April 28, 2010

Hey everybody!How´s evrything going?! Sounds like you´re all staying busy on the farm putting in circles and all the wiring. Keep up the hard work boys and keep helping mom and dad out! That´s so awesome that you called into the relief society presidency! You will do great! I always loved listening to you give lessons in RS. You always had great stories to share with the lessons. You will do a fantastic job on your first lesson as a second counselor :) Chandler is going to PROM?!?!? WHat?! that is so cool! YOu´ll have to send me pictures....he didn´t even email me to tell me the news. HOw did he ask her? That´ll be fun. And i hope he does well playing the piano for the choir, you´ll do great bud you always do! Good luck :) Garrett, sounds like you´re quite the hitter! THat´s awesome you got a Triple!! And it was against othello?! Nice job dude, wish i could be there to see you play, but i´ll be there when you´re in high school and you´ll be 10 times better!! :) Joey...you´re so cute!!! haha i miss saying that to you bud. Sounds like you´re doing really good in baseball too! Keep up the great pitching, i hear you strike out a lot of guys! That´s my boy! And the high school baseball team qualified for districts?? wow, didn´t see that one coming, but good job chandler! HOpefully you guys get a little farther this year than you did last year. Do you think you have any chances? Well I got to shake Elder Russell M. Nelson´s hand and he spoke to all of us missionaries here at the CTM. It was the neatest experience! although when i played called to serve, i totally messed up, i was so stinkin nervous! My hands have never shook so much in my life!!! But the talk he gave was awesome. He talked about missioary work and what we need to be teaching. And he made a great quote, he said, "The Lord uses the unlikely to accomplish the impossible." I thought that was so cool because it made me think that the Lord is using me in a way that someone else maybe couldn´t have done it. I sometimes wonder why i was called to Brasil, but as i keep thinking about it, it just makes me that much more excited to get out to the field and start serving to see the people im going to be serving and the lives that will change because of this gospel. We went proselyting last friday and i just have to say that was one of the best experiences i´ve ever had! OUr district went out around town and i went with two other elders so i wasn´t by myself. The first two ladies we contact seemed really interested, but didn´t take a BoM. I thought for sure they would, we were kind of bummed when they said no, but we kept going. Then about 10 minutes later we´re walking down another street and we see the same two ladies again. They waved at us and we waved back. And then we hear, "sister! elders!" we turn around and it´s the lady we talked to. We went back to talk to her and she said she changed her mind and wanted the BoM. We were so excited! SO we told her a little more about it and how it can bless her and family and to read and pray about it. She was really excited and so were we!! We each got 2 BoM and we all got to give them out. The last one i gave out was really neat. The entire time i was praying that we would find people to give them to and the last one i had to give away we had already been everywhere and i was thinking of where we should go. We were walking through the park and i see these two ladies sitting on a bench adn i said, "i want to go talk to them" So we head over there and we noticed that they had kids too! It was perfect! I started talking to them and told them about the BoM and how it has blessed my life as well as my family´s. They seemed pretty touched and i just bore my testimony that if they read it their lives will be blessed greatly adn that it helps families so mcuh. It was one of the greatest experiences i had and i love it! We go once more before we leave. I have less than 3 weeks here, can you believe it?! i can´t! It has gone by so fast. oh, and i got this worked out now. There´s a bakery across the street and we can print off our emails there so i do that and read my emails that way and then email you so i don´t waste my 30 minutes reading and i can already know what i want to type :) But i have 2 minutes left so i better go. Keep up with everything and sorry jen, chad and trevor i didn´t get an email out to you. BUt i will next week. I wanted to get as much as i could to the email that gets sent out to everyone. I love you all!

love, sister ariana salisbury

Pictures

Hey! haha mom you crack me up! I just misspelled "the" and i didn´t correct it. Everything is going great and this week is gonna be tight! We´re going proselyting this friday and Elder Russell M. Nelson is coming to the CTM to speak to us! I got asked to play the piano for the opening and closing song so that´ll be cool. And we´re also singing in the choir, we´re singing 3 songs. It´s gonna be amazing! I´ve played the piano already for one of the firesides and once for the choir. SO that´s fun :) And yes, i got a letter from Brett a couple weeks ago i think it was and i got the letter from you and joseph. THanks so much! Oh last week was so much fun on P-Day, we went to this brasilian buffet place with one of our teachers and it was amazing! THey had fried bananas which were delicious and all these different types of meats. And i had Frango coroçao (chicken heart) it was SOOO good! I have a new roommate, sister andrews from moses lake! And she knows the bergesons, madie, brian, tanae, the whole family! Crazy huh?! I´ve also met some elders from the tri-cities, i remember one from cbc. THere´s an elder stock and an elder mitchell. THere´s quite a few others from tri-cities too and some from spokane and yakima. It´s been so much fun and this week has been a lot better! THe language is starting to come a little easier now and i can understand it and carry on a conversation a little better. We had our zone leader come in talk to us about pronunciation. This was back a couple weeks ago, but he was saying that portugues is so much easier to learn over having to go from portugues to english and he wrote this word and the board and asked us how to say it...Ghoti....we pronounced it the way it looks. But he said it´s pronounced "fish". Gh as in rouGH, o as in wOmen, ti as is naTIon. IF that makes any sense, but it was pretty crazy the stuff that he taught us. Anyways, thanks so much for all you love and support. I love you guys so much! I´m gonna try to attach some pics so hopefully you get them. I´m so grateful for this gospel and the blessings that we can receive. And the Book of Mormon is such a blessing to us. We can learn so much from it, i´ve started reading it again and i want to finish before i leave the CTM. I´m only in mosiah, but im gonna make it! Well i gotta get going, the church is true!

love sister ariana salisbury

alright so the pics....some are from provo and the others are here in brasil. I think you can tell which ones are which. Oh and the one of me eating is me eating chicken heart :) And the one with me and the elders at the table is at the brasilian buffet place i was telling you about. And the one at the buffet with me and two elders, their names are Elder Perez and Elder Bills...we´re great buddies :) haha But the whole district is awesome, we all get along really well.

Basketball Skills

Jande,
That is awesome! thanks so much and yeah i can access the blog :) it looks great! Haha tell the kids thanks for praying for me. I really appreciate it, I´m so grateful for all that you and your family has done for me. You guys are great. Oh and you´ll be happy to hear i´m doing quite well and taking after you on the basketball court :) Haha we play ultimate bump/revenge i dunno there´s lots of different names for it, but anyways. It´s me and like 15 other elders that play and i´ve gotten down to the final two quite a bit, haven´t won yet, but it´s so much fun and the elders have given me a nickname..."The Black Widow" haha cuz i usually take everyone out. I tell em i take after my sister in basketball ;) But it´s lots of fun. Well i better get going i still need to email mom and the family, im gonna try to send some pics today so hopefully you can get some on the blog. Love you guys!
love ariana

Sao Paulo Temple

Greetings from Brazil,

Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Elder Pratt. My wife and I are serving as senior missionaries here in São Paulo, Brazil. One of our favorite assignments here is serving in the Branch Presidency at the MTC where your son/daughter are currently being prepared for their missionary service in Brazil. It is a joy to work with them. Their district is doing exceptionally well and you can be very pleased with how they are progressing, learning and growing in the gospel. Sister Pratt and I are very proud of them.

On their P-day, your daughter has the opportunity nearly every week to attend an English speaking session at the São Paulo Temple. We frequently have the privilege of attending with them. I have enclosed a couple of photos taken there last Wednesday.

Your love, support and encouragement in the letters you send them each week are so very important to their well-being. Thank you for the support you give them; and thank you for sending your son/daughter off to serve the Lord for this time in Brazil. They are already loving it, and will love it even more as they begin working with and teaching the wonderful people here.

Warmest Regards,

Elder Pratt

April 14, 2010

Hey everybody!

I got the letter from mom and joseph the other day. It was good to hear from you guys! And the language is coming a long a little better now. ALthough yesterday afternoon during class all of our heads were about to explode because we were learning imperfect subjuntive and we all got mixed up with that, passive voice and present subjunctive. We were going crazy, literally. Haha but it´s all good, i feel like im learning a lot better now. THe food is still pretty good and the other night we got hamburgers! THey weren´t quite like american burgers but they did us justice :) We got to take pictures in front of the temple today with our district so you´ll be getting a picture from my branch president sometime within the next week or two. ANd yeah you can send pictures, the ones you sent look great! The only thing is depending on teh size of teh picture it sometimes takes awhile to load. But these ones that you sent popped right up so that was good. My leg is doing fine, the only thing is sometimes it´s a little tender when i bend my leg, but that only once in awhile. I´m doing fine though, don´t worry. I play on it and everything in basketball adn volleyball. ANd hey, tell chandler i´ll email him personally, but probably not today cuz once again i don´t have much time. Well i better get going. I love you all and it´s good to hear from all of you. Thanks so much for all your love and support!

love sister ariana salisbury

April 7, 2010

Alright just FYI mom, i only get 30 minutes on the computer to respond to emails and you´re giving me 1000 questions to answer...sorry if i don´t get them all answered haha. So this past week went alright, a little better than last. And the solo sister thing pretty much im the only sister that came in at the time that was as far as i was. Like stephanie is a week behind me so she´s in a different district. I was getting a little brown, the only problem is we´re in class 24/7 it feels like and we get to go around town on pday, its raining right now though so hopefully it stops so we can get out for a little while. We to the temple again today. I guess they changed the schedules so all teh brasilians go on thursdays and the americans go on tuesdays and wednesdays so we´re gonna be able to go every week now. And today was really neat, i knew grandma and rochelle were there with me today. It felt like they were there just giving me a big hug. I didn´t want to leave. And the reason they don´t want us taking pictures cuz they don´t want it to get too out of hand and rowdy outside and if cameras come up missing they don´t want to have to deal with it. And im fine without a raincoat we´re rarely outside so its fine. And all i really needed was shampoo and conditioner and it was about the same price as i would pay there, it was actaully a bit cheaper. We watched conference in english, it was so good! It was all really focused on families and the atonement. It was so neat, i loved it. That´s sad to hear lindsay had a miscarriage, hope she´s doing ok now though. Um on pdays we go to the temple, write letters, check email, laundry and whatever else we need to do. Well sorry i really gotta go i have like 40 seconds. I love you guys and i´ll write again soon! love sister salisbury

Letter to Jande

Hey! thanks so much for the pics!! The kids are so adorable! ah i miss them. So the size of the pics must be pretty big cuz when i clicked on the links it totally blew up and filled the entire page. Haha they are so cute! Oh so funny story. When i first got here, they said say one word that you know in portuguese, and i yelled out paralarapipido!!! haha it was great, they loved it :) And yeah you think a week seems like forever...spend an entire day here you feel like you´ve been here for an eternity! But its lots of fun, i have a great district, all the elders are hilarious. We have good times. And thanks for the encouragement! i need it, the language is pretty tough, but i´ll get it eventually. Well i gotta go, i miss and love you guys too!love sister rana mana :)

March 31, 2010

Oi!!
Well just to let you know my pday is wednesday and that´s the only day i can check my email. Well everything is going pretty good i guess, but the language is kicking me in the behind. I had to teach my first lesson yesterday in portuguese to my teacher and i was on the verge of crying cuz i didn´t know what to say. I said some stuff in portuguese, but it´s hard to know exactly what to say and especially when you don´t know a whole lot of words. But hopefully it gets better, just keep me in your prayers please! Well i really like my district it´s me and 10 other elders haha but they´re awesome, i love em all. And i really like my teachers. That´s crazy with all the connections to President and Sister Clark. I actually think Tyler casper told me that awhile back. Small world. Well i love it here in Brasil (i´ve noticed that dad is the only one that spells BraSil right) haha it´s spelt with an "s" not a "z" but anyways, it is absolutely gorgeous here and Sao Paulo is HUGE. I would get so lost here. And the CTM is right in the middle of everything, it´s not even what i imagined and it´s really small compared to provo. I went to the sao paulo temple today, it´s so pretty! I wanted to take pictures but we´re not allowed to. They have a distribution center here too. As far as the weather goes...love it! It´s rained here a ton already and when it rains, it pours! It´s awesome, and the heat isn´t too bad now im used to it. But when i first stepped off the plane i thought I was going to die. And i wasn´t even in Fortaleza and it´s gonna be 10 times hotter!!! Um for emails you can all right your own, but depending on my time i might not be able to email everyone so the letter i send to you or dad, just let everyone read it cuz i don´t wanna have to rewrite everything again. Plus i don´t have enough time. The food is pretty good here, but some of the time we´re not sure what it is really....so we don´t ask and just eat it haha. THe bread here though, oh my heavens it is soooo good. I could honestly live off of that, but i´d put quite a few pounds on if i did that. for gym we play volleyball and it is so fun! The first time i played was with some brasilian elders and they were saying i was a pro haha but they were really good too! Sounds like it´s gonna be a busy week on the farm, too bad im not there to help haha chandler gonna have to pick up the slack ;) well everyone i gotta go my time is just about up. Boys just a little advice...read your scriptures!!! And it would help as a family to study Preach My Gospel. You boys are gonna have to know that REALLY well and it would be a plus if you know it before you come on your mission, especially if you have to learn a language. Well i gotta go, sorry i can´t write more but my time is up. Love you guys!

love, ariana

p.s. chandler, can you do without that white wall charger for your ipod? since you have my laptop you can charge it that way. if you can, have mom send it to me if she ever sends a package. I don´t need it right away, but sometime. Or you could send garretts black one that way you can use the white one for both of you cuz it has 2 plug ins. I don´t need the cord though, i have mine...i think lol

p.s.s. it would be nice to get letters in the mail too during the week, it would give me a boost :) cuz i only get to check this once a week.

and can you give clyde´s my address, i don´t think i gave it to them. thanks!