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
