Oi!
Well we officially passed the halfway mark of our MTC stay this week! The
days don't seem any shorter, but looking back, the weeks are going by fast. The
rumor here is that once you pass halfway, you're stuck here for the whole 6
weeks, even if your visa comes. No visas have come this week though, so I'm not
getting my hopes up.
To answer some of Mom's questions:
Yes, it does seem odd to be in one place so much. Every now and then we'll
be up in one of the top floors of a taller building and get a glimpse of the
outside world.
The temple is closed for renovations/construction from July 1st to August
11th. So we don't get to go at all. During our alotted temple time, we go and
walk around the grounds outside of it. However, my district has been assigned to
go and clean the temple next week so we might get a chance to go inside.
This week hasn't been very eventful, so I will scrounge up some things to
write about.
Last Sunday I was assigned to be the District Leader for our district.
Basically, this means that I conduct our class meetings, attend a bunch of extra
meetings on Sunday, and pick up the mail for our district.
Also last Sunday, the Branch President read a portion of my weekly letter
to him over the pulpit. When we first got to the MTC he challenged us to read
the entire Book of Mormon while we are here. At first, it was challenging to
balance that with class studies, teaching people, and learning Portuguese.
However its gotten much easier as I've gotten more comfortable here. I was going
to include my letter here, but the MTC computers are severely resticted and
don't allow copying and pasting (or spell check, as you can probably see).
Basically, I expressed my regret for not reading the Book of Mormon very much
and that I was thankful for this opportunity to increase my testimony in that
book, especially because I'll be teaching it to other people.
Portuguese has been coming along quite well. For a while, I felt like I
hadn't been progressing and it was kind of discouraging. Then two days ago I was
asked to read my summary of lesson 3 to the class. However, I had done it
earlier in the week before our teachers had made the rule that we could only
speak in Portuguese in the classroom. So I translated my paper on the spot! I
was so surprised and it was a nice to see that I had been learning a lot, it
just didn't feel like it. Although, we just learned several new tenses
yesterday, so now I have a new challenge. Last friday night, we had TRC (Idk
what that stands for) where we go from room to room talking to RM's from Brazil
or to native Brazilians that live in Provo (there's a lot more than you would
expect) about our lessons and just talk with them. It's been awesome and I've
been surprised at how much of it I am able to understand. Saying what I'm
thinking is a whole different story though. I can convey basic principles fairly
well, but it is frustrating to not be able to say what I want to say,
how I want to say it. I'm forced to speak in simple sentences that get
the meaning across just fine, but lack the ideas and emotions that I am trying
to convey. But I guess it's the basic principles that people are going to need
to hear, not necessarily my thoughts and emotions.
That's all the news that I have for now, ate mais!
Love, Elder Carr
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