CTM week 2

was so happy to get an email from you!!!! I tell you letters and emails are everything to me! Everyday when the mail comes all the missionaries crowd around the mailboxes just hoping that they received a letter. Life in the CTM goes on as usual. I love it here, but it is so hard. I would definitely say it is harder than college. I wake up at 5:30 or 6:00 everyday and go to bed around 10:30. By the end of the day I am so physically, emotionally, and spiritally exhausted that I fall asleep as soon as I hit the bed. The past two weeks have had their ups and downs. The first couple days I loved it, then I hated it,...now I love it again. Last week I was so frustrated that I broke down and cried in my classroom. Luckily my district had already left the room to go to other meetings so I didn´t embarass myself, but my teacher Sister Filhao was there. She comforted and told gave me some really sound advice about the mission. I absolutely love my teachers. They both served missions in Brazil and luckily Sister Filhao served in Joao Pessoa so she and I have been chatting it up constantly. I found out a few interesting things about Joao Pessoa this week: 1. that there are rats the size of dogs up there... no joke. rumor is cats and dogs get attacked by these rats all the time...and the get into people´s houses a lot!!!! 2. Joao Pessoa is tied with Belem and Manaus for the poorest mission in Brazil. 3. Joao Pessoa is CURRENTLY the highest baptizing mission in the WORLD!!! Crazy huh?!!! I~m so excited to go there!!So last night a member of the 70 came to speak at our devotional. In the beginning he was searching the audience for a person to bear their testimony about the first vision. He pointed in my direction and said ^you sister!` I kept looking around for who he was pointing at and to my utmost dismay he was pointing at me! Serves me right for wearing a hot pink shirt when I am surround by a sea of black suits! Anyway..he asked `how do you know first vision happened? were you there?` I told him very matter-of-factly that I wasn´t there and frankly that I didn~t need to be. I said it so matter-of-factly that now everyone thinks of me as the sassy sister missionary. Anyway Ive been getting nonstop compliments on my comments since then. Even though it played out well I~m going to wear a black shirt at the next devotional! So my companion and I have 3 pet dogs...named Pato, Gusho, and...well we haven~t named the last one. They live in an alley outside our window. Everyday I whistle at them and they affectionately bark back...actually they just bark at me...but it makes me happy. Today I got to go to the temple again. It was awesome. It takes about an hour to get there and on the way there I saw a lot of interesting things. The poverty here is amazing. We passed by a trashy park and I was amazed when I saw a large family sleeping on sheets of cardboard with a hardcart parked next to them all. The crazy thing is...Sao Paulo is sooo rich compared to Joao Pessoa....which is kind of scary. The smell in the air here is soooooo weird. Everyday the air has a different smell. Since today was P-day I was able to walk around the city a little bit and I got stared at everywhere. Honestly....i should dye my hair. The attention is getting a little ridiculous. We got to watch conference in english this past week and it was awesome!!! We also got to watch the Relief Society broadcast. It was all so inspiring and uplifting. The language is coming along very well. My companion and I study so hard and are really seeing a lot of progress. This past weekend we taught a lesson in portuguese which most people don~t do until their 4th or 5th week! We have quite a reputation for being studious....and oddly enough I also have a reputation for being crazy and a spitfire. I love it here though. Everyone is so nice and I love the portuguese language....so beautiful. My district is awesome. Last night we just decided to use some free time to sing hymns and it was so neat. They are seriously like my family!The food finally caught up with me. It tastes wonderful but does some weird stuff when it hits my stomach. I~m hoping that it will eventually stop making me sick. Oh dad will appreciate this...I~ve had a ton of exotic fruit since I~ve been here....papaya, mango, passion fruit, and a type of pineapple that is white and tastes 10X better than the pineapple we have in the states. The Brazilians at the CTM are so cool, but tend to get a little flirtatious. This past week a BRazilian elder wrote me a letter telling me how cool I was and then he said he didn~t have a girlfriend....yeah not really sure how to answer that one. The BRazilians and Americans have such a great time together though. The brazilians try to learn english for the 3 weeks they are here and some of them can form complete sentence. This last week one brazilian guy walk by me in the hall and said, ´Hi sister. I like your eye´. I was so confused for about 5 seconds and realized he wasn~t just talking about my one eye, but both....I had a good laugh over that one. Well I´m out of time. 30 minutes a week is such a small amount of time to tell you very much about my life. Oh please excuse any grammar mistakes or spelling errors. I~m losing my ability to write in english..and to speak it. So sad. yet. Also post my email on my blog so people can write me. People can email me at this email, but I can only email you from it. Well I just love you guys and miss you! Being a missionary is super tough, but so awesome! I love the gospel and absolutely 100% know it is true!!! Talk to you next week!!!Love ya,Sister Ariel Wood!!!!