8-24-15 Hey! Hello Peoples!

This week has been so long! We had a lot of changes this week, and on top of that, Sister Rubilar has been sick this week, so we were attending to that a lot this week. We went to the hospital here to get some relief for her sinus infection and I got to witness firsthand the Brazilian health care system. I think that will be incentive to not get sick here. :/ It sufficeth me to say that it was a lot of unnecessary waiting to get a shot and a breathing treatment.

At the hospital with Sis Rubilar getting her breathing treatment.

About my life here. It´s missionary life! 6:30 is the beginning and we get to work! This week was kind of strange though, because Pres Broadbent issued a new rule that we have to leave the house at 9AM and return by 7PM due to perigosos... Eeeep. But I kind of like it this way better. We have all evening to do studies and get ready for bed. The few downsides that I can see are that we have a few people that are nighttime only peeps, we have district meeting on p-day from 5:30 until 7:30. Oh well, we´ll make it work somehow. 

We have a member here who is kind of like a senior office missionary equivalent named Irmão Peixoto. He has  daughter on a mission and he just adores sister missionaries. When I went to the mission offices this week, he went to each sister missionary and asked what we need. Each one said, Nothing, I don´t need anything, I´m good. But I said, A new bed! He said he´d work on it. I don´t know who decided that it would be a good idea to give missionaries a bunk bed! The last thing I want to do in a day is hoist myself onto a bunk bed and the last thing I want to do in the morning is hoist myself out. ugh. but Irmão Peixoto is pretty awesome. I´ll have to get a picture with him someday.

I went to the police this week to take care of visa stuff. It was pretty fun (not really, it was quite boring, but that´s not the point) because I got fingerprinted but in a cool kind of way with an electronic reader that I can see my fingerprint on the computer screen and it was pretty cool. We travelled a bit by ônibus and train to get to central São Paulo, so it was kind of a two day ordeal.

I celebrated 6 months this week! Whoo! 1/3 finished!

6-month Pizza!

Hope you´re all doing well and that this week has been a good one!
Love you bunches!

8-17-15 Hello Beautiful People!

Grafiti aqui na São Paulo

It´s been another really long hot week na Missão São Paulo Sul (A Melhor Missão do Mundo!) (It really is the best mission in the world!) It´s been another week of walking an talking to people. I think the most interesting thing about this week is the sheer amount of Testemunhos de Jeová standing around. We always smile and wave as we walk by them, and they smile and wave back. Their chapel is just a couple doors down from ours, which I think is kind of funny because it was exactly that way in Mt Juliet! Anyways, that´s not really that important....

Side note: sorry if I have bad grammar or spelling, the keyboards here are different and I have a bit of difficulty with them. On top of that, it looks like pretty much every other word is misspelled when you´re typing English on a Portuguese computer.

This week, Sister Rubilar and I have been working to help the people we teach get baptized! For the most part, it´s been pretty progressive. We have a few problems with each person we teach. One woman we teach wants to get baptized, but since she lives with her boyfriend, she has to be married first. She was really surprised when we told her that. Apparently the previous missionaries didn´t let her know that. So she said that she´s going to get married! We´re waiting for them to set a date for the marriage, and until then, we just keep teaching her. We teach another woman with the same problem, but her boyfriend doesn´t want to get married and she doesn´t have the money to move out, so we´re kind of at a standstill at the moment and we don´t really know what to do. We´re also teaching a kid who wants to get baptized, but he has trouble waking up and getting to church in the morning, so we´ve got to help him get there. We also have to talk with his mom. Things are looking pretty positive with these three people, we´ve just got some little molehills to get over.

Anyways. I feel like I´m adjusting well to Brazil. The only thing I can´t really get used to is almoço. Instead of dinner, we have lunch with the members, which is alright. I enjoy food no matter what time of day it is. But they feed us SO MUCH. And the way Brazilians cook, it seems like they were not able to make up their mind about what to have for lunch. For example: Yesterday at lunch, we had ribs, lasagna, potatos, some sort of fried root that was similar to potatos, salad, rice, beans, veggies, strawberry cookie stuff, and chocolate cake. So after to have at least a bit of everything, and you finish your plate, Irmã says, Sister, come mas! (Sister, eat more!) And if you say that you don´t want more, they´ll start asking if the food is bad, and then you feel guilty and eat more. So by the time you leave, you´re just plain MISERABLE, but the food is so good, so it´s kind of worth it.

Well, that´s pretty much been my thoughts for the week! Hope you are all doing well! Love you all!

I held the cutest puppy this week!

8-10-15 Sister Denton´s thoughts about Brazil

Boa Tarde! 

How´s everyone doing? This week has been a pretty good one! There´s been a lot of walking, talking, and conferencing this week! Mostly just walking. Before I came, I knew that I would be walking a lot, but now this much! It´s crazy! If we´re not teaching, we´re walking. Oh well, it´s all good for me. It gives us a lot of opportunities to talk to people about Jesus Christ!

Not a lot of spectacular things happened this week that I can think of. So I guess I´ll just talk about Brazil a little bit.

Brazil is SO DIFFERENT from the United States in a few different ways. Firstly, the people here are so social. You can literally bring up a conversation out of nowhere with anyoe on the street. It´s very strange to me that anyone will just want to talk on the street. But it´s really good for contacting people. Another thing, people can sell anything here. You can have a store right out of your garage if you want to. Lots of people just make do with the resources that they have, so walking down a street in a neighborhood, you can see a hair salon, daycare service, bottled water shop, bakery, convenience store all within about 5 minutes. People also sell things on the busses. They´ll just come on up and start talking about what they´re selling. Chocolate, water, yogurt, peanuts, you name it, they´ve got it. Everybody was right, there´s lots of rice and beans here. Staple foods. We have them with literally EVERY SINGLE MEAL. I can´t wait for the day that I never have to eat beans again. Until then, feijoa it is! 

Eu gosto Guaraná

This week we had a conference with two other zones and President Broadbent. It was a really good conference for a while, but the thing lasted about 6 hours. The whole thing was of course, in Portuguese, and I just cannot concentrate for that long. It was really hard. However, President gave a couple of really good trainings about How to be a Representative of Christ and How to Work with Members. Both of them were great trainings. During the one about working wit members, we talked about how missionaries should not flirt with members, especially youth. President said that there were only two things that we could say to youth: ´´Bom dia!´´ and ´´Você tem uma referencia para nós?´´ (Good mornig, do you have a referral for us?) It was really funny. :) 

Today my zone went out to the park for a picnic and a bike ride. It was really fun. We rented the bikes for about an hour and just rode around the park.

Zone Activity - bike riding in the park

Sister Denton and Sister Vasquez

The Zone

Anyways, I hope you all have a great day! 

Love you all!

Street Feet

Bunkbeds

Our kitchen

Kitchen and Laundry

Laundry
The washer has to be set to start each cycle ... wash, rinse, spin. No dryer.

8-3-15 Plane rides, Hills, and a good night for a Casamento

Oy!

Nossa! This has been the longest week of my LIFE! I have finally arrived in Sao Paulo! It´s so cool here I can´t even believe that I´m here! This has been a pretty good week here. My companion, Sister Rubilar, and I are doing a lot of work here. Neither of us know the area really well, so we´re doing a lot trying to get to know the members and the area. There´s a lot of people here, and the houses are literally one on top of the other. The street names are really confusing and our map wasn´t really helping at all. However, we are still trying our hardest to try to figure all of this out. 

I got here after a full day of plane rides and layovers and bus rides and missionary travel. When I arrived at my mission here, we  went to a transfer meeting. There was probably the entire mission at this meeting (or at least the people being transferred. I haven´t figured it out yet.) It was so cool! All of the missionaries here are so excited about the work and they´re so spirited and it is so great! I love it. My new trainer, Sister Rubilar, and I left the meeting to go do work! I our area, we went with the elders to get to know our area a bit more. We met with the ward mission leader and checked out the chapel and talked to people. Our mission has so many hills! It´s crazy! My calves have been killing for the past few days, but I think it´ll get better over the next few months! Literally everywhere we walk is either uphill or downhill and there is no in between. I´ve got to admit though, I like walking a lot! It´s a lot easier to do the work waling than when we´re in cars. We´re able to make more contacts and talk to more people. In one night, we can contact up to 15-20 people and 140 people a week! 

Anyways, on Saturday night, I was able to go to a Casamento (wedding) for two of the elders´ investigators. It was really nice and almost the whole ward was there. Later that night, we were out tracting and we passed by the Igreja Verde (Green Church, it´s in our area. HUGE green church) and found another Casamento. /they had trumpets and stained glass and violins and TUDO. It was pretty cool. Sister Rubilar and I stopped for a second to watch the ceremony. Then later we were passing my the Igreja Universal (a big deal here in Brazil. not really sure if we have a similar church in the states) and we found another Casamento! So apparently, it was a good night for a casamento. 

Right now, Sister Rubilar and I are teaching a few people. Most notable are R, a long time investigator who wants to get baptized, but she´s not married, L, a catholic lady who has family who are members of the church, and L-E, the younger brother of a recent convert! L-E is on date to be baptized on August 16! 

So everything is going pretty well. I´m alright, but I don´t really understand ANYONE at all. There´s a lot of people from different places in Brazil, lots of different accents, and lots of people who talk really fat, BUT, I´m trying my hardest. Like Nephi, I know that the Lord will provide a way for me to understand and communicate with this people. I hope all of you have a great week and that you are all doing well!

Love you! 

7-31-15 Brazil São Paulo South Mission

Dear Family of Sister Denton, 

Sister Denton has arrived safely in the São Paulo South Mission. I have had an opportunity to visit with her in a personal interview, and I am inspired by her missionary efforts thus far and know that she will make a great contribution to the work of the Lord here. We are so pleased to have her! Sister Broadbent and I love her already, and we appreciate her desire and preparation to serve the Lord. It will be a wonderful experience for us to work with her in this great missionary effort as the Lord hastens His work here in Brazil and throughout the world. We know that our Heavenly Father will bless her, as she is obedient and diligent.

Thank you for your willingness to share her with the people she is serving her in Brazil. May you feel peace and joy in her service.

I have attached two pictures: One of Sister Denton with my wife and me and another with her new companion, Sister Olmedo.

With our love,
President and Sister Broadbent

7-20-15 Bugs, Baptisms, and a 6:35 AM Phone Call

This week has been such a good week! Pretty much almost everything that has happened has gone according to plan. I'm just super happy and don't really know what else to say about that! Haha:)

So this week, Sister Skelton and I were preparing for forever for V's baptism. On Friday, we went to the church building to clean out the font and to make copies of the program. While in the font, Sister Skelton found a spider and a cricket that crawled up through the drains, so that was an exciting discovery! After killing the spider and the cricket, she and I went down to clean the font out in preparation for the baptism (partly because the font stinks and partly because the last baptism was in January, so it needed a bit of cleaning. So we went down and squirted soap everywhere and just scrubbed that thing until it was squeaky clean! (Then I took pictures....) Later that day, we had a training from President Tew that lasted pretty much 4 hours, so that was pretty long, but it was a really good training with lots of great suggestions for our work.

Font Selfie

On Saturday, there was a baptismal service for V! It was so great! I was so happy to see her get to that point. It was such a good baptismal service. Sister Skelton and I sang a musical number for V, and Sister Saintonge was able to come back, so she talked a little bit at the service as well. After the baptism, V got up and bore her testimony of the gospel, and it was so sweet and spiritual. She is such an example to me and to her family. I was so happy for her on Saturday. It was amazing. :)

L to R: Sister Saintonge, Sister Denton, V, Elder Gibson (Zone Leader), Sister Skelton

So probably the 2nd most exciting part of the week for me (besides V's baptism) happened on Wednesday morning. At 6:30, I woke up, got dressed and got ready to do our morning exercise (which is a zumba dvd. SUPER fun). As I was turning on the dvd, I heard the phone ringing. The first thought that came to mind was "Who in the WORLD is calling me at 6:35 in the morning?" I checked the caller ID and discovered it was President Tew. I answered the phone (quite sleepily I might add). The conversation is as follows:

Sis D: Hello, this is Sister Denton...?
Pres T: Hello Sister Denton, it's President Tew, how are you?
Sis D: I'm good....? How are you?
Pres T: I'm doing well. Have you heard anything from Salt Lake lately?
Sis D: No...?
Pres T: Well I have. Last night I was notified that you've received your visa to go to Brazil!
Sis D:............... When is my departure date?

So yeah, that's a good way to wake up a visa waiter! So I'll be leaving in a week to go to Brazil and pretty soon I'll be in Sao Paulo speaking Portuguese and eating rice and beans and living it up like a true Brazilian!

That's pretty much it for this week! Hope you all are doing well!

[Holly's mom: Sister Denton traveled on July 27th from Long Beach to Salt Lake City, then to Atlanta and then an overnight flight to São Paulo, arriving there at 6:30 am on July 28th]

7-13-15 Key Indicators, Bible Videos, and a Baptism

This has been one long hard week, just let me tell you! Haha!

I had a pineapple this week, and I ground the whole thing into a smoothie. LOVED it.

Sister Skelton and I have been hard at work this week, and it has just felt like one of the longest weeks of my LIFE! I don't even know why it was a long week, but it was just one of those weeks.

Now that my murmuring is out of the way....

Some good news: On Tuesday, V passed her baptism interview! Now we're paving the way to get her into the water. We've finally made it to the final stretch with her, and I couldn't be any happier about it! We've been working for quite a while to get her to the place she is today! After about 4 different baptismal dates, we've finally pinned one down, which will be this Saturday. Please just some prayers that I'll make it through this week! We're making final adjustments and preparations for the baptism, and all throughout this week we're having meetings, exchanges, and more meetings, so it'll take a miracle to make it through the week without going insane!

Today was pretty cool. There is a member in my ward here who played John the Beloved in the Bible Videos on lds.org. You can see him in this video. He's the one without the beard. Anyways, today was cool because he came and told us about the filming of the Bible Videos and gave us behind the scenes footage and commentary about the making of the Bible Videos. He talked about his experiences and feelings as he was playing John the Beloved. He also shared stories from his own mission and how his testimony has grown throughout his life and everything. *It was a really cool experience.

This is a picture of me and Spencer Oberan (John the Beloved.)

This past week has been a long one, and I guess that's because I had a lot of days when we've only gotten a couple of things done. Each week, we work to accomplish certain goals (a new person to teach, receiving a referral for someone who might be interested, lessons taught to non members, lessons taught to less active members, and so on) and each day, we try to accomplish smaller versions of those goals. Throughout the week, we were only getting little bits and parts of our goals accomplished, and it made each day seem so long. However, at the end of the week, we totaled up our key indicators (the goals) and realized that we did a lot more work than we though we had. So that made the whole week a lot better. I was happy about that.

Anyways, Just pray that I remain sane this week. We'll see if that actually happens by next week! Haha:)