better late than never?!

so much for blogging on a regular basis...but better late than never, right?....

so i won't even try to summarize a month's worth of activities. but lemme just say, i've never been happier. i'm so happy that i've chosen to stay here in brazil for an extra semester...that's right, until next december. i'm super happy with this decision. i feel as though God has a lot of sweet things in stores, and leaving in 4 1/2 months doesn't allow time for things to unfold as they should. for example, i've recently started a prayer/accountability/bible studying group with some of my american friends. we've had 3 weekly meetings thus far. last week i was talking to my "cousin" (my host brothers' cousin) who goes to my university. he was stoked because God's placed on his heart the desire to start a similar group at our school (called PUC.) so we're going to start this group together...exciting opportunity, as it's a Catholic university and there aren't any evangelical student groups. wahhh!!!!! it'll be great to get it up and running this semester, and continue next semester too.

i have so many awesome friends here. most of my brazilian friends are from the "academia" -the gym- i go to. i've quickly found that actually working out is my second priority when i go to the gym. my first is spending time with the people there. for example, i usually spend 2 (sometimes more) hours at the gym, and work out for about 50 minutes. my best friend there is a boy named Betinho...the most adorable person i've ever met in my entire life. he's 19, and is obsessed with learning english. in order to learn he reads old Charlie Brown comics during the afternoon, and when i come in asks me about words he doesn't understand. today, we were practicing his numbers. while i was doing crunches, he counted for me in english. not a very effective workout - i spent half of the time rolling on the floor laughing. i tried to tell him 38192038 times that fifteen is not "five-teen" and "thirty one - nine" is not "thirteen one - nine." also cool - today the owner of the gym, Gian, asked me to teach his five year old daughter english. i'm getting together with her wednesday morning! i'm sooo excited, it's bound to be fun =). a good opportunity to bless a little girl's life.

anywho, i'm tired. i'm going really try to update this regularly. just to share what God's been teaching me....
-spend time with people to show them that you love them
-meet and befriend people everywhere you go...ex. gym, PUC bookstore -the lady knows me as the Pretty Girl Who Doesn't Know Anything...referring to my lack of portuguese skills
-don't take yourself too seriously and have fun with challenges...God's especially shown my this through my difficulties with the language. for instance, i've gotten laughed at innumerable times by strangers because of my ridiculous accent. God's shown me to just go with the flow, and enjoy the process of learning
-being in another country and culture is no excuse for disobeying His rules...this has been a struggle for me, especially with the accessibility to alcohol and the lack of accountability i'd normally received from friends in the States. along with this, He's shown me that there's no "grey area"...meaning that if it's not "white" it's "black."

finally, if you think of it, please pray for my prayer group and for the opportunity for me to bless other people.

i'll update in a couple days!
love you and miss you, *ali*