November 29, 2011

Tudo bem minha familia!!

So I definitely haven't been getting some of the letters you have been sending. I think I've missed maybe two or three. But I did get the package which is awesome! Thanks so much! I really want to listen to music right now but I am not allowed until I get to the field but the speaker is perfect. I see C. almost every day at meal time but we don't get a lot of time to talk. So is R. going to Barcelona, Spain or the Dominican Republic?? Either way that is super cool. Although too bad he's not in Asia because then we'd have someone in every continent in the world. So this week was pretty busy and intense. Last Tuesday, Elder Christofferson and his wife came to talk to us and they both gave really good talks. And then on Thanksgiving, Elder Nelson and his wife came to speak to us which was also really cool. It's funny because you can always tell when an Apostle is coming because the lineups to get into the gym are huge and there are cops and security guards everywhere. It was a really neat experience though and I learned a lot. Me and two other elders were making guesses on who was going to come on Tuesday and Elder Christofferson was my number six pick so I won. Our last picks were pretty crazy though. I picked Captain Moroni, one elder picked the Three Nephites and another picked some other deceased Prophet. We're having fun though.

Other than Elder Nelson's visit, Thanksgiving wasn't that amazing other than we got a break from classes. Elder N. was sick all day from the food and threw up six times I think. He's better now but the food here really isn't that good. The only thing that you can count on to taste good is the salads and the ice cream. Other than that you just feel sick afterwards. But we are not starving and if you try you can have a decent meal. This week at lunch there wasn't anything good to eat so my district and another district ate an entire tower of frosted flakes. It ended up being about 63 overflowing bowls of cereal between about 12 people but it was fun. Except I don't think I'll be eating frosted flakes anytime soon. Elder P. ate 9 bowl and didn't feel too great after that. We have a really fun district though and I just got assigned to be district leader because our old one is now a zone leader with his companion. That means I get to go to meetings on Sunday, run district meetings and interview all the senior companions every week. It's not that bad though and I'm learning a lot from the experience. I have the same companion the whole time here and things are going well. Yesterday we committed one of our mock investigators to baptism which was really cool. Yesterday while I was teaching I was talking about receiving revelation through the Book of Mormon and words just started flowing out of my mouth. I wasn't stumbling and it made sense and I was able to say what I wanted to say and fast too. It was really cool. I feel like I just need to focus on learning as much vocabulary as I can and master some of the other grammar principles. I'm not too worried about the language anymore.

I sent you guys some pictures in the mail so I hope you get those. Not much else is going on here though. We teach two lessons a day, every other day and are constantly learning the language and studying our scriptures. I love study time because I am learning so much from the Book of Mormon. Days seem like weeks and weeks seem like days here. I still have five weeks to go and C. leaves for Boston next week on my birthday.

We've always been told to work hard and be serious but to always take time to relax and have some fun so that you don't get too stressed out. I think my district works really hard so I'm not to worried about it. We got a mini-fridge in our room one day randomly. None of the other rooms have one and I walked into the room to get my passport so they can get my visa and it was just sitting in the middle of the floor. We don't know where it came from but we are definitely using it. It's pretty sweet. Thats about all that is new from me. It's good to hear that everything is going good at home. I'm learning so much here and even though the days become repetitive we are trying to make the best of it. Even if the people who run the gym are on a power trip. I got in trouble one day because I jumped and lightly touched the rim. He said if I did it again I would get kicked out so I just play volleball most days. I love you all and I hope to keep hearing from you.

Eu amo voces!!

Elder Brandon Willam Dola

November 22, 2011

Bom dia minha familia!

Everything here is pretty much the same. We have the same routine every single day and it feels like we have been here forever. One of the older Portugal/Cape Verde districts just left this morning and they were super excited to be leaving. We only have 6 more weeks!! Ha ha but it has been getting a lot better. Elder N., he's on of the other missonaries in my district, and I have been trying to speak in Portuguese every chance we get because everyone keeps telling us that that is the only way we are going to learn the language. However there are some people in our district who get upset because they can't understand or they don't like speaking so we normally just speak with each other. I can actually speak quite well although my vocabulary is very limited still. When we teach our investigators I still end up doing most of the talking but my companion has been contributing a lot more. So far I have memorized the Missonary Purpose, the baptisimal prayer and recently the First Vision all in Portuguese. Elder N. and I like to say the First Vision whenever we can just for fun.

This week is American Thanksgiving so Thursday we don't have classes or anything. I think we are doing some sort of service project and then we have a bunch of firesides throughout the day. Nobody has told us exactly what is going on yet but it should be good I think. They are setting up for Christmas already and they have lights everywhere. They haven't turned them on but we are pretty excited to see what it will all look like when they are done. Also, I don't think I get to call home on Christmas this year but I will get to call before I fly out. I'm the only Elder in my district going to Cape Verde but there were three elders in the older district who just left for Cape Verde and they all seemed pretty sweet. They said they had to get rid of a lot of stuff in order to keep there bag under the correct weight. Apparently the carry on can only be 10 lbs? So that could potentially make things more difficult. I'm not really worrying about that yet because I'm not leaving this place any time soon.

It snowed a couple days ago and it's really funny to see all of the people who have never seen snow before. It melted the next day though and it has been nice ever since. I don't know how I will be able to send pictures home. The computers won't let me access my camera and I can't get on the drop box site. I may send a couple in the mail but I think I might just have to wait till I'm out in the field and have more internet access. The computers are pretty locked down here. But we do get to watch Mormon Messages and every Sunday we get to watch a movie. So that is a nice break. Other than that though we are constantly studying the language and the scriptures/ Preach My Gospel. We don't really get much of a break other than P-Day and gym time. I've been playing basketball more lately because the volleyball lines are always so long now that nobody can go outside. I even had a dunk in on of the games! It was pretty sweet. Some of their rules here seem a little weird. You are allowed to dunk in a game when someone is guarding you and trying to hack you but if you dunk with nobody guarding you they get mad and kick you out of the gym. I know the rules are for safety but I would think that it should be the other way around. Oh well, it is still nice to be able to play and I'm just enjoying it because after the MTC I will most likely only play soccer till my mission is done.

So if you guys get a chance to send my iPod, there are a few songs that I would like if possible. A Poor Wayfairing Man, Come Thou Fount, and a Spirit of God. Whatever other songs will be fine but those are my favorites I think. It's so quiet without music and it takes some getting used to because I always listened to music at home. And I forgot to say that all of the Lord of the Rings and Gladiator music is on my iTunes library on my laptop. Thank you!

I don't think I really need anything else. I love you all!

Elder Brandon Dola

Nobember 15, 2011

Bom Dia!!

Well I've been here for 2 weeks now. Everyday is pretty much the same except for p-days so days kind of blend together. Sometimes it seems like time is going by slowly but other times it flies. I'm learning so much and yet I still have tons to learn. We are finished teaching our first "investigator" and he is now our second teacher. Only one pair of elders got him to commit to baptism but we have two new investigators now and I think it will go better now. I can understand almost everything that is said to me in Portuguese and I can even reply back now. My vocabulary is still lacking and I'm still learning all the different tenses for verbs so my Portuguese probably sounds awfull. However, I can say my prayers and bear my testimony in Portuguese so that is pretty cool. Every Sunday we have to prepare a 3 minute talk in Portuguese and the Branch President randomly picks two missionaries to give their talks. I didn't have to give mine this past Sunday which was nice but I think it would have gone ok if I had to give it. It's really amazing to think of how much I've learned in the past two weeks. I definitely belive that the gift of tongues is real but you have to work super hard in order to receive it. We talked to some elders from another district who are getting ready to leave next week and they said that as long as you continue to work hard, the language will come. I'm not too worried right now but sometimes it is frustrating not to be able to communicate fully your thoughts, especially when we have to teach every day. Other than that, nothing much is new. Every day is pretty much the same, stuff is just switched around depending on the day.

It's been really nice here as well. It's rained a couple days but no snow and it's never been below zero yet. People still complain about how cold it is but they obviously have never experienced a REAL winter. I don't really know what else to say. We got to watch Legacy on Sunday after the fireside and we get tons of personal time to study our scriptures. Our district had to recite My Missionary Purpose from memory in Portuguese during priesthood meeting. We didn't sound very good but most of us have it memorized already. I play volleyball every day during gym time with an elder from another district. It's frustrating at times because some of the missionaries get so competitive and try to do stuff on their own instead of using everyone. They also don't know how to play by the rules very much because I spike served a ball pretty hard and it got shanked into the roof but I didn't get to serve again. It's still nice to play though but I miss playing competitively.

Today we got to go to the temple which was a really cool experience. I really like that we get to go to the temple every week. It's definitely one of the highlights of being in the MTC. I can definitely see why missionaries get tired of the MTC though. Every day is the same and we don't have a lot of time to do personal things. Somedays the food is pretty good and sometimes it is awfull. I eat a lot of salads because those usually taste pretty good. We had uncooked chicken this week and a lot of the time the food is cold. I'm not going hungry though but I don't see myself gaining any weight anytime soon. There is so much to learn here and we get to do some pretty cool things. Also, what a lot of the missionaries have done is brought their iPods with church music on it and then a small set of portable iPod speakers because we are allowed to listen to music in the field. So I was thinking, sometime next month before I leave the MTC can you guys take my green iPod from my bed table, erase everything that is on there and then put on a ton of church music? Also my Lord of the Rings and Gladiator soundtracks because we can listen to instrumental music as well. Then just find a small set of portable iPod speakers and send it to me? That would be really nice because it gets really quiet not being able to listen to music.

Anyways my time is almost up again. I don't really have much else to write. Anyways I am still enjoying my time here however 7 more weeks seems like too long. I hope to keep hearing from you guys, it's nice to hear whats happening at home. Hopefully I'll get to see Chris tomorrow. I love you all.

Elder Brandon Dola

November 8, 2011 - The Missionary Training Center

Tudo Bem minha familia!!

So I've been here almost a week now and it's been pretty good so far. The food isn't all that bad although apparently biscuits and gravy is an American thing down here because they served that one day for supper. I get unlimited chocolate milk and bananas for every meal and the rest of the meals have been pretty good. We are always kept super busy and don't really get a lot of time to ourselves other than p-day. My p-day is Tuesdays so that is when I'll be able to email home. The MTC president asked us all to write home on the first day so I did... but I'm gonna bet that you won't get that letter for another month. They don't waste any time here. The very first day, we started language class. I think our teacher maybe spoke two minutes of English to us the entire three hours of class. The rest was in Portuguese. I can almost understand everything my teacher says to us already however I'm still not very good at answering back. However it gets easier every day and the language is super cool. My district is all super cool and we all get along very well. We have a lot of fun together but we are also able to learn a lot together. My companion is Elder T. and he is SOOO loud!!! But he's super fun and we get along very well. Nobody told us about daylight savings on Sunday so we all woke up at 5:30. We decided to just have a shower and then went back to bed for half an hour till 6:30. Sacrament meeting was really cool though. Our branch is all Portuguese speaking missionaries so other than announcements the whole meeting is in Portuguese. The Spirit is still very strong even when you can't understand what is being said... although I was able to understand most of what was said. We also had MTC conference since it was fast Sunday and got to hear from some of the members of the MTC Presidency and their wives. It was a really good meeting and it was neat to see all the missionaries together in one room. We also had an evening fireside after dinner and got to hear from someone who works at Church Headquarters. I can't remember his name but he talked about all the different ways the Church has been able to get missionaries into some of the countries that didn't use to let us in. Tonight we also have a fireside and apparently we Tuesday nights are when General Authorities come so it should be really good.

Most days are pretty much the same here. We started teaching an investigator last Friday already... in Portuguese! We teach him every day and our lessons usually involve a lot of reading because our vocabulary isn't good enough to answer his questions. We are getting better though. We have 6 hours of classroom study each day where we learn the language and teach our investigator. We also get lots of personal study time to read our scriptures and Preach My Gospel as well as time to study the language by ourselves. We get gym time every day although volleyball is rather boring. We've had two power outages so far. One was Friday night so we had nice cold showers on Saturday and cereal for breakfast. Yesterday some of the power went out as well and we thing there was some sort of fire because we could see smoke coming from one of the buildings and a firetruck drove past us into the entrance when we were walking to class. It's also starting to get colder here and everyone is complaining. It's not even below zero! Ha ha it feels nice outside. On the Wednesday when I got here I was put in with the other Canadian and American missionaries who arrived early. I met a guy from Raymond and a guy from Calgary who are both going to the Winnipeg mission. I also met a guy who is going to Montreal. Canadians are pretty much considered foreigners here and everyone always thinks it's so cool that I come from Canada. I haven't really had any weird questions yet though. I met an Elder from Lethbridge who I apparently went to school with. I think his name was Brody O. or something? He remembered me and said we played basketball against him in high school.

Anyways, my time is almost up. Thanks for the letters so far! It's always nice to hear from home. I'm learning so much here and having a lot of fun. The language is difficult but I know it will come and my testimony of the Gospel is strengthening every day. I miss you guys although I don't really have a lot of time to think about home so maybe thats a good thing. I love you all and hope to hear from you soon!

Love, Elder Dola

Boa Noite!!!