Message from Sam

How is everybody doing? I am having so much fun here and I have so much to tell you. Brazil is awesome! It is so pretty and Sao Paulo is the biggest city I´ve ever seen. I’ll send you some pictures next time when I have more time.

The plane ride was crazy. I´ll tell you a little about that. There were 18 of us total and we arrived in NYC fine. The 6 hour layover was way long. The flight was delayed for three hours until they told us it was cancelled. We called the church number we were supposed to and the lady said that the airline would arrange for transportation to a hotel for the night and then bring us back to a rescheduled flight in the morning. People were shoving and fighting to get a seat so only about 6 of us got a ride to the hotel when the vans just stopped coming. The airline said that there were no more vans that would be provided. We called the church number again and she was able to get us on a flight but we would have to go to the desk to get our boarding pass. We were going to go on a 6:03 am flight and by then it was almost 4:00.

We hurried and got in line for our boarding pass and we had to wait an hour and forty five minutes. We grabbed our bags and had 15 minutes to get our bags checked and go through security. Also we were having to fly on American airlines which was 7 terminals away. We took the air train and got there 10 minutes later and saw a line even bigger than the last one. Some nice people in the front let us go in front of them but (this is the best part) they said that there was a mixup between airlines and delta didn’t give us the right electronic ticket and they wouldn’t be able to give us our boarding ticket.

So basically we went through all of that for nothing. Long story short we got a 10:00 am flight. This also got delayed but only for an hour and at least it wasn´t cancelled. We flew to Atlanta for a 2 hour layover and then straight to Sao Paulo. I was only able to sleep for a few hours on the plane so I was exhausted. We saw all the lights of Brazil on the flight there and it was so beautiful. We landed at 2:00 am on Thursday morning and didn’t have any problems getting through customs. A nice Japanese couple met us at the airport and brought us to the CTM.

My companion is an awesome guy. He went to the ROTC and is a little shy but he’s very nice. My district is so cool. We all get along and all of us that went through the airport trouble are best friends now. The food we have is good but I´m already sick of rice and beans. I´ll just have to get used to it. There is ice cream here. It’s not as sweet as yours but hey at least it’s ice cream.

I’m so excited to learn Portuguese. I’m starting to understand it better when Americans speak but when a Brazilian talks to me I have no idea what they’re saying. Today I got to go to the Campenas temple. It was an hour and a half drive there so I got to see some more of the city. The temple is very beautiful. Next week I’ll try to figure something out with pictures. I’m not allowed to take a camera out of the CTM gates because once someone gets mugged or shot they lock down the gates and no one can leave and if everyone left the CTM with a camera, we would be a big target for thieves. So I´ll need to find a place I can just bring my memory chip to.

I got all your emails thank you. I’m glad my room is being put to good use. I miss you all but I´m having so much fun here. I´ve already been blessed so much. Don´t worry about me at all. I´m having a great time and learning a lot. I´ll keep each and every one of you in my prayers. Take Luck! and keep me updated what’s happening at home. I love you all!!

Elder Fowler