Elder Joshua Sheffield

OI BOM GIA!!  So much has changed this week. Last Monday I was in New York boarding a flight and now I’m in the middle of Brazil with palm trees out my windows. Sao Paulo is Amazing! You look out towards the horizon and the skyscrapers just go on forever. We talk almost exclusively in Portuguese and Its so good to actually be surrounded by people who speak the language you are learning. We get to walk around the city outside of the C.T.M (Brazil MTC). and go buy food. The people and the culture is so great. We can hold a conversation in Portuguese alright and order food pretty well, but we mostly just say good morning and hello to everyone we see. I wish I could take more pictures but they don’t want us to take our cameras out and look like tourists. They dropped us off in a busy downtown street of Brazil and we got to talk to people walking down the street we met some really nice people and had some good long conversations as best we could. Everyone turns and looks at us w...

24 July 18 Boa Tarde minha Familia  Last night we got on our 11 hour flight and left America through New York. We made it to Brazil at 10ish a.m. and I am in the Brasil MTC now. It ’ s honestly not too hot but it ’ s humid. The computers are all in Portuguese and so everything is autocorrecting to Portuguese (definitely doesn ’ t help my spelling). It ’ s stepped up everyone speaking Portuguese.  I understand a lot and can get my point across but its still crazy. In the city of Sao Paolo the building and skyscrapers go on forever like a jungle of cement buildings tall and small. Where there aren ’ t buildings and along the canals, there are a jumble of palm trees and shrubs like a jungle of well … a jungle. Everything is packed together and built on top of each other. Graffiti art is really big in Sao Paulo, so every surface is covered in colorful spray paint. At the MTC we don ’ t have very much email time and we can ’ t send pictures so I ’ ll send another email ...

Ola meu familia!!! So the weeks are going by so fast, and yet it feels like I’ve been here for so long already. SO much happens everyday. I have to think about what happened this week. Some new Portuguese missionaries came this week so we are no longer the newest kids on the block. One of the elders went to Highland High School and a couple of the sisters I already knew because they went to BYU this last year. A good friend of mine Savannah Neal is in our group now and she is heading to Brazil as well. I got called down to the front desk and they sent me over to the travel service desk and then I was informed that I GOT MY VISA! I leave a week from today to the Brazil mission training center. I’m so excited and so anxious. Now I have to learn so much more Portuguese so fast because I will be completely surrounded Portuguese speakers. The downside is that I can’t get anymore packages in the Mission Training Center once I leave. I've really gotten a lot closer to the people in my ...

11 Jul 18 MY VISA CAME!!!  I'm so excited! I was told to go to the mission office this afternoon and when I got there, they handed me my flight plan! I will be heading to Brazil on July 23rd at taking off at 11:00. I'm sad I’m leaving the zone and leaving all these people here.  I'm on the plane with 4 other missionaries Elder Emmett, Sister Lindsey, Sister Walstad and Elder Smith. I feel so nervous about having to speak Portuguese all of the time now I’m excited to be forced to learn faster.   The ones that got their visa's and I will be traveling with to Brazil Highs- -I'm heading to Brazil Lows- -Its going to actually be real now TEAMO  -Elder Sheffield I loved you’re email hopefully you got mine. I can’t talk for long but tudo bem everything is good That sounds like a crazy trip everything is just falling apart without me its fact. I’m so jealous of Andrew going to the farm and Elder Ramsy is going to love the zone. My compan...

9 Jul 18 Ola!!!  Its my first P-day of the mission and I am so glad it is here! It feels like I've been here for a month already. I'm sad I’m not in Brazil yet but all in all the Provo MTC is great. This week has been so good and so tiring. We have two language three hour classes a day and they are exhausting, speaking Portuguese is hard but I love it. The Zone I’m in is the Romanians the Italians and the Portuguese speakers. The Elders I room with are really cool guys. They all just got out of high school so I feel like the old one of the group. The Elders I share a room with Elder Jones, Elder Smith, Elder Sorenson, Elder Emitt, and Elder Finlinson are all really nice. My companion is  In Portuguese a common phrase is Tudo Bem? It mean "Everything good" and its the question and the answer, so whenever anyone shouts, Tudo Bem? all of us yell back TUDO BEM! (sounds like "to-do ben") We have learned so much Portuguese in just the few days we've bee...

Dad and the brothers (Sam, Nate, Andrew and Jacob) 5 JULY 2018 Elder Sheffield is heading to the Provo MTC. His original plans were to fly to Brazil on July 2 to the Sao Paulo CCM, but his VISA didn't arrive. So Provo it is. He is giddy with excitement none-the-less. And we had Five Guys burgers and fries to send him off. And then said goodbye on the Provo Temple grounds across the street from the MTC. Dad, Mom and the excited missionary Big sis got him packed, organized and filled him in with what to expect.