To Melissa's Family and Friends

While Melissa is on her mission her Dad and Mom are posting her letters. I hope that you all enjoy them. Feel free to comment and we will send the comments back to her. Feel free to write to her as well. She can’t accept email from anyone but family but the mission will let her receive snail mail. There is a website www.missionties.com that will print up an email for you and send it to her in Brazil while she is there. It’s a little more than a stamp but she will get the letter in country in a few days instead of 10 days.

Oi! Como vai!? Well, second P-day and its been good so far. We went to the temple this morning expecting it to be exactly like last time...in English and everything...nope. It was in Portuguese. There were so many Brazilians there that it made more sense to do it in Portuguese than in English so we got to use those funny little head sets and listen to it in English. I tried to turn the sound down so that I could listen in Portuguese and I could pick up on some of the stuff, but it was really hard. Everyone here speaks so quickly that it’s hard to pick up on the words that I know. Well, the MTC has been pretty much the same. Yáll have no idea how much I miss you. I think about you every day and sometimes I even cry about it. I don’t know what my deal is cause I have never been like this before. I guess being thrown into a foreign county where I don’t know anyone and no one speaks my language and I only get to talk to the people I know once a week. It’s pretty ridiculous. I know that I’m being blessed for what I’m doing though. We had a devotional yesterday and I swear it was just for me. I’ve been struggling with being happy here. I don’t understand why I feel this way cause I love being a missionary. I guess it’s just been hard with all the change...and so suddenly. Anyway....he talked about how the way to be happy on your mission is to work hard. He said that working hard makes you happy, makes your time go by faster, and serving the lord blesses your family and opens doors for you in the future. Its D &C 118:3 I think where it talks about the apostles. He said he thinks it applies to us too. I think so too.

My relationship with Heavenly Father has strengthened so much. More than I ever thought possible. He’s like my really, really good friend here. I tell him everything and he helps me with anything when I ask. I can feel his love every day and I know he’s watching out for me. He really answers my prayers and blesses me with the things I need. I know the little bit of Portuguese that I know is because of him. There is no way I’d know anything without him. P.S. Missionaries LOVE mail. Seriously. It’s like the best thing cause you can get it any time of the week. I can only reply on Wednesday, but then I can be thinking about what I want to say back.

Oh, something funny that I forgot to tell you last week. Irmão Bolzan is our morning teacher and one of the first days that he taught us he said he had 1 very important rule. No pooping during class. lol. Yeah, that’s right, that’s what he said. He kind of laughed when he said it but he was serious. He hates when he lets the missionaries out to go to the bathroom and then they take 20 minutes to poop. You have got to meet this guy. He’s hilarious. We were trying to convince him to move to America yesterday cause he is having problems with his girlfriends family. I guess they don’t like him for some reason and he was telling us that there really aren’t a lot of people to date around here. We told him that he should move to Utah cause there would be tons of girls to date.

So, Brazilian drivers are crazier than Roman drivers. Seriously! It’s bad. There are motorcycles everywhere and they automatically get the right-of-way. Oh yeah, and pedestrians have no rights here. If you get hit by a car, it’s your fault. Wow. So on the way home from the temple this morning there was this motorcyclist that drove by our bus and I think the bus driver moved over a bit and the motorcyclist had to swerve a bit. So he ended up being behind us. He drove up really fast and kicked the side of the bus. He then went to kick it again and the bus slowed down so he was in front. He pulled over to the side and waited for the bus again to kick it! Then the bus sped up and he kicked the back of the bus and drove on. What the heck? I thought it was crazy and hilarious at the same time. What did he think that was going to accomplish? Seriously. The food here is the same...like every day. Rice and Beans....or beans and rice. There is always some variation of that. Sometimes there are some good things along with it like fried chicken or pasta or lasagna, but oftentimes it’s gross. I think it’s only because it’s in the CTM though....cafeteria food. I’ve heard that it’s much better outside. Also, I was talking to one of the Brazilian sisters the other day and she told me that she worked in Recife for a few weeks and couldn’t ever sleep past 5:30 because it was so hot. She’d wake up soaked in sweat. Gross. I hope it’s not like that for me. Sick. Yeah anyway...I think that’s all I got. I hope you are doing well. I love you so much. I hope to hear from you soon!


This next letter is a personal letter to Melissa’s Mom but it’s so sweet I had to share. I also had to edit a bit.

Mom,

I know your birthday is coming up on Sunday and I wanted to write a letter to you since I haven’t really had the opportunity to get you anything. I love you soooo much… I appreciate all the sacrifices you made for me to be the person that I am today. I still have a lot of work to do on myself but I’m so glad that I know the gospel is true… You are the reason that I’m here....well, sorta. I mean, the gospel is pretty much the reason I’m here haha, but you are the reason that I know the gospel is true and everyone deserves to hear it. Everyone should have the opportunity to hear the gospel. We are all God’s children and he wants us to return to him. The only way we can do that is through the atonement and the gospel. I love you so much. I know this is the true church of Christ. I know that Joseph Smith was called of God to restore the gospel on the earth today and I’m so grateful that he did. Can you imagine if we were still in a state of apostasy? We would all be so confused and lost in the world. I know that President Monson is a true prophet that was called of God and he receives revelation for all of mankind. What would we do without him and the rest of the apostles? We would be in a state of complete confusion. Wow, I’m so glad that I was born into this church because honestly, if I were an investigator right now, I don’t know if I would accept it. I have grown up knowing it was the truth and that is because of you. I owe you so much for what I know. I hope that I can someday repay that debt to you. I hope that you are receiving some sort of blessings for me being here. That speaker at devotional yesterday told us that the best way to show our family how much we love them and to bless them the best way is to serve the lord with our whole heart and work as hard as we can and be as obedient as we can. I hope I can do that because you deserve all the blessings that you get....and more. I love you. I hope this letter isn’t too scatterbrained. I’m feeling a little scatterbrained right now and words are just coming out. I hope you have a great birthday. You’re almost 50 you know? ;) Just kidding.

Love,

Sister Ortolani