Straight outta São Paulo

What´s gucci and Tudo Bem?!? This week was so fun and way less stressful than last. So first of all, São Paulo drivers are crazy! There are literally no rules, and in one lane of traffic there could be a motorcycle, longboarder, and giant SUV all side by side. Motorcycles weave in and out and there are THOUSANDS of them everywhere. #squadgoals #fastandfurious8. Anyway, on Thursday, all of the new missionaries went to the police station to do something for our visas. We needed our IDs and our passports were locked up at the CayTayeMay (CTM but portuguese ya know), and I left my TX drivers license at home so I really needed my passport for this procedure. They told me a man named Diego would be bringing our passports, and long story short, Diego got in a MOTORCYCLE ACCIDENT IN THE RAIN!!! Poor Diego!! He´s okay!! But we didn´t hear from him for an hour, our drivers ditched, and everyone else had to go upstairs, so my companheira and I j chilled for a long time... we couldn´t communicate with anyone effectively in charge because we had not learned the correct words in Portuguese yet, and there were tons of people in handcuffs just walking in and out with police officers of course. It was a good time!! Diego finally made it, and I did not get
deported!!

Ok so I have a problem, all of the wild dogs here are so cute!! I want to pet them all, but apparently they´ll bite you! Such a dilemma. I don´t know how it got to this point, but one time during exersize I went "ruff!" and all of these dogs barked back!! It was so cool! I have a gift!!

Also, Gabolice in Portuguese means swag, but it´s not a thing in Brazil at all. Most of the Brazilians have never heard it and I have to show them in the dictionary, but they still don´t really get it until I tell them about the Justin Bieber song that says "3,2, Swag" and "swaggggie" and they´re like OOOHHHH gabolice!!! S/o Justin Bieber for helping me make new friends.

Last Wednesday we had to take our "dork dots" off our name tags (colored dots on our tag that indicate we are newbies or first weekers), so naturally Presidente Swenson would walk up to my row and ask me to say a prayer in front of the CTM in Portuguese! I was shaking, but I´m glad I could get over that fear because I´ll be doing it all day everyday!

My district great! Everyone is so hilarious, and I´m glad I´m surrounded by people that make me laugh 25/8. The only bad news of the week is that we´re splitting! I´ll miss my seeeesters soooo much! The only people that have to go are a sister companionship, and one Elder from a trio! Our district is so tight, and we´re all really sad to be breaking up. I really do have so much fun here, and all of language training, exhaustion, and overall life adjustments have been made so much easier with God´s help. I´ve noticed in the moments when I do get upset, I´ve felt an outpouring of love from Heavenly Father. This is where I´m supposed to be! I love you all! Have the best week! xoxo


...other comments Mallory made in separate emails....

...We just got back from the Sao Paulo temple. The inside is amazing! Stained glass everywhere... it didn´t look like real life. For some reason when I walked in to the celestial room it reminded me of walking in and seeing you and dad and ....

...I say obrigada to everything!! I've almost forgot  the English word 'thank you.'  It´s also getting harder to say prayers in English. I play volleyball every day too!! My arm is sore from serving.  Someone told me I have to start under-handing my serve because they were coming in too fast.   In my head I was like `" I'm sorry I thought this was volleyball???"