One Week Down!

My first five days at the MTC have been JAM PACKED with everything you could possibly think of. As I told you in my letter the first day we were immediately rushed off to class. Our teachers only speak to us in Portuguese and on by our third day, we had to teach a real investigator in PORTUGUESE! Say what? And guess what, it was so cool! Sister Barlow and Sister Pedersen (minhas companheiras) were able to communicate with him and talk to him about his life a little. We taught him a little bit about God and His plan for us, and he asked us about the Atonement and the Garden of Gethsemane. The very next morning at 7:30, we taught our second lesson to him, but it was a little bit discouraging. We found that it is really hard to explain the Atonement when you don't actually speak/understand Portuguese...BUT we did give him a Book of Mormon (the one that Bishop Sutton gave me!) with our testimony and highlighted verses and the Spirit was so strong when he read from it! It was so neat. Today we are teaching him again, but this time we are sticking to the basics of the plan of salvation. Irmao Williams (one of our teachers) reminded us to keep it SIMPLE and remember that we need to focus on just having the SPIRIT in our lessons. I think I've got all of the vocab down and I'm excited to try it out. This week has felt like a giant rollercoaster of spiritual/emotional/physical/mental highs and lows...good thing I LOVE ROLLERCOASTERS! :) Other really neat things...I can pray in Portuguese! My prayers are really limited, but I can still get across what I need to! Our district now has a rule that all prayers have to be in Portuguese from now on. Oh, and being in the missionary choir is AWESOME! Oh how I've missed being in choir so much. Our director is amazing and the Spirit is so strong. We are singing "Consider the Lilies" at the fireside tomorrow.

I think I'm going to really love Sundays here at the MTC. It was a much needed spiritual boost to keep us motivated and focused to push past the frustrations of the language and remember why we are here. Each day is nonstop class, study, class, study, lunch, study...etc. It has to be! The food here...wonderful! I don't know how they do it, but I love it!

I wish I had time to tell you all about what I've learned here so far, but there is so much! But I will share with you the theme of all that I learned yesterday: As it says in Consider the Lilies, "He will feed those who trust in Him..."  Every day we need to make sure that we are putting our FAITH in the Savior and TRUST in the enabling power of His Atonement, and HE WILL FEED US. As it says in 2 Nephi 31:19-20, "...ye mush press forward with a steadfastness in Christ...feasting upon the word of Christ." I know that these things are true, and I challenge all of you to put a little more TRUST in your Savior and feast on His words.