Miles comes home in one month! I'm so excited and started getting a to-do list together. It's funny to talk to him now on P-days. At the beginning of his mission he was humble about his lack of language proficiency. But so curious and excited about all the things that were cool and different about Brazil.
He's definitely changed in that he speaks Portuguese fluently now and it is easy for him.
Brazil in general is just kinda normal to him now. I was laughing because we were talking to him for awhile yesterday and we asked him about his week. He met his new president. Spent a lot of time on exchanges and traveling. And at the end of the conversation he casually mentions that he has four baptism this weekend.
He has definitely had a few ups and downs. But for the most part it's been up! Each apartment in the mission has a water filter. But Miles was seeing some little black dots in the water tank. So he took the whole thing apart and found out the filter was full of worms. Yikes. So they threw it in the trash, but sadly they noticed someone took it out of the garbage. His comp and the other missionaries living in the house all got super sick and had to be treated at the hospital for parasites and other things. The one Brazilian was fine so I guess he had immunity to whatever made them sick.
I've made a shopping list of things he will probably need when he gets home. And church shoes are on them since mission shoes are pretty trashed. And he has developed a new sense of the value of money. He can't bear the thought of me spending $100 on a pair of shoes. He's insisting he buys some in Brazil and brings them home.
So our good friend from our neighborhood is from Brazil. Miles served in the same area she lived in. And she said that she grew up in Brazil and never once saw a toucan unless it was at the zoo. Miles has seen a handful. And I just have this little superstition that it's my dad watching over him.
My dad loves Latin America. He started learning Portuguese for his job. He loved his mission. And now three of his grandsons are serving at the same time in South America. Of course my dad is watching over them!
But then I was looking through my childhood photos, of which there aren't many of my dad and I. Film was expensive, developing pictures was expensive. I'm the fourth child. We didn't have a ton of photos. But I found this one and it made me tear up. But to me the toucan has become a symbol that he is watching out for my boy while he's thousands of miles away from me. And this photo just reinforced that!
