I've been tirelessly looking for international internship opportunities over the last few weeks. Over and over again I keep seeing internships in Argentina that require Portuguese as well as Spanish, because I'd be working as a bridge between several Argentine NGOs and some Brazilian NGOs. So, of course, I got right to work learning Portuguese as fast as I can.
I'd say I'm pretty much conversational in Portuguese. It's so incredibly similar to Spanish and Italian that when I speak it I can guess words I don't know, and 80% of the time I'm right. I have lots of Brazilian friends here at BYUI that I drink Mate with, and I always practice my Portuguese with them, and I read the Liahona and the Book of Mormon in Portuguese, so I've been picking it up pretty fast.
The greatest resource for learning any language, though, is the internet. I decided that I wanted to get onto some Brazilian chatrooms to talk to random Brazilians in order to improve my conversation skills. I found a certain website from Brazil that's a videoconference chatroom; in other words, it's just like a chatroom, but with webcams and microphones, so you can see and hear the people you're talking to, instead of just typing. I logged on, and saw that there was only one other person in a certain chatroom. I decided to sign into that one to talk to that person. You'll never guess who I saw looking back at me when I signed in...
The missionaries!
Two sister missionaries were there, in that chatroom! They immediately asked me, "Hey! Have you ever heard of our church?" in Portuguese. I responded, "Yes! I'm a returned missionary!" They were really excited to have found a member on that site, and they told me "Perfect! Can you help us teach the next people that log on?"
I looked past them and saw that they were in a large room full of missionaries, all on computers. They told me that they were in Boston, serving an internet mission. Their job was to preach the gospel through social media. One of the sisters was from Chile, and the other from Texas.
Soon, two guys logged on, one from Sao Paolo and the other from Colombia. Together with the sisters, I started teaching them about the temple that they had seen in Sao Paolo, and about the Book of Mormon, all in Portuguese. It was so incredibly cool to be able to teach a lesson with the missionaries over the internet! A Chilean and a Texan teaching a Brazilian and a Colombian with a guy in Idaho. Technology is amazing! I gave those sisters my phone number, and the next time they're teaching someone on that site, they'll text me and I'll log on to help them. I love our church and the missionaries!
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