Integration

Hello Everybody,

Now that I am well into my second week of my MTC experience, I have begun to develop am fairly consistnent routine. My roommates all wake up at 6:20 to shower and I just lay there until about 6:28 so that I dont fail the 6:30 wake-up. I then do some room excercises (pushups, resitance bands, pullups, etc). I then take a real quick shower and rush off to breakfast with Elder Duffy. I force myself to eat the "great" cafeteria food. We usually then have to teach for about 30 min in portoguese one of the lessons and try and convert our teacher's investigating alter ego. Which reminds me, we commited our first investigator David to baptism. Me and my companion are both getting alot better at portusguese and I now pray and give my testimony quite well in it. My spanish background is a help and a hindrance because although I know the structure and many of the words I often accidentally use the Spanish word when the Portuguese one is differente, like how the word "de" in Spanish is pronounced "day" while in portuguese it is pronounced "ghee." Im working on it :P

This week, our district has grown alot closer. Whether it has been playing soccer or giving each other hair cuts while standing in trash cans (I opted out of this one) it has been great. We always eat meals together and study together and I am learning alot from them. They all have such strong testimonies and are great examples to me. One of our roommates is struggling a little because no one has written him anything other than two emails of only a couple lines each. Also, he says really silly things like implying that he smells us at night and that he thinks running into stumps is something barefoot skiers need to worry about. This subsequently leads us to joking about it, but he doesnt seem to mind. He did get quite upset when I bet him a dollar to be paid in two years that Mt. Whitney was taller than Mt. Ray-neer (IDK) and was the tallest in the continental US and obviously won. He jsut has kind of an abrasive personality and I sense he's had kind of a rough life. Im trying to be nicer to him, but its so hard when his outlooks and actions are in such stark contrast to my own. But I will keep at it.

We have had a bunch amazing speakers and watched possibly the best talk I have ever seen. Elder Holland gave a talk called the miracle of missionary work which has truly inspired me to work harder and strengthen my testimony.

I am sending home a bunch of letters this week in one envelope and I hope you guys can some how deliver them to my friends. I got a random post card from a sister at the Utah Shakespeare festival and I have no idea who it is. I love you all so very much and I miss you dearly, but I know that this is where the lord wants me. I have more packages than I know what to do with and I invite you to use Dear Elder .com because it allows me to get letters faster and more often. To send packages for cheaper I think, you can use Dear Elder or Called2Serve.

Hello Family (and friends)!

 

I would first like to say that I am having a wonderful time. It is far less structured then I was led to believe and the classes are in general good and helpful. I am slowly learning to read and write portuguese, but I speak and understand better than most mainly due to my Spanish background. About 1/2 the words are the same or close enough and the sentence structure is almost identical. It is like speaking drunken spanish because I fell like I have to slur my words to do it correctly :).

 

My companion is great! His name is Elder Duffy and he went to BYU with Elder McCord (who also happens to be in my district). He is the District Leader and I'm his assistant. I like to pretend that I wasn't called because the branch president expects me to leave for Brazil soon because I already filled out the online application and the position lasts for 4 weeks. But probably not. He is from Seatle and likes skiing, wakeboarding, and running. Earlier this year he had a major ski accident when he over rotated when doing a 1080 spin off a jump going about 50 mph. He was wearing a helmet when he crashed but was in a coma for about 12 hours, had to be heli-lifted out, and was considered by the doctor to be semi-retarded for about two months. He still finished out the year at BYU, but had to drop two classes because he was said to have the attention span of a second grader. He is at full functionality now except he says he reads a little slower. He seems fine to me. Our whole group jokes about him being retarded and about how is girlfriend is fat because he once called her tubby when he was still a little slow :).

 

Every day is Sunday at the MTC, but thats ok because I can sleep through church classes here just I like I did back home! Just kidding! We wake up at 6:30 am everyday (except Monday where we have to wake up at 6:10 for the temple) and are asleep by 10:30 pm. Breakfast is at 7:10, lunch is at 11:40, and dinner is at 4:40 with three hour language lessons, meetings with portuguese speaking "investigors," hour long personal study times, gym, and devotionals in between. Gym is obviously my favorite time because I get to lift weights, run, and play four-square. Old habits die hard and I still am having a little trouble with such regiment but I will adjust.

 

I miss you guys so much and hope you guys will either email or write me! If you use Dear Elder, the letters are printed and delivered within one day so that might work best. I only get 30 min a week to email between 12:00 and 4:30 so try and be on then.

 

Elder Healy