinking) but I am learning a lot. Tell Heather, Megan, Amy, and Daddy that I´m sorry I couldn´t write them separately and tell Stephanie that I love her and she needs to write me. Call Patrick and tell him to send me his address as soon as he figures it out and tell Hiram congratulations on the races and I´ll be there when he races in a couple years!

I love you!

Sister Jennifer Nayeli Rhule

Week 2

MAMITA! Please keep writing me in Spanish if you can, it is so good to hear something other than Portuguese and English all the time. By the way, I spelled OI wrong last week, it´s not spelled with an H at the beginning, my bad! You want to hear something nuts!?! One of our teachers made a covenant with us in class yesterday. He said that if we promise to only speak Portuguese for the rest of the time that we are at the CTM he promises we will speak Portuguese faster than any other missionary at the CTM. Then he said that if we speak English we are breaking our covenant to him! So, my companion (Sister Catherine Marie Harris) and I have been trying really hard to just speak Portuguese...but it is so hard. I always say that I speak Portu-Spanish cause I never know if what I´m saying is actually in Portuguese or Spanish. Pray harder for me! One day last week someone asked me if I was Brazilian and I said no, then they said "Yeah, you are Brazilian!" and it went back and forth a couple of times and I kept telling them I was Mexican and they wouldn´t believe me, then they asked me what my last name was and I told them it was German, then they really didn´t believe me that I was Mexican! It was very entertaining! We got to go to the temple today again! Loved it! Next week someone is going to take pictures at the temple for us and e-mail them to you, so be excited, that´ll give you something else to look forward to. Banana-chocolate pizza really is one of the most delicious pizzas I´ve ever eaten! In a couple weeks my district is in charge of the prelude music before Tuesday devotional (on the 25th) and I am going to play the flute! I am really excited! I was thinking about the girls going to girl´s camp last week! Totally jealous...oh wait, no I´m not cause I´m in BRAZIL!!! I can´t wait to get the letters from the sisters in the branch and the package that Hiram is supposed to send. I´m the only one in my district that hasn´t received a letter...just to let you know. Oh and you should tell people that they can do dearelder.com and the letters will be printed and sent to me. I sure hope Hiram sent the package. I am way excited. By the way, I will be here until September 29th! I am very excited about that! Anyway, I have to write to Heather real quick and get everybody´s e-mails from my hotmail, don´t forget to tell Michelle and Steph and Kaven/Megan to e-mail me and give my new e-mail to people in the branch so they can e-mail me too! That would be awesome! Oh and did you get the money transferred from my savings to my checking and did you make sure you were on the account to withdraw? Well, tell everyone I say hello and that I love them and thanks so much for the prayers, I can tell that people are praying for me because of the success and love I feel everyday! Just to leave you with a little something I learned from devotional last night: "The Lord never asked Peter what his qualifications were before he asked him to `Feed his sheep`he only asked Peter if he loved him. That is the only quality we need to do the work of the Lord, if you don´t love the Lord it is extremely difficult to do the work...It isn´t easy to get up early every morning and learn a new language, but think of why you are here - because you love the Lord."
Love you all!
Sister Rhule

Vou a perseverar até o fin!
I will endure to the end!

Oh, and mom, will you print all the emails you send me too cause I can´t print them here. Just save all of them!

Week 1

Hoi is how you say hello in Portuguese! How are you all doing? I hope everyone is doing well. I can´t believe I have already been in the MTC for a whole week! It really seems like the time has gone by really fast but that I haven´t seen you all in forever! I am really enjoying the CTM so far. The Brazilians here make me so excited to go out and actually start teaching! They really are the nicest people in the whole world! I met up with 1 sister and 6 elders in Dallas and only sat next to one of the elders, everyone else was spread out all over the plane. The time difference isn´t bad, I got used to it pretty quick. The food here is nothing like anything I´ve ever eaten in the US and I´m positive they don´t eat this stuff at the MTC in Provo! Here´s just an example of what we eat here: have you ever had chocolate banana pizza!?! Well, maybe that´s not a good example, because that is actually REALLY good but most of what we get is not too appetizing. We were told the first day we were here to stay away from the desserts! We got to go to the temple today! I was way excited but we had to get up at like 5AM just to be ready on time, but it was worth it. I love the temple. I really like my companion. She is from Idaho Falls and went to BYU before her mission too. She has a brother here that got here the week before we came. He is way cool! I really like most of the elders in my district. There are 8 elders and us 2 sisters. My teachers are AWESOME! We had such an awesome lesson on the first discussion last night...LOVED IT!!! We have devotionals every Tuesday and Firesides every Sunday! I have to write some more e-mails so I have to get going! I love you and even though there isn´t anything new going on over there please e-mail me. This is my e-mail I have to use, by the way. So don´t write e-mails to my hotmail. Oh and we can´t take our cameras out of the CTM so when I decide to use one of the computers in there I´ll try uploading some pictures...oh and we can only take pictures on P-day. How lame is that!?! Oh well, that´s what the rule is, that´s what I´ll do!

LOVE YOU!!!SISTER RHULE(all the Brazilians pronounce my name like HULEE)

Eu se que esta igreja é verdadeira!

The Adventure Begins

On April 4, 2009, I received my call to serve in the Brasil, Brasilia Mission. This blog will document my adventures preparing for and serving in Brasil.

* photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/zanini/2257800126/sizes/l/