I can't believe I've already finished week 5 at the MTC. It's very strange to think I've only got 17 months left on my mission now. Time is just flying by. This week was really hard but really really good. I've never felt closer to my Heavenly Father and I'm making so many changes in my life that will help me to be a better missionary. Change is always hard but I know that it will help me become a better missionary and a better person. This realization happened on the 9th, exactly one month after being here. Conincidence? I think not.
Wednesday we got a new sister. Her name is Sister Loi-on and she is from Hawaii. She is pretty seriously great. She is having a hard time dealing with the homesickness and some other things but slowly she is doing better. I can tell that she will be a great missionary. Oh and Elder Judd ate a dead snail.... hahaha it was so gross. He totally does not look like the wild type so I was pretty suprised he did that.
Thursday and Friday were the hardest days of my mission so far. I wont go into detail about the struggles but sometimes it is just really hard to have a companion. Planning lessons for our investigators is hard because we usually want to teach different things and disagreement does not bring the spirit. Friday was a bit better in the morning but then we had TRC in the afternoon. TRC is when you teach people who are already members just in case I haven't mentioned that before. This week we skyped with two sisters who live in Brazil. I was really excited and expected to understand a lot and have a good lesson. It was really hard because we started the lesson and they started talking and I was like "Is this even Portuguese?" It was so strange. It suprised me and my mind kind of blanked out. I probably said like 5 words the whole lesson. Afterwards we were walking back and we saw Irmao Workman. He asked us how TRC was and I said it was good. He said I am a bad liar and pulled me aside to talk to me again. I started crying (second time I cried in front of him...so emabarrasing.) He told me I am way too hard on myself and that I am very good at Portuguese. I just want to be fluent already and that's hard because it takes time to learn. We got our travel itinerary too! I leave on the 19th at 2:30 am. We fly from SLC to Minneapolis to Boston to Cape Verde. We will get to Cape Verde at 4:30 am the next day in Utah time. It will be 9:30 in Cape Verde because of the time difference. I'm so excited!
Saturday I hit my 1 month mark on the mission! So exciting but it's going by way too quickly! For our morning class time Irmao Staples had us spend 30 minutes praying to Heavenly Father about things we can improve on to be better missionaries. I testify that if you pray with real intent, he will answer your prayers. I have no doubt that he answered my prayer. After lunch we had Irmao Workman and he did interviews with us. I didn't cry in my interview (thank goodness) but it was hard. He is so awesome to talk to because he went through a lot of the same things that I am on his mission so he totally understands and gives great advice. I hope I never forget what he told me. He told me that I need to shift my perspective from wanting to be perfect now and speak fluent Portuguese because that is a form of pride. I never thought about it that way but it's true. When you are only focusing on yourself and belittle yourself saying you need to be better then you are only thinking about yourself and that's not good. He told me to study up more on the Atonement which was cool because earlier this week I was getting the feeling that I needed to do this already. Later for gym time I was going to go running. I saw Sister Lacey and had a feeling I should talk to her. She said she had the same feeling so we spent all of gym talking. It was so amazing because we have a lot of the same trials as well so I was able to help her and she took a class on the Atonement and was able to share a lot of what she had learned with me. I have no doubt that it was the holy ghost guiding me to what I needed to hear.
Sunday I woke up and just did not feel good. I went to church but I did not feel good so I didn't shake anyone's hands. Sister Brough told me to go back to the residence and take a nap. I really didn't want to because it was the last sunday with Elder Bratsman since he got his visa and the Mozambique missionaries since they leave early sunday morning. (they have a 52 hour flight! yikes!) They let me stay for sacrament then made me go back to the residence. I took a long nap and felt better in the afternoon. I was able to go to the devotional and it was super good! Some elders and sisters shared their conversion stories and it was so touching. This week I learned a lot about the guiding power of the holy ghost. Sunday was also Elder Hruby's birthday. He had a lot of fun celebrating in the MTC.
Yesterday I still didn't feel good so my branch president made me go to the medical clinic. It's just a cold but I hope I can get over it before the plane ride. We had Irmao Chamberlein for class. He knocked the garbage can over on accident, which had all my nasty tissues in it. It was disgusting and I felt so bad that he had to pick them up. The whole time he was saying "Eu sou um homen" which means I am a man! Then he sanitized his hands with a lot of hand sanitizer. He asked me if I was sick at the beginning of class and I said "Sim, Estou a morrer" which mean yes I am dying. I was kidding but then he said his baby is dying too. I thought he was serious and felt so bad but then he laughed and said we are all dying. Then he said not to tell his wife he said that because she would slap him. He has a weird sense of humor haha.
Today I feel better but still yucky. I miss you all and I love all the letters and emails you send me. The next time I write I will probably be in Cape verde!
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