Snail Mail #2

Mailed June 17, received June 27

Hey Family!
So as soon as I read Daw's letter I thought, "I bet Mom read this and told him 'Why would you write to him about ethanol??'" Which was interesting and a nice change of pace. [I didn't]
I sleep on the top bunk and jump down to the hard tile floor every morning. [This is a little insider comment because Bryon was back from his mission when I left for mine and one of his pieces of advice was if I got the top bunk in the (Provo) MTC to not jump out of it because it kills your feet - ha ha. Of course I got the top bunk and of course I had to try it. It killed my feet. The other advice was not to eat the vegetables because they were overcooked and pathetic =) ]
All of the furniture here is rich mahogany because apparently there is (or used to be) a good amount of it here in Brazil.
My companion is Elder Sperry from Nephi, UT. He has one sister and one brother and we make fun of him because his mom is 38 and she looks like she's about 17. I'm not even kidding. She kept all her good looks and didn't pass them on -- poor Elder Sperry : )
My entire district (10 elders, no sisters) is going to Rio, just like me (woot!)
The days go like this:
6:30 Wake up, prepare
7:00 Personal study
7:30 Breakfast
8:00 Companion Study
8:30 AM class (this class is four hours!)
12:30 Lunch
13:30 PM class (this class is 3 1/2 hours!)
17:00 Dinner
18:00 Missionary directed study time
19:30 Dress for Gym
19:45 Gym (we got lucky and got gym at the end of the day, so we basically just shower and to bed - wewt!) [that's a new way to spell woot!]
21:00 Prepare to retire
10:30 Lights out
[he switched from military time to AM/PM time there at the end]

As you can see, pretty interesting day. We don't really get any breaks, but I wasn't expecting them, so oh well. Pretty exciting, neh?
Weekly Devotional is on Tuesday (today), and this will be the second one we attend. Last week was President Didier. He gave a really nice devotional.
... [here there were personal notes to Katie and Elise in response to their letters, which I'll leave out] ...
So I learned a really cool knot for my tie that I'll either send you a picture of or you can see it in two years (is the anticipation killing you?)
Everything is going pretty well. I love you all! Hope Mom and Katie are feeling better by now (I'd be rather concerned if they weren't... yikes!). Talk to you all soon!
Elder McGregor

Week 3.1

Wow, he really meant it when he said he'd 'finish the rest later.' I guess they split up their internet time today because we just got THIS!!:

Finishing up our Q&A:

What do you do for money? Did you exchange the American cash?

-Yeah, when we first got here we exchanged $60 for Reais (pronounced hey-ice. singular is Real, pronounced hey-aw, and say the -aw part with your nose clogged. beautiful, no?). The sign for Reais is R$.

What!? Your comp buys candy and not you? But you help eat it? ha ha Do they have some good candy down there?

-Yeah, I'm largely candy-less. I try not to spend too much money--I'll need it for internet and sending letters, which turns out to be a little costly. Not overly bad though.

What have you seen in your city exploration? Museums, or you just walk around or what? Do you take buses or just walk?

-He didn't answer this, but did say this:

-I see lots and lots of REALLY short people. Like, maybe 4 feet tall? Brazilians are small =]

If I'm looking at the front of the CTM from the street, is it to the left or the right of the skinny track? (we're looking at Google maps.) [see the picture two posts below]

-CTM's on the south side of the road. Big building, looks like y-wing (from the top) from star wars if you use your imagination, haha.

Have fun with your pday today!!
Mum
Love love! I sent some pictures in the mail to you guys today--5, I think. Hopefully they get there soon-ish. Which should be like, 2 weeks, apparently? Oh well.
Love!
Elder McGregor

Hooray!

Week 3

I'm so bummed! I took our car in for service at 8:15 this morning and was back by 8:50; jumped on the computer to see if Trent was on yet and he was already done. What??? Last week he was on til noon our time and until 10:30 the first week. Sigh. Oh well. Here's the little bit we got this week:

This is another back and forth over two weeks between me and Trent:

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Just fyi -
Dad and I sent snail mail on Monday. Next week let us know which day it arrived and then we'll know how long it takes. Love you -

Mom

It takes just about ten days to get here. So next Thursday. Which stinks, because I won´t be able to get it to you until the week after. Stupid p-day on wednesdays.

Ten days! wow! Okay, we'll re-think that. Would you rather we just email our letters?

both =]

You mean email and write separately like we've been doing? Or email and send the same letters?

Email and write separately. It's fun.

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A 'cedilla' -- are double L's a 'y' sound or a 'zh' sound or what?

Double Ls sound like double Ls; the H makes a "y" sound; G makes a "zh" sound; and D at the beginning of a word, or a the the end of a word when followed by an "E" makes a "J" sound.

There are a lot of pronunciation rules, and all the brasileiros say I've got fantastic pronunciation. Thanks for teaching me so well! [I think he's referring to my Nazi-like insistence on pronouncing things correctly in Spanish so as to not sound like a Gringo].

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This week's Q&A:

Do you get to go outside much?

-We go outside on p-days, and that's it. CTM's a little bit like a jail. I'll survive, though. Only 5 more weeks. We're almost halfway done here. Crazy!!

What do you do on p-day besides the temple and Mr. Cheney's cookies?

-On p-days we go to the post office and send snail mail, we go to the supermarket and buy candy to hold us through the week (and by we, I mean my companion and not me, haha), we explore the city within our boundaries (which are surprisingly large), stuff like that. We basically try to spend as much time outside as possible to tide us over =]

What do you do for exercise? Do you run on the track or do calisthenics in a gym or play ball or what (jumping jacks to a chant of the 12 apostles' names)?

-I either play basketball or volleyball during Gym. We do a couple laps on a small track to warm up, and then get down to business (and by business, I mean light friendly games of volleyball. No smashing allowed, haha)

I'll finish the rest later! Love you guys.
Elder McGregor

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Darn it - that's it for this week. =[