(Okay, here is the final letter we received from Carissa this week.  She doesn't date her letters so this  actually may have been the first one she sent off!)


Hey Guys,

It's my first letter!  Everything is crazy we have been going ever since we landed.  Exchanged currency, classes, meeting tons of missionaries.  Its really cool because I am in threesome and one of the sisters is going to Porto Alegre North and we have a mutual friend from BYU-I.  My other companion is from Alaska.  But so far we are having a good time together.  When we finally had some spare time to unpack we got a ton done and then about 3 hours before bed they told us we had to move rooms because the bathroom is leaking onto the floor below.  So that's been  quite the adventure.

We also got to walk around Sao Paulo in the area near the CTM.  And we can go shopping here and they have everything (except the ACT).  So I don't think I'll be needing you guys to send anything.

So far the food has been very different.  We had pizza tonight and its very different from our pizza; lots of fruit and they don't use tomato sauce.  But the fruit is soooo good!

Well its going to be interesting trying to learn Portugese but I already love it here.  While we walked around today it was fun to see the differences.  Some parking spaces are in the store.   And the roads are very uneven.

On the flight here I sat next to a Brazilian woman who had been in Georgia for two months studying English.  She was a lot of fun to talk to.  Well I'm really tired.  I'll see if I have time tomorrow to write before I mail this off.  But if things go like they did today, probably not.  So I love you guys and hope everythings good.

Love y'all,
Sister Carissa Bradley

Oh and I'm now pretty sure I'm here for 9 weeks although no one's told us for certain and I'm not sure when my P-day will be.  But really not that much has happened just some basic orientation classes, we watched a "mock investigator meeting" and talked about genuinely caring and being concerned with people's lives..  And Thursday night (tomorrow) we'll get to teach our first "investigator".  Luckily this one is in English but our instructor said after we're gonna need to start using more Portugese.  But we really haven't done much studying, just have what the other missionaries have taught us in the cafeteria.