8/22/2011

Hello all! or should I say Oi! Tudo Bem? thats how you greet someone in portuguese, its just means Hey! all good? and then you respond by saying tudo bem, just thought i'd share a little culture with you guys. Things here a still goin good, i got sick the last few days though, and i'm startin to get over it so thats good, if someone gets sick here it spreads super fast, so that kinda sucks, especially cause you still have to go to all the classes and stuff ha. Other than that though things have been good, the letters have been slowin down though so everyone needs to step up their game a little bit haha. I've got 2 investigators now that we teach every day, its gettin a lot easier and now i feel like i can speak well enough in Portuguese to teach almost any lesson, the language is comin slowly, but surely, and can really notice improvement each day, still can't really make small talk in portuguese so its kinda weird, cause when we try to make small talk with the investigators it is really bad portuguese, but when we teach we actually sound pretty legit haha. Oh and we learned a really cool word in Portuguese this week, its paralelipipido, which just means cobblestone, but it sounds pretty funny, so we always ask the portuguese speaking teachers here how to say cobblestone and they start laughing cause they know its funny haha. We had a pretty cool fireside from Brother Allen last night, he was talking about the mission rules and the moral of all his stories was pretty much you will either die or get put in jail haha, so that was uplifting. There has been kind of an ongoing prank war goin on in our district these last few weeks, so i'm tryin to stay ahead of the game on that. I've also been workin on my soccer skills a little bit so i don't get made fun of in brazil haha... if i ever make it to brazil! One guy in my district got his visa last week, and my companion filled out his electronic portion last week so he might leave soon as well, so hopefully mines comin! Well thats all for now! keep the letters comin!

8/15/2011

Oi! Survived another week at the MTC! Things are goin good still! Portuguese is gettin easier and easier. I thought that i was understanding pretty well until a native brazilian came up and talked to me and i didnt understand a word he was saying! haha, but in due time i guess. I'm starting to get really sick of the food here, i've heard they cycle to menu every 3 weeks so this week we should start getting the same stuff as we did the first week, yay... haha not. i guess it could be worse though, i'm not used to eating 3 big meals each day though, and we're pretty much sitting around all day, so i've been workin hard to maintain my weight haha. At least we have an hour to work out each day so i pretty much jog most of the time, and play a little foursquare. We've got new investigators now, the guy that we have, Diego, is really hard to teach because he's always falling asleep while we're teaching him, and texting, I would ask him to stop texting but i dont know how to say it in Portuguese haha. No word on the visa yet, and i havent heard about any other elders getting them either so its kinda worrying me, i've got 6 weeks here still though so i guess their is still hope! If i do go stateside though then i want to go to florida! By the end of this week i was super tired so i was falling asleep during our personal study times haha, but i think everyone was feeling that way, its crazy though that i've been here for 3 weeks already, the days go by slow, but the weeks go by fast, its weird. Besides that nothing new has really happened, its pretty much the same thing every day. Oh but my district and I are gonna try to start a new tradition at the MTC of "Purple Tie Tuesdays", each week when the new missionaries come in we tell as many as we can to wear their purple tie on tuesdays, we tell them that its because its President Monsons favorite color, so if we all wear purple then he might come and talk at a devotional haha. We really have no idea if thats his favorite color, and we know he's not gonna give us a devotional, but its a pretty good way to get people to wear purple haha. Well that about it for this week!

8/9/2011

So this is the second time i'm having to write this cause the computer locked me out! so its gonna be shorter cause i'm tired of writing the same thing. But anyways thanks for all the mail, I went and looked for those self enema kits in the bookstore after i read that story, they didnt have them haha. But anyways sounds like things are goin pretty good there! Tell chase good like, i know that he can do it! That cool that you guys finally have a bishop though!
Things here are going pretty good! I wanna be out in Brazil already but I have a lot to learn still, but its still pretty good here. Its been warm everyday, which has been nice, but hot cause we're in church clothes the whole time. We finished teaching our first investigator, we got her to commit to baptism! we were the only ones in our district to get that far, so that was kinda cool ha. We're teaching our second investigator now, its one of our teachers so its kinda weird haha. I taught him the restoration yesterday in all portuguese, and it was actually pretty good! My portuguese is progressing so fast, its amazing! I''ve been seeing the blessings of faith so much since i've been here! everything else is goin great, we get gym time almost everyday so that helps a lot, four square here is crazy competetive, i've played a few times and the other elders get so into it haha. but most of the time i just run and lift weights(they have like 6 weight machines around the track, and they're all almost about to break, but its better than nothing haha). Well thats all thats new here, Its pretty much the same thing everyday so nothing really interesting happens haha, my emails will get more exciting once i'm actually out in brazil. Oh and keep those letters comin, all the elders in my district get mad because i get letters every night, so i think its pretty funny haha.

first letter from the mtc

Hey dad! So we only get 30 minutes for email so i'll try to cram everything in! haha. So things here are goin pretty good. When I got here I was greeted by a host, and he took me all around, and brought me to my classroom. Right when I walked in I met my district, and we got started right away learning Portuguese, its soooo hard to learn a new language! Luckily I have a pretty good spanish background, so that helps a lot. My companion is pretty cool, except he is always wanting to practice Portuguese, which isnt a bad thing, but my brain needs a break sometimes! My district is really cool, we all get along really well and all joke around together so its a really good atmosphere. The second day we had to give our first lesson to an "investigator", shes not a real investigator, but she pretends to be one. We figured she'd speak a little english, but we soon learned after we went in to teach her that she spoke NO english! So we taught our first lesson in ALL Portuguese on our second day here! Its crazy how fast you learn here, but its still really hard, I know I need to stop stressing and let the language come to me, but its hard cause I wanna be fluent now haha. About 24 missionaries that were all supposed to go to the Brazil MTC came it last week with me, and a lot of the missionaries have been getting reassignments as the approach the end of their 9 weeks here, so I'm thinkin that I'll probably be goin stateside for a while, but I'm stayin optimistic! I was really homesick the first few days here, but things are gettin better and I'm starting to really enjoy myself. So yesterday, Sunday, it sacrament meeting when they were passing the water around, I was bringing the cup up to my mouth, and somehow I dropped it, and water got all over me, it was really embarrassing, but its whatever, I dont think anyone really noticed haha. Oh and I realized this morning that I lost my temple recommend... while we were on our way to the temple... but luckily they were able to look my name up, so it all worked out okay. I'm doing my laundry right now, its my P-day, which was much needed! I needed a break to just chill and have fun with my district! But we have to give our 3rd lesson to our investigator at 6 tonight, so I get to relax until then! Its amazing how much Portuguese I know already!

      Well more updates to come, but thats about all thats happened so far! I only get to email once a week on P-day for 30 minutes, but you should get all the kids to write me letters through dearelder while I'm here cause I get mail everyday, and mail is like the best thing ever here! Its what all the missionaries look forward to at night haha. Good luck with chases football though, your still coaching right? man i dont know how your gonna do that! your gonna be so tired! your awesome though so you'l be able to handle it. Oh and i'm not sure it you got my first letter, but it had my address, and some stuff that I forgot listed on it. I forgot my temple bag in my closet, my retainers in my bathroom, and something else that I cant remember, but it should be in that letter! well got to go! tell everyone to write me a lot of letters!!! Love you and mom so much and I miss you guys! talk to you soon!