Tudo Bem!! Feliz Natal!
So this week has gone by really fast. I only have two weeks left before I leave for Cape Verde!! I'm super excited. Nothing too exciting happened this week though. It snowed finally! But only about half an inch. It is super weird because most days feel like Spring right now. Also Utah is super disgusting. There is this thing called inversion which pretty much means that there is a super thick layer of pollution hanging around in the air. You can actually see it, and it traps all the warm air down below. It looks like it's permanently foggy but it's dirty fog. I'm definitely glad it's not like that where we live. It doesn't really feel like Christmas here. Other than the decorations and the lights up everywhere, you wouldn't really be able to tell. Christmas day should be really sweet though. We get to watch a couple Tabernacle Choir presentations. I'm not entirely sure if it means they're coming here or not but I'm pretty sure they aren't. We are getting an apostle at least on Sunday during sacrament meeting because the entire MTC is having a combined meeting. It's gonna be crazy! Thats over 2000 missionaries all having one sacrament meeting. It's so the branch presidencies can go home to their families. Thats why we are having an apostle. We're guessing though that we'll have a minimum of two come though in the next two weeks because we have a lot of extra firesides and devotionals. It should be interesting!
Wednesday is the last day that new missionaries will arrive while I am here and our district gets to be hosts. That means we get to show the new missionaries to their residence hall, help them get their books and then show them their classrooms. We are pretty excited because we were worried that we wouldn't get to do this. Jordan comes in this week but I don't know if I'll see him right away because I'm guessing he'll be flying in and I don't know where the missionaries who fly in get dropped off.
I'm almost finished reading the Book of Mormon again. The branch presidency challenged us to finish it before we leave. I'm just starting 3 Nephi and if I keep going at the same pace I'll definitely finish in two weeks. Portuguese is coming along as well. I feel like there is only so much more I can learn here though and that I need to get out and be completely immersed to become fluent. We are trying to have more speak your language days but it is still hard and not everyone in our district wants to do it so sometimes we forget. We're trying though and I feel like I can speak pretty well.
Basketball is so much fun right now! The past couple of weeks we've got a lot of new elders in our gym period who play basketball so it gets really intense. I feel like my jumping is coming back quite well and I dunk all the time now. One elder calls me White Howard because I always wear my Superman shirt. It's a lot of fun though. There are some really cool people here. Volleyball can be fun at times but it never gets competitive and I lose interest easily. Plus the lines are always super long.
I look forward to hearing from Brodie because it would be good to hear more specific details about what it is like in Cape Verde. Nobody really knows much about Cape Verde here. All my teachers served in Brazil. Anyways my time is up. I hope you all have a good Christmas! I'll be thinking of you as you are enjoying grandma's delicious home cooked meal and I am eating my cafeteria meal. Eu amo voces!!
Elder Brandon Dola
