I don't have a lot of time since it is not P day but I got permission to check my email. Thanks for the pics of the cruise- MOM. And I am super glad everything is okay with her heart and that all is well now because I was pretty worried about her needing surgery or something crazy...Hopefully this won't cause any more problems and it was just a one time thing! But like you said prayer is real and the power of the priesthood is such an amazing gift we have in this gospel! Oh and I already received my package!! thanks MOM :) had some funny pics in my photo album lol... I was surprised to receive it so fast! Sis Sowa still hasn't received hers and her mom has sent 3 all before mine... seriously putting Mary on the packages really works because her mom didn't and I think that might be the problem is that people stole them... but thanks for all the goodies and love!! :) As always I will continue to pray for all of you!! Take care and Mom no more heart attacks! :p Have a great week!! :) Love and miss you lots!! :)

Muito amor,

Sister Mattei :)

So I don't know how to really start this email. I am crying at the computer because I was expecting to only hear good news about the cruise and not that Mom had had an heart attack. I am glad that you all had fun on the cruise and that it was relaxing! You all deserved a relaxing trip away from everyone! That is great you got to spend time with the Hoyts and Robinsons also. I am glad that Mom was able to make a joke about it all and say she had so much fun on the cruise that she had a heart attack lol... Way to be optimistic Mom :) and good thing it was after the cruise! She has permission to be a slacker with my blog lol...I will definitely keep you all in my prayers, especially Mom and ask for permission to check my email for information. If something really serious happens or I need to know you can contact my Mission President. I don't know what all to say but I am definitely in a bit of shock and hope it is a minor problem... and not something that will cause more problems. I will work super super hard because I know the more I work and am obedient the more blessed I will be here but also the more blessed you will all be as well. 

So this week, Wendleson was baptized. He is 14 and the brother of Geymeson. He was also baptized in the sea and next week as well we will have another baptism for Eduarda, a 14 year old girl, she is so sweet but very shy. We had a family in our other area here in Paracuru baptized 3 weeks ago and Eduarda is friends with them. We have the Paracuru area split into 2 divisions but this family is so great and I love them and they are already feeding us lunch as members :) Then yesterday Diasis was confirmed. He is the best, he is 40ish and he has such a desire to do good in the world and to become the best he can be! He is so sweet and gave me a book of poems of people in Paracuru that he wanted me to have. The people are just so great! We found new families this week but our problem is getting people to come to church. This week was a bit disappointing because only 1 of our investigators came to church. It is heartbreaking when you work so hard and the people say they will come and then Sunday rolls around, and no one shows :( but I know as we keep working hard and having faith we will continue to have progress and baptisms here :) I have learned so much here already and I only have 3 months in so I am excited for my knowledge , understanding and testimony to grow as I continue on in this journey! :) The language is getting better and working with Sister Alcantara my Brazilian trainer has really helped me to understand the language and to speak better. It is really funny though because like every lesson we teach, people ask her if she is learning Portuguese because she has a bit of a Gringo accent haha... she says before she taught with me no one said this haha so she is picking up my American accent a little lol... My accent is a little stronger I think because in MO we say some words different already and I probably have a little bit of a southern accent to my voice.... It is funny though because she is like I am from Brazil and people think I am learning Portuguese hahahha... Oh and also this week we came home one night ad Sister Sowa and I had dead baby birds sitting on our beds... We took pictures and I know you all are dying to see so I will try to send those soon. But it was so sad and pretty gross! It is because we have birds in our apartment sometimes... they get in through a little hole and they had a nest in our rafters and I guess the babies fell on our beds... poor birdies! It was funny though because Sister Sowa was freaking out about her having a dead bird on her bed and I was laughing and then I entered my room and I had one too haha.. karma lol! Hopefully we won't have more haha! Well I need to get going!! I will be praying for you lots and if you really need to get in touch with me talk to my mission President but I pray nothing will get that serious!! I love you all so much and I am so grateful for this opportunity to serve the Lord and to have the gospel in my life!! We truly have much happiness because of this and are so lucky!! :) I am praying for you all!! :) Love you lots!! :) Tell mom I hope she feels better but to keep being optimistic :) and have faith :)

Muito amor,

Sister Mattei :)

Oi!! :)

I loved the photos!! :) Thanks for sending those!! :) Everyone looks great!! Tell Grandma Happy Late Bday for me when you all return from your cruise!! Tell the Hoyts and Robinsons hello as well! 

So yesterday we had 2 baptisms in the ocean! Geymeson was baptized, the 17 year old boy! :) And Diasis was baptized! :) He is so great and has a huge testimony and he said when Thomas S Monson spoke at conference he knew he was a prophet and wanted to cry! :) He is just so great and he is already giving us references and tells everyone they need a Book of Mormon and need to read it. He is a missionary already! :)

 So this week I started working with Sister Alcantara and she is now my companion, we only have 4 weeks left and I miss working with Sister Sowa but I love working with Sister Alcantara also!! I am understanding a lot more and we can have real conversations and talk as we walk so it has been a blessing! In 2 weeks we have interviews with President Souza and we have to teach him so I hope I do okay! I am a bit nervous but I am sure it will be fine! Oh so funny story, the other day we were teaching a lady and I accidentally said Joseph Smith is our Redeemer instead of a restorer of our church. My trainer smiled and laughed and just gave me this look and I immediately realized what I said. The language is getting better though :) And I am starting to have pretty good regular conversations too and my knowledge is expanding! :) Another funny thing is people here call Sister Twitchell and I dolls lol... because they say look like baby dolls haha! 

Well, I don't have a ton of time to write today but this week was great and an awesome thing about his week was Sister Alcantara and I taught a group of 20 young men the Restoration. They were about to go play soccer and I was like look 20 new people to teach joking around, but she was like seriously we are going to teach them. Not going to lie I was a bit nervous to talk to such a big crowd so she talked most of the time plus speaking in Portuguese really loud is more difficult lol but it was an awesome expereince and who knows maybe they will all be missionaries one day!! :) Oh also on Saturday was the Day for Kids. This is a holiday they have in Brazil! All kids were out eating candy and just having festas on the street. We took some funny pics looking like babies lol! Well I will write more next week but I hope you all had an amazing cruise :) I pray for all of you often and am grateful for your examples and you do for me!! :) Love you lots!! Tell everyone hello for me and remember to count your many blessings and to smile even in the hard times!! :)

Muito amor,

Sister Mattei :)

Oi familia e amigos!! :)

Como esta?? I will keep Mindy in my prayers! I hope everything is okay
with her. I hope you all get over your colds as well soon!! That is
exciting you and Dad will be going on your cruise in less than a
week!! I am so jealous but I am living in another country experiencing
life in a new way so my life is pretty sweet!! :) I do want to go on
another cruise when I return though :) This email will probably not be
super long because I don't have a ton of time today. So we have 2
baptisms this next week with Geymeson and Wendleson. They are both
brothers. Geymeson is 17 years and Wendleson is 14. We thought
Geymeson would be baptized yesterday but I think he wanted to wait and
do it with his brother. We hope the week after this their other
brother Emerson and cousin Nicole will be baptized. They still need to
attend church twice so they are a week behind Geymeson and Wendleson.
They are all ready for baptism though and they have so much faith and
are so awesome!! We will eat lunch today at their house! :) Emerson is
making the food for us!! They are so sweet!! Nicole's mom also is
always buying Sister Sowa and I things for our hair or jewelry and
they like to feed us a lot too. They are all so great!! So earlier
when I was sending this it wouldnt work and it didnt save the whole
thing in the draft so this will be even shorter.Sorry :/ But things
were good this week I will fill you in with the rest next week because
I ony have like 5 minutes! But Conference was great, a bit different
because we were at a member's house and there were about 15 or 20 of us
so I was pretty sweaty haha and trying to focus and pay attention in
Portuguese was pretty difficult but I still took quite a bit of notes
and enjoyed the talks. I cant remember everything I had written about
earlier in my email... but our baptisms next week will be in the ocean
so i am super excited for that! :) Oh so a cool experience Sister
Sowa and I had was we were teaching a lady and I felt impressed to
share a scripture with her and I started reading this scripture in 
Nephi about enduring to the end and Sister Sowa had wanted to share
the same scripture and had flipped to the same page in the Book of
Mormon. It was pretty sweet! Teaching is getting easier and the
language is coming along but I try not to think about it alot and just
try my best and let the Lord do the rest. I want to finish the Book of
Mormon in Portuguese before I am done with training so I have 5 weeks
to finish. I have faith I can and I hope I will be almost fluent by
the time I finish. I really want to just work hard on everything and
be better every day. Each day I try to find a new thing I am grateful
for and something I need to work on.

Well I dont have much time but know I love you all so much and am so
grateful for everything you all do and this opportunity I have to be
here and serve the Lord! No time but much love!! :):)

Sister Mattei :)

Oi!! :) So things have been good this week and things are progressing in our area. I sent 6 photos last week but I guess you all only got 2 :/ Anyway, we have general conference next week so we are trying to get all of our investigators to attend it with us at a member's house. We will be crowded but it will be a great experience! :) Geymeson was not baptized this week because on Sunday he left with his family to go to Fortaleza because his uncle was in a bad motorcycle accident so we are praying for him. But he will be baptized the week after next. His brothers Emerson and Wendleson and cousin Nicole are also planning on being baptized so it will be a pretty exciting day!! :) Their mom said she wants them to be baptized :) She is Catholic but she believes everything we say but I am not sure she is ready for baptism. We are also teaching Nicole's mom and she is very interested. We have had a total of 3 baptisms so far. Opening a new area is not easy when you have no church and few members and the people have never heard of Mormons... A lot of people think with are Evangelical so we have to explain how we are different pretty much each lesson. Lessons are getting easier to teach and the Spirit helps us a lot. The language is getting better but I really want to be fluent by the end of my training in 6 weeks. Oh so weird thing here in Brazil is that for the Word of Wisdom people only cannot drink black tea. So everyone can still drink tea even if it is from a tea plant just not black tea. I find it really strange that the rules are changed in a sense for a different country but it states black tea in our pamphlets we teach from and all the members say tea is fine just not black tea, so fun fact for you!! :) I think Mark actually told me about this but I didn't believe him hahaha!

So our members here are great, all 15 of them lol! They do so much for us and oh to answer your question we usually eat chicken, beef, rice, beans and even pasta :) So nothing too strange but one day we had fish and bananas, that was a bit different. Desserts are different here and I miss our cakes and cookies but they are still really good! I eat all the time I feel like but I haven't gained any weight yet and I hope it stays that way lol!! :) 

So day to day we usually teach about 5 to 8 lessons and we look for new contacts by going door to door. It is more difficult for the old people to understand us but the young people usually can and it is getting better, Sis Twitchell and I just have strong accents haha. I am a Gringa for sure but people are entertained by our mistakes and it always ends in a good laugh!! I still have my crazy moments of laughing until I cry usually when I am tired lol so my Brazilian companion Sis. Alcantara always gets a good laugh and she is like you Americans are locos. haha She is so great!! It is hard at times to understand everything and to communicate the way I like but each day I try to ask questions and get to know her better. We all can joke around a lot more and just talk with each other each night as the language gets easier!! :) I don't have a ton of time but just know I think of all of you often and I am so grateful for this opportunity to serve the Lord and his people. He could easily do his work without missionaries but He gives us this opportunity and the chance to learn more about ourselves and others and His gospel by serving missions. I am always praying for you all and I am learning so much every day!! It is not easy but it is so worth it. I never realized how hard things would be until I was actually here doing it myself. Everyone always says it's not easy and that really sank it when I got to the field and was faced with many trials but Tudo bem!! :)  I love this opportunity!! :) Hope you all have a great enthusiastic week!! :) Remember to always smile and count your blessings!! :) Love you lots!! :)

Oh I received Granny's letters and one from Becky McGinnis! Tell them thanks for me!! They were so sweet and I will send a letter to them next P day!! :) Letters are so nice to receive so I really appreciated it!! :)

Muito amor,

Sister Mattei :)

Tudo bem!! :)

So this email will be a little shorter than the rest so sorry but I have no time to write today :( I am glad to hear everyone is doing okay and that things are well at home!! Things have been really good here this week!! Things are getting easier each day!! :) So our President of our group here ( it isn't even a branch) moved away because he had to take care of some stuff back in Curitiba and his family was like 10 of our members so we currently have 15 members here and we changed our church to a different house. It is really tiny so hopefully we will have a newer place soon!! So my companion is Sister Sowa but most likely after our 6 weeks together in the field are up we will switch it up and I will be with Sis. Alcantara, my trainer for the other 6 weeks of our training since training is 3 months.

So this week I asked 3 people to prepare for baptism and they are all preparing. Geymeson, I think I told you about his last week, will most likely be baptized this Sunday because he wanted a little more time. He is ready though and he is so awesome!! We have some pretty great investigators!! :) Our time for church was 9 am but we changed it to 5 pm now because it fits the peoples' schedules here a lot better so we are hoping more people will come to church with the new change because it is hard sometimes to get people to go to church.

 So people here are baptized in a swimming pool. Pretty sweet. Oh to answer some of your questions Dad. We walk everywhere and we have about 40 investigators with the 4 of us together that are progressing. Some much slower than others but if they are progressing then it is a good thing! :) I live with Sis. Sowa, Alcantara and Twitchell. I am in a room with my trainer, Sis. Alcantara. The typical day is we wake up at 6:30 woo hoo :) and we get ready, exercise and then have personal study for an hour and then training and practicing for 2. We then have language study and go to a member's house for lunch. Here we eat lunch with a member, not dinner.

The members are awesome and we have all gotten super close with all of them since there are only 15! They always are feeding us and helping us with references and teaching! Here, a lot of people don't have a lot of money but there are some really nice houses and people who are more well- off than others but it is a really humble area and the people are really nice. Here, I can still say there are lower, average and higher class but it is mostly lower class living but the people are so happy nonetheless so it is a pretty awesome to see!! 

Well I have no time and I need to get going!! Sorry it is so short! I will continue to answer your questions next week!! Oh and ask Grandma and Grandpa if they ever received my letter in the mail. I sent an email last week too but I sent them a letter in Provo. Well I am always praying for all of you!! Tell everyone I say hello and I love them!! :) Have an awesome week and always count your blessings!! :) I have realized how much I truly have being here in Brazil!! Well I love all of you!! :) Stay safe and take care!! :) Thanks for writing, Dad! :)

Muito amor, 

Sister Mattei :)

Oi familia!! Tudo bem!! :)

So I do not have a ton of time to write because I want to try and send pictures and such so we will see how all this will go!! So how are you all?? It sounds like you all are well and that things are going pretty good!!  It sounds like everyone is keeping´pretty busy!! I am jealous about you and Dad going on a cruise!! I am sure you will have a wonderful time and it will be nice to get away!! Good luck for Grandma and Grandpa taking care of Garrett for a week haha jk i am sure he will behave for them! I hope :)

So each week here gets a little easier and I am progressing in the language!! Understanding at times for me is the more difficult part because people talk so fast and cut off the ends of their words so it can be really difficult to understand but my trainer is awesome!! Oh and to answer Dad's question, there are 4 of us and we split into doubles. Sometimes I teach with my trainer and sometimes I teach with Sis. Sowa or Sis. Twitchell who arrived in the field the same day as me and were my previous companions in the MTC. Teaching alone at first was more scary but all this week our lessons went really well and we were able to understand our investigator's questions. We have a new teen we are teaching and his name is Gameson and we are hoping he will be baptized this upcoming Sunday. Things with Ellison are progressing but more slowly but everyone moves at different rates and as long as they are progressing I am happy! The lesson Sister Sowa and I taught to Gameson though was probably our best lesson yet! The Spirit was so Strong and we were teaching him, his 2 Brothers and his Mom. They were all interested and his Mom agreed with everything we taught as well. Gameson was the only one who attended church this past Sunday though. We have a lesson with all of them again today so I pray it goes well!

So here on P days we get to watch Disney movies!! Pretty sweet huh? :) Last week we watched Rio and Madagascar 3! We all put our beds together and ate popcorn and were in our PJs!! It was relaxing but the work here is so great!! It is hard since it is a new área and we have no chapel and very few members and I don't know the language super well but i wouldn't want it any other way because we learn through opposition and trials!! I learn so much every day!!

Dad, our house is nice and we have fans to keep us cool at night. We get cockroaches a lot and I kill them lol :) Here, there are constantly bugs in people's houses or flies but it feels normal now. The weather is perfect and we live near the beach but not on it. Sister Twitchell and I get stares sometimes because of our hair lol and we are called Barbies lol pretty funny how people react... I am Reading the Book of Mormon in Portuguese which takes a lot of time but it helps me learn about the gospel and the language so it is a blessing!! Well I need to get going but things are good here on the mission and we have spiritual and crazy experience each day!! I can feel our Savior's love more now than I ever have. I hope you all take care and have a great week!! I love you a lot and am grateful for all of you :) Oh I will end with another funny experience!! :) So sister Sowa and I were knocking at doors(clapping) and this one old guy just kept talking and talking about I have no idea what... God, one second and then about George Bush lol... He touched my face and was just a little bit creepy lol... so finally we were able to leave lol... well then later in the day we were knocking doors again and we accidentally did the same guy's house... I thought it looked familiar and then Sis. Sowa was like it is him because she saw him in the house. haha So we ran and hid in the neighbors' doorway hahah... We pretty much ding dong ditched on our mission lol... who would have thought?? We felt a little bad but he really was creepy haha!! Well I hope you all have a great wonderful week!! Tell everyone hello at Kidsplay and all our friends and Family!! Love you all!! :)

Muito amor,

Sister Mattei :)