Maceio Brazil Mission Assignment

Maceio Brazil Mission Assignment
Serving in God's Army

8/28/2012

8/28/12 Week 7

Faaaamily!!!
How ya'lls doing?!

Its sounds like everything's going well!

First off Samuel! I miss you So much! And I want you to know how proud I am of you for being able to receive the priesthood and passing the sacrament for the first time!!!! And for giving your first talk, that's awesome. I sure do wish I could have been there to watch it and to make faces at you as you spoke! Hey that's kind of funny, I gave a talk this past Sunday too! I was probably equally as nervous as Samuel because I had/got to give it in Portuguese! That was an experience. We had 45 minutes in the morning to prepare our talks and they all had to be in portuguese and on lesson 4 of PMG, which is commandments. I chose prayer cause I like prayer and.... I don't know, it just felt right. I got up there and my mind kind of went blank and I started talking in English for like 5 seconds but then the wheels started turning and I started my talk. That's funny because that same thing happens to me when I teach lessons. The first few minutes Elder Anderson has to take the bull by the horns and talk cause my brain is like... not there haha BUT once the investigator asks a question or if something has to be explained, I go off and don't stop haha. I feel bad sometimes during our lessons.. cause I talk a lot haha so in my talk, usually people write down everything they want to say in Portuguese but that's not how I like to roll haha. I just write like bullet points in English of things I want to say and just see how long I can talk about them. I spoke for 6 minutes and afterward the branch president came up to me and said I did very well and corrected me on a couple pronunciation mistakes. It's funny, every time I sit down after a talk or bearing my testimony I always remember something I forgot or really wanted to say or I just want to get back up and start speaking again. The same thing happens in Portuguese ahahahaha.

Hey mom could you sent me a picture of me doing cabaret pleeeeze Elder Anderson wants to see.. he dont be believin me haha

The language is getting interesting. Honestly I feel like I hit a plateau of learning, like I'm not retaining as much, maybe because I switch so often from English to Portuguese that I haven't dropped the English yet, which is one reason why I'm super excited to get out to the field so I'll be totally surrounded with only Portuguese cause when I try and just open my mouth I can do it. Today outside the temple when we were loading up to leave, Elder Anderson and I talked to these two boys who were visiting the temple and were doing baptisms for the dead and were baptized members of the church only two years before. Their families were visiting the temple that week from a country far far away (which I forgot the name of) but they were there to be sealed together as a family. First off it was amazing to actually understand what they were telling us, and second it was amazing to see how excited they were to see and be at the temple. It will probably be their only time being at a temple!!! Ah that's like a story straight out of a magazine! All the stories of conversion and baptism are all amazing stories and I just feel so privileged to be a part of it! The people here are so humble and so friendly (except for when they drive) ha. A lot of the elders here have suits that are way too big for them or only two white shirts... it's crazy how much they had to give up to come on their missions.

One of our teachers is always dead tired when we teach her, we teach her at night after she goes to her other job, school and then to the CTM. Every day she is always super excited to be there but it only takes her about 5 minutes to fall asleep in our lessons, everyone's lessons. It's awesome and really funny. At first we thought it was the investigator that was falling asleep cause she was bored or that we were bad teachers ya know, but nope! It was her and she was falling sleep haha. So this is a tiny little black lady and our main goal in a day is to make her laugh, she's kind of like a sister to us, we always try and hook her up with irmos in the CTM right, like to take her on a date or something, and the other day she came into class and told us that she got a boyfriend!!!!!!!!!! haha our hard work paid off and we hooked her up with irmo ramalio!!! Who is one handsome chap if ya ask me haha it was great. Its interesting teaching our instructors cause they totally change character when we teach them. Our male instructor, who is pretty tough at times, talked for 15 minutes straight in one of our lessons, he was telling us a story and we just let him go at it, even though we only have 15 minutes to teach him haha so we decided to let him tell us his crazy night that he had. Turns out afterward he explained to us that when your investigator talks to you like that, that usually means he trusts you and is pretty good friends with you!!!! That's right! Elder Awesome and I are AWESOME!! Some elders do not take these practices seriously and it really irks me! BUT the instructors know that they aren't taking it seriously and they make it really hard on them, which is like sweet revenge.

Police officers just drive around with their AR15 just sticking out the windows, scared the bageezzes out of me last P day

Out of time, love you so so so so so much and I miss you even more! Gosh I love my family, You guys are awesome.

Hey Jess remember that one time you gave me a swirly yes I still remember that haha
I got a letter from Michael Jung this week!!!!

ELDER RALPH