Translating

As I have mentioned in my blogs, I am learning to speak Portuguese. (Brazilian, not European) All of my friends and family know this, but if you are reading this, and you didn't know....well, now you do! So, last night my friend from Brasil went to church with me, and several of us went out to eat afterwards. One of the my friends in our group had his "evangecube" with him, and someone asked my Brasilian friend to use the cube while speaking Portuguese. Oh, and he thought it would be a good idea if I translated! At first, I declined. haha. Of course, he asked me again, and after considering it for a few seconds, I decided it would actually be really good for me. So he started talking, and after he got done with the first sentence, I looked at him, and said, "Uhhh, you're gonna have to slow down." He repeated what he said at a somewhat slower pace, and then it was up to me to tell the other 9 people in our group what he just said. The first three or four sentences were kinda rough, but after that, I picked up on it fairly well. Oh sure, I missed a few words here and there, but I expected to do much worse. And, surprisingly, I really enjoyed doing it. It was actually a lot of fun. My friend said, I'm going to email my boss and tell her that I have found a new translator! (He works as a translator in Rio with mission teams.) I laughed when he said that. hahaha. It was a cool experience, and it definitely motivated me to work harder to improve my Portuguese.