Week 3

Dear family and friends,

 

Holy cow! Week three! Almost done with my time here at the MTC. Each day is SO long but the weeks fly by! I feel like I was just writing you all!

 

This week was fun because they have been putting up Christmas decorations and we had a grand reveal with the lights in the courtyard. The whole CTM was there and the palm trees decorated with lights was definitely something new. :) We sing Natal (Christmas) songs all the time and it is especially beautiful when we sing them in Portuguese, Spanish, and English. It is so cool to see all the different nations represented here. On Sunday and Saturday nights, we sing in front of the CTM and people from all over Sao Paulo come and listen. They cheer so loud and many accept pass along cards or want to meet with the missionaries! Really cool to see so many young people my age gathering together to testify of Christ's birth through song.

 

Big news this week is that we received a new American Sister and some new Elders so they split our district. :( Really sad because I have grown close to my district but I know it is what we need - it will push us to continue growing and progressing.

 

It is also depressing because we just started doing our Christmas nice notes! I had this fun idea to write nice notes to random district members each night and then deliver them but now we will be split. It was a fun way to bring the Christmas spirit into our classroom. :)

 

Another highlight of this week was receiving a batch of Elders from Africa! They have the most beautifull accents and are so kind. They are from Mozambique and will serve in Angola. They fly all the way to Brazil to train for 11 days then fly back to Africa to begin their mission. Dedication!

 

I feel so blessed to be here not only for the wonderful experiences I am having with different people and cultures but also because of the wonderful teachers that I have. They love us SO much and really demonstrate that love when they teach us. They are all returned missionaries usually from Brazil and are just SO cool! I love listening to their mission stories.

 

This Friday we get to go teach in the middle of Sao Paulo!!!! I am way excited. It will be cool to test my Portuguese and see how well I am doing. I am excited to hand out copies of The Book of Mormon and testify of Christ to strangers in the beautiful language of Portuguese! My companions are terrified but I am SO excited. :)

 

Last week we got to go to the Police Station to register our visas and that was cool, too. Nice to get out of the CTM, haha.

 

I hope you all have an AWESOME week and think of Christ often as we prepare to celebrate His birth. I know that Christ died for our sins but that He lives now. He loves us more than we could ever comprehend!

 

Thank you for the thoughts, prayers, and letters! I LOVE reading them! Keep them coming. :)