As a missionary serving in the country of Brazil I had the opportunity to learn the national language, Portuguese. It was by no means an easy task! As I first arrived to Brazil I spent 2 months in the busy city of Sao Paulo in a missionary center called the MTC (Missionary Training Center) where I was taught the Portuguese language. After the 2 months I knew more than the average American but I was by no means fluent. Ready or not I was sent to do the service as a Missionary with my limited vocabulary. As weeks turned to months I found myself slowly making progress with the language. I found myself being able to understand more and more what the native Brazilians were saying and I was slowly being able to communicate with them....sometimes it was better than others. One of those instances where it didn't turn out so great happened while I was serving in a small little town called Pocoes. In this area the members of the church were in charge of feeding us lunch everyday and making sure we were getting fed and nourished well. The missionary I was working with in this area, my companion, was Brazilian so whenever the church members needed information they always went to him rather than the new American who had a more difficult time communicating and I honestly can't blame them. Well one day after our church services a woman in the church had a question but saw that my companion was busy, she then turned to me as the 2nd option. She started to talk as I listened intently doing my best and hoping that I would understand her. As she talked I was very happy to realize that by the time she was done I had understood her completely and knew what she had asked me. She was curious if we had lunch scheduled that day and wanted to know what our plans were. Knowing the day before that we didn't have a lunch scheduled me and my companion had gone to the grocery store and bought noodles to make spaghetti and pasta for our lunch. I looked at the woman who had asked me about our lunch situation and prepared to answer her question. I told her that we didn't have lunch scheduled with a member that day but it was okay because we had noodles in our house that we were ready to use. I thought I had answered the question perfectly but the look on this woman's face worried me that I had not. One of the problems that I had with the language was switching words in the language that had a similar sound but very different meanings. I meant to tell her we had noodles in our home, the Portuguese word for noodles is "macaron" but instead of using this word I used the word "maconha" which is the Portuguese word for Marijuana. This nice woman of the church had asked if we had lunch to eat but I told her no but that it was okay because we had gone out and bought a bunch of Marijuana that was waiting for us at our house. It wasn't until my Brazilian companion came over and helped sort out the situation and let the church members know that the men their representing Jesus Christ didn't have a bunch of joints waiting for them to go home and smoke.
-Garrett Hadley
Brazil Salvador South Mission
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