July 28, 2010

Hey All! / (again working with a bad keyboard so no paragraphs, just slashes.) This week has been a whirlwind and it´s really amazing to see how great this work is and the power of the gospel! And normal life is pretty good too! haha Notice: They are crackin down on some new email rules so I can´t send pictures til I´m out in the field and I don´t have much time at all to write so here we go! / So the CTM is under some major construction and our already small world is even smaller. Seriously we eat lunch in hallways and we can´t open the windows during class because they are building a new gym outside (which they have been working on for like 9 months or something), so it gets really hot in our classroom which makes us tired and our teachers don´t get why we are falling asleep because they are Brasilian! haha it actually is really funny to think about! / Last P-day I got the coolest shirt on earth! There is a store right outside the CTM called Komora (yeah, cheesy church history reference) that sells stuff to missionaries. The shirt has all these missionaries in armor and with swords and stuff, looking like the army of Helaman, waving a Brasilian flag and it says, "So Os Fortes Sobrevivem!" which translates to "Only The Strong Survive!" Basically I´m going to save it til I get home so that I can show how awesome it is to everyone I run into. / Friday we went proselyting! Oh my freakin heck! It was the most amazing thing ever! We had 5 Books of Mormon to pass out and we had like 3 hours. E. Abernethy and I were pretty nervous and so we decided to just talk to the first person we saw to get over that. It just so happend that the first person we saw was actually a group of 4 hardcore automechanics. We just walked up to them and started talking and they were pretty interested so we gave them all books and commited them to read it and call the number for more info. We just flew from that point on! Yeah we had some rejection and all but we ended up get some extra books and in all passed out 7 in 2 hours! It really was so amazing and I felt the spirit so strongly. I almost started to cry when I was bearing my testimony to one of the people we talked to but I got a hold of myself. He ended up taking a book so mission accomplished. I can´t wait to get out in the field and actually do that everyday. It is ON!!! / So this elder in our district is a flippin guru or something. E. Overton is a self-proclaimed master of self-evaluation (and non-self-evaluation apparently) and he has been 'reading' some of the people in our district. It is crazy how accurate he is. He will be like, "I noticed you tuck your shirt in this way, did you ever get bullied as a child and you feel insecure about it and worry about your appearance?" and he is usually right! He did a reading on me and it was way close to reality, it was kinda scary actually. / The other night I had a crazy vivid dream about my future wife and it was pretty much a movie about our life. It was a way beautiful dream and if it came true I would not mind at all because she was beautiful. You may ask, "why is he telling us this?" but it was seriously that real that it is worth telling you guys. / Last night E. Abernethy was having a really hard time and as a district we were discussing the plan of salvation. He had some thoughts that were kind of wrong and E. Pockrus certainly let him know. It was pretty harsh and Abernethy was shook up about it. I ended up pulling him aside and we talked for like an hour and a half about everything that has been hard for him and it felt really good. I think I was actually able to help him with some of his stuff so it made me feel good. I´ve actually been talking with a lot of people and helping them with there problems. I´m glad I have the ability to understand people and work them through things. / Our Brasilian roomate left this morning. Goncalves and Castro Silva were so much fun and they helped us a lot with the language. The Brasilians are very open about their feelings and they told us they loved us every night when we were all going to bed. It was pretty funny but also nice to hear every once in a while. I hope they do well out there. It is actually ironic because the Brasilians are way nervous about understanding the gospel while they have no problem with the language while the Americans are always freaking out about the language but for the most part have the doctrine down. / Anyway, all is well. I only have 3 more weeks in this place and I´m so excited! I appreciate all the love that is being sent my way and want it to keep coming! I love you all so flippin´ much you don´t even know! / - Yours truly, Elder T