In Brazil!

(This is from a handwritten letter dated October 19--the day Riley arrived in Brazil.)

Dear Family,

Well, I'm safe and sound down in the Sao Paulo MTC, and this place is about 100x as cool as the one in Provo.  I'm so excited and blessed to be here.  My room is up on the top floor, the 6th (well, 7th actually, but they don't count the ground floor as the first floor.)  It has an amazing view!

So, I guess I'll start from when I last talked to you.  Well, we eventually got on our plane on time, but I had to sit like 3 or 4 rows up from all the other missionaries between two Brazilians.  Scary!  Well, not really, the one was an older lady who was really nice, and spoke English well.  The other guy pretty much slept or watched the movie the whole time.  I was able to get a little bit of sleep, which was a good thing.  The food wasn't very good, but it was nice to eat some things.  Some parts of the flight were bumpy, but overall it was good.  We arrived in Sao Paulo slightly ahead of schedule, shortly before 10.  Well, the 11 or so of us elders all made it through customs or whatever, and we eventually found the people who were picking us up at the airport.  They found us, but whatever.

It was really cool seeing how different the cars here are!  They're all small, and a lot of the French and Italian cars.  Oh!  I meant to tell you, on the way into Sao Paulo airport, as we were descending, out one window, it was city and tall buildings as far as the eye can see, and out the other side, green rolling hills stretching off into the distance.  It's a really beautiful country.  I love it already!  The people are really easy going, but I don't know what they're saying yet.

We got to the MTC late, because it took forever for us to exchange our money.  (Brazil money is really cook by the way.) And we got to have lunch.  It was really good.  This MTC is a lot more laid back than the Provo one.  I like it because I can sing and listen to those hymns again.  We met with the mission pres.  He's a really nice guy.  You got the picture of us with him already.  [We didn't get a picture yet!] Well, we got most the the time today to ourselves, but there's supposed to be 70 more missionaries coming from the Provo MTC next week which is pretty cool.  The only other notable thing we did, was walk around the block that the MTC is.  Which is really cool because on Pdays, we can walk around the neighborhood and talk to the people here and buy things if we need to.  I really can't wait for that too!  We also get to go to the temple on Pdays.  That will be awesome!  And I can email you guys for the first time too.  Pday will be either Tuesday or Wednesday.  FYI, the time here is two hours ahead of New York time.

Well, I love you!  It's awesome here!  I can't wait to learn the language better so I can get out and do the work here!

Love, Elder Woodmansee

PS.  Make sure you write the address EXACTLY the way I told you.

PPS.  There's old VW busses everywhere and old bugs too.  It's funny.  :)