When we planned the trip here, there were several things that, when they happened, we knew things were winding up. One of them was when Gianinna was going to come. We've really enjoyed having her here, and today she's headed back to Chile. The kids were able to say their goodbyes this morning and then Corey came back from work to pick her up and take her to the bus station. He dropped her off to catch a bus to the Sao Paulo airport, since we know she's a pro traveler now - she even went to
Rio de Janiero all by herself
and lived to tell the tale! She's ready to take on the world!
So another event is over and checked off the list. Next is Iguazu this weekend. Not all of us are going, it's just going to be Corey with a few of the older kids - Mel, Hyrum, and Abi. Wes is going to help me hold down the fort here. He said he didn't need to go, cause
he went to Rio last time. ;) And after Iguazu, the next mile marker is Joseph and Ethan coming! They will be leaving Utah two weeks from today! We are all super excited to see them! We're going to hold hands and do ring around the rosies in a circle as we sing "
We're all together again!" (That guy has a voice I think I recognize from an old Christmas movie)
So, yeah, things are winding up. Tomorrow we will have just 5 weeks left. The month of May has gone by really fast. Though I guess most things do when you're looking back at them. Since this whole experience is going to be a dream before I know it, I guess I should talk a little bit about why we are here in the first place? It is because of Corey's business M o v i e Mouth.
I have to encrypt the name somehow with spaces or whatever cause Corey doesn't want it to be picked up by search engines yet, cause they aren't ready to sell to the general public. He's had people emailing him for years
wondering where the software is and when they can start using it. Oh, the pressure! (
Don't worry, Ben, it's coming!) So, Corey, if this is okay to write... I thought I'd give a little info on it. Corey got the idea for M0v1E Mouth when we were living in Virginia back in 2006. He actually remembers the epiphany hitting him as he took the kids trick or treating on Halloween night, so Oct 31, 2006 to be exact. He had recently taken a trip to Brazil to teach a GMAT class, as he had done several times during Business school. The biggest obstacle these aspiring international MBA students have in getting accepted to business school is getting a high enough score on a test that they have to take in a foreign language. There are
lots of language schools and other things online to help people learn English, but most people give up - it is just too expensive, takes too long, too much work, or it's just boring. Corey found that people he knew that spoke English best picked it up from movies and television, not from professors. Which went along with his experience with Jazz music and how listening and imitating the professionals was the best and fastest way to learn music. That made him think it would work for language too.
We first came down here to Brazil in 2007 so that he could do some research on the demand and market for this idea. He learned that people quit language schools cause they didn't have the time, but then they would spend several hours a week watching a couple of movies in English. They like hearing the real actors voices, so the videos they sell and movies they watch in the theatres here are shown in English with subtitles. Watching movies is fun and easy. Everyone loves to watch American movies anyway, but they don't love taking time out of their busy days to spend hours in lessons with books. So the idea is to combine something they are already doing - watching movies - and turn that into a learning experience. Then you've got M0v1E Mouth. (You can
watch this short clip if you want, but it's in Portuguese.) (I mean don't watch that, it's not ready yet!)
Corey did some
speaking tours in Chile when we lived there (thanks to his
Start Up Chile opportunity) and had he went back for a few
pilot tests there after we all returned. The software wasn't quite ready though, but it did give him some more experience on how high the demand and
interest in the concept is. They decided to focus on Brazil for now though. They came down and did presentations last year in
May and
August and a few times in between. We all came down here this time to help Corey be able to do more presentations and not have to be away from us traveling so much. In April they had lots of presentations and introduced their software to owners of language schools here in Brazil.
He's got a good team at the MM office here and everyone is getting into the groove of how to work together as a software company and serve the customers and get this thing going.
It's really a great idea. Being the wife of an entrepreneur, I've had my
ups and downs along with him and his company. He often says it's good he didn't know all the work this would take, cause then he probably would have opted to take an easier career path, like medical school, haha. But things are plugging along. They've started to get some feedback from people who have tried the software and they all love it. As a family, we always pray for Corey and success for M o v i e Mouth. I am grateful for the righteous desires of his heart to help people reach their dreams by learning English.
Not that they have to learn English to reach their potential, but wow, they all seem to think so. Seriously, everyone wants to go to America. The guy who put a net over our pool - when he came by to be paid and saw we were from the US, he said he had a dream of going there, and showed me pictures of his adorable twin girls, saying he wants a better life for them. When I was buying books at the store by the temple - when it was obvious I didn't speak Portuguese well, the cashier asked where I was from. "Os Estados Unidos...." I replied. "Eu quero morar la." I want to live there she said. Everyone here wants to go. The USA is still a city shining on a hill. We've got our faults to be sure, but the United States of America is a nation that has been established under God and it
will not fail, even if some people there are forgetting God.
The righteous need not fear ~ if they continue to serve Christ and
seek his purposes, he will deliver us and bless us with Liberty, Prosperity, and Protection - that is the covenant of America. I've been reading "The American Covenant" by Timothy Ballard (the same Tim Ballard of
OUR Rescue) ~ I love it, I love America and what it represents to the world. I hope M o v i e Mouth can help people who want to go there to get there and achieve their goals. Good luck Brazilians, and go M0v1E Mouth!
