Kiley's first email-August 11, 2009

Wow! It has been an adventure! miss you all SOOO much! This email is going to be kind of scattered because I am trying to hurry. I am at this place called Mr. Cheneys cookies and I am going to send something about joining missionties, I think it is 10 dollars and they scan our letters in or email you so they get there in 2 days, and you can write to me on missionties.com and it will get to me in the mail (they print it off and take it to the mtc) in like 1 day! So that would be really nice so that it doesnt take weeks to get the letters. Pday is tuesday, so I will get to email every week. The flight over was good, I only cried a little at the airport! This city is crazy huge! It has been nice weather, like 75-80 but today it is like 68ish and kinda rainy. Our teachers are really cool! They are brazilllian and reallly funny and are returned missionaries and kind of know english. Brother Bonofacio, and Sister Erika. The food is... interesting. I think they try to make us happpy by having some american food. We had hot dogs once, and french fries twice! Pasta, and chicken nuggets were super yummy too! But the rest is some sort of flavored meat, sometimes its nasty. Lots of salad and weird veggies, fruit every day, rolls, rice and beans every meal! My companions are awesome. Sister Read is from colorado, she has short red hair and reminds me of melissa heath(its a good thing, I miss you Meliss!). We get a long good. Sister Young is from provo, but she claims to be from alaska because her family moved there while she was going to BYU (her family moved around a lot her dad was in the military.) She is always giving compliments and reminds me of my roommate Katie sometimes J I need everybodies addresses! Unless... maybe all my friends could email you mom, in order to send through missionties if you decide to do that, so it would be quick, and make good use of the money! But friends and family.... Send me your home addresses just in case! And you can respond email, I will probably write a huge one back to my mom and have her divy(dish) them out ot each of you because I reallly want to keep in touch! I love and miss you all! The MTC President and Sister Woodward are amazing! She has been reallly sweet and always asks me if I am doing alright. There are 6 boys from davis here right now! Austin cooper, taylor read, taylor sorensen, kyle mcleod and (someone)hansen. Cooper and Mcleod talk to me when we run into each other, Coop the other day was all... are you doin alright, its kind of a hard adjustment! It was sweet. Have I gotten any letters at home? Send them to me if I have please!! I think it is 3 stamps, but I`m not positive. .I cant think of anything else I wanted to say, I know there is more but just ask questions and I will answer them. I love being here (most of the time) I feel trapped sometimes because I cant go anywhere without my comps and we can only leave the building (5 block boundary) on pday! I am learning so much! It is hard but will be worth it. They threw us into learning portuguese and I am doing pretty well... but still have MUCH more to learn! I love you all and hope to hear back! Love, Sister (weird!) Kiley PorathP.S.Happy Birthday Drew!!P.P.S Did you get the email that they sent you withthe district picture? One of the elders reminds me so much of Drew!

Bridal Shower #2

One of my best friends, Lindsey, is getting married in a week! We threw her a last minute shower. It was so much fun to get everyone together! I love all these friends and wish I could be at Lindsey's wedding.... but her and Ryan will be happy!

Also.... a few of my recents posts have been out of order so scroll down to find the other new ones! :)

A glimpse from the past...

2 years ago at Kenny's farewell....

He gets home in 3 weeks... I leave in 2 days.

I miss him so much!

tHiNgS i aM gOiNg tO MiSs...

• My Family
• Friends
• Utah
• Air Conditioning
• Movies
• Music
• Sleeping in
• Going to the temple whenever I want/need to
• babies... nannying...
• swimming! [and boating]
• Weddings, babies born, graduations, more weddings, friends coming home
• winter-snowboarding
• a white Christmas

tHiNgS i nEeD tO GeT uSe To:

• dirt floors
• spiders, bugs, rats...EW
• not always having hot water (or water at all...)
• barely a washer, NO dryer
• the HEAT and humidity
• waking up early
• always being positive
• wearing a skirt
• always being with another girl instead of my boy..
• speaking portuguese!

.and i'm pretty sure both lists go on and on. yikes.

My farewell...

This is what happens when you let your darling 6 year old niece use the camera... :]

Missing Katie :(

It was a LONG day! [ok and marinda woke up before I took the pic, but I wanted her to pretend to sleep annnnnd she failed! haha]

Bridal shower #1

I threw a bridal shower for my soon-to-be sister-in-law (with a LOT of help from my mom, and others!) It was a lot of fun and turned out well! We started with dinner, had people fill out advice for Kels, guess how many starbursts were in a jar (the winner got to keep it,) split into 3 teams and had them all design a wedding dress out of toilet paper and Kelsey chose her favorite, the winning team got candy bars. We also had a mad libs story where everyone chose a random word (place, number, adjective...etc.) and threw them all in a story, it was hilarious! We also played an ABC game where everyone had to come up with as many wedding related words as they could, one for each letter, and everyone was assigned a letter to bring a gift (that started with the letter) and also a food storage item that starts with the same letter as their name. We had about 40 people in our house and it was fun to meet all of the people that are important to Kelsey! She is such a doll and we are so excited and happy for her to [officially] become a part of our family!

Notice the gifts... from the beginning.. until the end! They are so blessed they won't have to buy anything at their new apartment!

Kels and Devyn [the maid of honor] are CHEESY!

Sharla (our stepsister) made this apron... it is DARLING! and also the colors Tanner and Kelsey want for their kitchen! (She didn't even know!)

Keep tuned for another bridal shower!

cutest little park ever!

SO cute and so fun! The ferris wheel was my favorite, it reminds me of the 50's, or like the one on the notebook :) The octopus was such a fun ride! We went on it twice! We were the oldest kids there, and I think we had the most fun! Even the 16 year old ride opperator guy was laughing at us. Loved watching the little kids on the merry-go-round, and the flying airplane. Olivia started crying, and sarah, her mom, said to just keep going and she would be fine. Well.. she stopped crying and basically bit onto the side of the airplane the rest of the ride! They even had the most ghetto mini golf course. LOVE this place!