Tudo Começa com uma Idéia

            An idea alone has exactly zero potential, yet when combined with capability and will, one idea can change the world and the heart.

I’m in Brazil. I had to remind myself again of this when I woke up today. The whole place seems foreign to me yet there’s a pleasant feeling of home. It has been one crazy week and my mind is racing to catch up with everything that has happened over the last few days. The adventures Adriel and I had while getting here were definitely one of a kind.

It started with an idea to do an internship with LDS Employment Services down in Brazil. After looking it over and seeing how it could work. I decided to take a leap of faith and go for it. The reasons behind it were to get more international experience and really have something unique about me to get into business school. After telling Adriel about it, he decided to leap as well, so we began planning.

Adriel and I in Salt Lake City

The first part of the internship consisted of a training in Salt Lake City to learn how to teach the Career development workshop. Eight hours a day we would spend in the Church History Library on the bottom floor. Twelve others we also accepted to this internship going to many different parts of South America. We all bonded during the long hours of sitting, listening to lectures and practicing to teach in our language.  The church also fed us like crazy. We would have a breakfast buffet in the morning, lunch in the cafeteria of the Church Office building, and dinner at some restaurant of our choosing. I actually became tired of feeling full all the time (that full feeling has passed, trust me). On Thursday, we had our graduation dinner and said our goodbyes.

Penn Station

Our plane left for New York Friday morning where we had a 5 hour layover. Because of a promise to David Petersen, I needed to buy a soccer ball in order to send to a friend of his in Passo Fundo. I hadn’t been able to buy one and was looking for a strip mall or something of the sort close to or inside of JFK airport. We didn’t find anything inside, and the closest mall would cost us $40 in cab fare for a round trip. In desperation, we decided to walk to the closest strip mall. As we walked outside of the airport, we both noticed the Airtrain rumbling above us. We soon found out we could arrive at Penn Station in about 35 minutes. It didn’t take long for us to decide to chance it, and soon were walking in the streets of New York City with a nice drizzle to keep things interesting. We only had about an hour in the city, but we managed experience a piece of New York. Who would have known that a random search to buy a soccer ball would take us to the city that never sleeps and end with a New York Frank in our hands? Now, I'm off to Brazil!

In front of Madison  Square Gardens