Friday October 29, 2010

Hey everyone!

  This week was absolutely amazing!! Lots of stuff happened but the I'll just say some of the big points. We had Richard G. Scott come and give a devotional here, the best talk I have ever seen in person! He gave an Apostolic Blessing to the sister missionaries for protection and gave everyone else an Apostolic Blessing of the Gift of Tongues, it was incredible and I already see my Portuguese vastly improving because of it! He also bore the most powerful testimony of the Savior that I have ever heard, my whole body was just overwhelmed by the Spirit as he closed his talk by saying that he knows that Christ lives and has a glorified body and he knows this because he knows the Savior personally...it was soooo cool when he said this and we couldn't stop talking about it after the meeting. Then this morning the temple need proxies for sealings and we got to do them! It was so neat since I won't be able to be there when Lillee and William are sealed to our family, but this experience was priceless. I personally love it here in the MTC but most of the elders in our district hate it here but we are all excited to be able to get out into the field. I got to see Taylor Jones on his first day too so that was way rad! Thank you so much Mom for all the packages!! I got the one with my black cords and shirts like an hour ago so thank you again so much!!! O and for the bread too, everyone in our district loves that we have stuff to munch on during the day. And Lisa and Sean are so great for sending me some crescants, they were soo good!! Well, all is going well here so don't even spend a second worrying about me!!!

Love,

Michael

Friday October 22, 2010

Hey everyone,

  This last week has been way rad here in the MTC! It just keeps getting better everyday and my knowledge of the scriptures and Portuguese expands soooo fast, it's crazy. So this last Tuesday we had a devotional and Russell M. Nelson was the speaker, such an amazing experience! He only spoke for like 10-15 minutes (they usually speak for at least 30 mins) so that was kind of odd but it was just so cool to be in the presence of an Apostle of God. It's really funny how excited we get for devotionals too, it is really all that we have to look forward to. Me and my companion did another 'mock investigator' thing at the TRC (Training Resource Center) and it went really really well. The guy was from Sao Palo and was a member but he did a great job at asking questions that made us think. We pretty much do role play at least 3 times a day here in the MTC, usually teaching the discussions, so getting good at teaching and role playing before you get in here definitely would help a TON. Your Las Flores ward did a really good job at that with the priests I noticed so that is really cool. Mom, Thank you sooooo much for sending those packages!!! Everyone in my district was so stoked to see that one of us actually got a care package full of real food haha candy and other stuff is still really good but it's nice to get some healthy stuff every now and then. And that book with all of our family photos is my favorite!! But thanks again Mom, youre the greatest I love you so much!!! Me and my companion have to teach Sunday school this week and it's on Christlike Attributes so we are excited to be able to share our message in 2 days. The Spirit of the MTC is so incedible, this is by far the hardest and most tiring (no 2 hour naps everyday haha) work that I have ever done, but it is no question the most rewarding and spiritually refreshing thing I have ever done. Anyways...I love you all so so much and give all the little ones a big hug and kiss for me!!

Love,

Michael

Friday, October 15, 2010

Hey everyone,

So we finally got our first week down, it went really well and our district is really really close with each other. We have 13 missionaries and are crammed into this tiny room but it's fine because we don't have any annoying people. We finally got another Portuguese teacher this week too!!! We are all super happy because we were getting tired of not ever having a teacher. Today is P-day so we got to go to the temple and do a session and it was amzing, the Spirit there is so strong. We also made a point of emphasis in our district to truly have faith in the Lord that our visas will come and so we all prayed earnestly for this in the temple. It was a great experience and it was my favorite trip to the temple thus far. Besides that everything has been going really well. The work is long and hard and I was not at all prepared to be working this hard before I came here but they just keep telling us to be obedient, trust in the Lord and give it your all and everything will be just fine. The weather has been amazing this last week too, I think it's because the Lord knows I don't like cold weather so wherever I live the weather is always warm haha lets just hope I get my visa before the snow comes or I might just freeze to death. Love you all, it was so good to hear from Aunt Lisa and Aunt Arlene this week and I'd love to hear from anyone else!

Com amor,

Michael

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Hey family,

  Everything has been going pretty great so far in the MTC, it is not nearly as bad as everyone made it out to be. However I know that living away from home for a long period of time has definitely helped me not be too home sick. My companion is Elder Parsons from Idaho and he is an awesome guy, we get along super well and both have pretty calm personalities. We got lucky with our roommates too, Elder Ricker and Hildebrandt from Idaho and Utah are really fun guys and easy going. Our district is pretty big, we have 13 elders and we are crammed into a room the size of half of my old bedroom, seriously, it's crazy tight in there!! Our teachers are great too but it is kind of weird because we only get taught like 2, maybe 3 hours a day and the rest of the time we have to find studying for ouselves and companions to do. There is a massive shortage of teachers, especially Protuguese tachers, since they weren't expecting to have to house all of these elders who should be in Brazil. Our district is hoping so badly that our visas come thru quickly because we are all really anxious to get down to Brazil. The language is defintiley different from Spanish but it is so much cooler than spanish! Anyways, it's been a really good experience here so far and it's been good to grasp the Spirit of the MTC. Before I came here I thought about all the things in my life that I wanted to change over these next 2 years and I quickly learned this is not the attitude to have. Instead I know that if I just focus on serving others and learning the gospel principles and the Portuguese language, that in return I know the Lord will make me a better person. Also as much as I don't really want to admit it, gettting up at 5 in the morning for seminary for 4 years in high school has definitely made it a lot easier to wake up early here, there are a lot of elders here who really struggle with getting up. I finally got your packages and DearElder letters today and it was so great to have mail! Those cinnamon rolls will definitely be a lot better than anything they could possibly serve here for breakfast (lunch and dinner aren't too bad usually). I've seen pretty much everyone here in the MTC that I already knew was here, the only one you would really know would be Austin Taylor but I've seen a ton of friends from school. Sooo quick story, the Elders in our district are pretty obsessed with always talking about our visas, especially my rommate Elder Ricker. He always jokes that each day is his last day here in Provo and that his visa is coming tomorrow. So I decided to write a note from the "MTC Travel Coordinator" saying that they had received the visas for the 4 Elders in our room. I slipped the note under our door and when our district all went back to our rooms later that night, Elder Ricker opened our door and walked in to find the note. He read it and started running down the hall yelling how he got his visa, this caused everyone in our district to run out of their rooms and huddle around the note. Their reactions were priceless! I was in the background laughing so hard and after a couple of minutes my companion and I finally told Elder Ricker and the rest of the Elders that I wrote the note as a joke and they all thought it was hysterical. And it was. haha other elders saw this and decided to do the same joke on their roommates too. The MTC is great and we do all that we can to focus the entire day so that we can become better instruments in the Lord's hand but we realize that we still have to have some fun every now and then or else we will all go crazy!! Well, it was cool that I got to talk to you the other day on the phone and thank you for sending in those immunization records, I really appreciate it. I love you all and hope all is well back home!! Can't wait to hear from you next week!! Tell the babies I love them and miss them so much! and you too, Mom, Dad, Annie, Tiersha, Tahnee, Josh and Tyler!

 

Chao!

Michael (the golden child)

ps. it is starting to get REALLY cold here...it ain't no Hawaii out here!!

and sorry if there are a ton of typing errors, I only have so many minutes to write so I gotta go fast! But I'm doing great!!

Dropping him off!

Here are the pictures from dropping Michael off at the MTC!  He looked great and was very excited!  It's not quite as "heartless" as everyone makes it seem.  We pulled up and two missionaries were there to help him and told us that we could take as long as we needed to say goodbye.  However, it was very quick, and no tears were shed.  It was a great goodbye!

These guys were funny, but I'm sure they helped Michael with everything he needed.  They seemed really excited to help.

I'm going to try REALLY hard to keep this updated

Michael entered the MTC on Wednesday, and I'm going to try really hard to keep a blog of the emails & pcitures he sends home. I'm sure it would be nice to be able to put a book together of everything when he gets home. If there's anything Michael sends you that you would like me to put up let me know! I have pictures from dropping him off at the MTC, but do not have my camera so those pictures will be up soon!