yummy :-)

So I just finished my first week of college! I am going to Pitagoras, a private college here in Belo Horizonte, studying nutrition for one semester before I come home. I won’t get credit for the classes I am taking here, my grades won’t count, but I am really liking just learning! I am taking Anatomy, Physiology, Composition of food, and Technical Dietetics. Physiology is hard. Its really difficult to understand because I haven’t had much chemistry or other foundational classes yet. But Anatomy is great! It is so interesting and I understand almost everything! My teachers are great too. So far at least. I have two classes per day so I get out of school at 11:10 every day. I get up at 6:30 every day grab a buss at 7:15ish to start school at 7:30.

Well this last weekend was probably one of the best weekends that I have had here so far! I went to my first host family’s house with three of the my exchange student friends Verena (Germany), Sophie (France), and Gracia (Mexico) to make a big lunch of authentic food from our home countries. We arrived there Friday evening and just hung out with everyone. We stayed up really late, of course, talking about all sorts of things. After a short night of sleep, Saturday morning I woke up at 8 am to make pancakes for everyone for breakfast! As I was cooking away, people started to wake up and drowsily make their way to the kitchen. They started making fruit salad and setting the table. 9 am, we all sat down to eat. Everyone loved the pancakes! Right afterwards we all jumped into Angela’s (my first host mom) car to run to the local super market. We had a big list of all the foods we needed to buy. We took pictures and videos while we searched and found almost everything we were looking for (chocolate chips don’t exist here…neither do tortilla chips…lame sauce…). When we got back home we didn’t stop cooking until 2 pm. It was such a great time. Everyone was cooking a specialty food from their country, talking, and having tons of fun while taking random pictures and videos of everyone. We all laughed so much! Verena and Sophie set a beautiful table with flowers and folded napkins. And then the final product! Burritos, refried beans, and guacamole (really spicy guacomole…which apparently wasn’t spicy at all for our Mexican… :-D ) from Gracia, Quiche Lorraine from Sophie, tomatoes stuffed with German black bread and cream cheese sauce from Verena, and backed potatoes and chocolate chip cookies from me (not to mention the pancakes from the morning). We sat down to a FEAST! The food was incredible! It was an amazing time to experience a little part of home but at the same time learn and taste the cultures of the other exchange students! Not to mention that it was with some of my best friends!

That night I went to church with my friend Alberto! It was truly amazing. Just worshiping with other Christians and talking and hanging out with them was an amazing experience. I have been feeling very exhausted, worn out, and unmotivated in life, and my spiritual life. Just the worship was so uplifting. I didn’t want it to stop. I didn’t realize until then how much I had missed church, worship, Christian fellowship. Afterwards I met a bunch of people and talked with them for a while. Everyone was saying how great my Portuguese was and it was a great encouragement. I guess you could say I am fluent at this point. I understand almost everything and can speak fairly well. It’s not like I speak like a Brazilian, but I am dreaming in Portuguese, thinking in Portuguese, understanding at least the main idea of everything that I listen too, and am able to hold normal conversations. Well after church I hung out with a group of the people from church and they were so great! They are so friendly and asked for my number so we can do more things together. Next Wednesday I am going to Alberto’s cell group. I am really excited. God really brought this to me at the perfect time. I am going to try to start going to church every Saturday, at least all that I can, and also to cell group, and whatever other thing that is going on with the people at church! It is just refreshing to be around like minded people! Praise the Lord! He is so good! :-D


-Hope