Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Christmas

Hey Grant!! Merry Christmas! We are allowed to email a little today, and I should be able to call everyone in the airport right before I enter the mission field as well. I just wanted to say I love you all and I hope everything is going well. This past week I was called as district leader, and I'll have that calling until we leave the MTC. I also gave one of the sisters in our district a blessing because she was feeling sick. It was really spiritual for me, she said she felt like she had the flu coming on, and now she's feels better except for a little upset stomach after just two days. The language is coming fast, and everyday seems to fly by.
 
I'm learning a lot of conjugation so I sound less like a caveman, for example I used to say thing like, "Nos Orar agora?" which would be like saying " We to pray now?" But now I know to say "Nos Podemos orar agora?" which is more like "can we pray now?". It's also much easier to ask our investigators to make commitments when we don't speak like cavemen. Teaching is becoming easier and easier as I become more familiar with the basics of the Gospel, and the language. I can ask more meaningful questions and answer questions more fully. One of our teachers is spending this week in Florida, so until he comes back we are being taught by brothers, both are return missionaries who are originally from Brazil with the last name Pinho. Me and Elder Hodges like to pull a little prank on them where we switch our nametags hahaha. They struggle with American names ( just like I will probably struggle with Brazilian names), and so it's an easy harmless prank to pull on them. They are starting to catch on though....

Yesterday we had a great devotional from David Evans, he's a part of the council in charge of running the missionary program. He shared a lot of experiences from his mission in Japan. He served during the 70's when japan was only 4 or so missions. I was glad he came and taught us. Tonight I think we are going to hear from Elder Bednar, which is really exciting because he is an amazing teacher and always gets me to think about topics in new ways.

In the spirit of Christmas, our Teacher, Irmao Pinho, asked us to individually write down everything God has ever blessed us with, from the time of Adam and Eve (or even before then) to now. He gave us 15 minutes to make a list. For most of us, that wasn't enough time to include everything on the list because god has blessed everyone with so many things. And of course, there was always something we forgot to include. Afterward, we spent 5 minutes really thinking about and visualizing everything on our list. Then we individually prayed for and simply thanked God for everything he had given us. It was a really great experience for me.

Well I have to go. I love you all, and don't forget to send me Jackie's email Address. I got her package yesterday. Thank you for an awesome Christmas Present!! I love the music and the candy!! thank you so much!!!!!

Eu amo voces!!!!!!

No comments:

Post a Comment