Week 3 in Brazil

Brazil doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving the way we do, but we had some great food in the CTM here! We had mile high ice-cream bowls that (to be fair) were decimated in about 30 minutes to small blocks of ice cream by the Brazilians. That was a well taken meal by those of us from the states.

I'm ready to leave the CTM to teach the gospel ... talking to people about the weather, what I like to do, how to get to the church on time, and about that odd mole on someone's foot—yeah, about that ... Pray for me that I can get the gift of tongues; specifically; pray that I'll be able to learn how to use the grammar and conjugations.

My last week isn't over yet; I'll record it when it's done. But, here's what I will say about my experience here: the Spirit is awesome, I wish I could say that my stay here has been nothing but flowers and sunshine, but I'd be lying. I have had moments where I'm trying to be productive only to be interrupted by an Irmao or Irma [Brother or Sister] here and completely try to change my line of work ... distracting. Other than that, my district is great, my companion is awesome, and I'm happy. My observations are like this: in the CTM, bliss and equality. Just over the pointy fence and large bodyguard guys, literal chaos on the streets (driving, even in a bus is a nightmare, forget traffic jams in the states! They have nothing on this place). Poverty is so total, beds are literally what line the sidewalks, and yes, people do use them.

Elder Bednar (yep, Mom, one of your favorites) did a Live Feed from a Provo devotional to the 6 MTCs that were awake at the time, and had a question and answer session. How? VIA PHONES AND EMAIL!!! I forgot what phones looked like! No, but what was so cool is I got some great insight about the nature of the gospel, God, and science that I never would have gotten if I didn't come here now. I also found out that the only reason for the age change was to line up with the rest of the world, as the [age] 18 for young men was already a thing in Korea, Mexico, and a few other places. I got one of my questions answered, and he didn't even read it off his tablet, how? He said something that was so profound that I had to write it: "When we designate the Spirit to be the teacher, He can speak to the hearts of all men and tell them things that we don't say." The Spirit is the teacher. Not you, not me, we are instruments that open our mouths and he speaks through us. I wish I could have recorded the whole thing, but I only got what the Spirit said to me personally. There were some profound questions, and some profound answers.

Elder Smith