Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Mispronunciations- Week 5 at the MTC

So last Tuesday, we ate a meal at the Provo Temple and it was probably the best $7 I've ever spent. You don't really realize how full of preservatives this food is until you have some real food again. I was so happy. Also on that day, Elder Nelson came again! This time it was because the MTC Presidency had been switched out and he's the chairman of the missionary committee, so he came to preside. He gave another really awesome talk. Oh, and the entire new MTC Presidency speaks Portuguese, so we basically now have total control.

Other than that, it's been all systems normal here. On Wednesday we hosted some new elders here, and I sometimes say hi to the elders I hosted. We've also lost a couple of the districts that were here to greet us when we arrived. There's only 4 districts in our branch now (my district arrived at the same time as 2 others, we've been here the longest now.) I hear there's a new district with 14 people coming in on Wednesday, so that's cool! The two elders in my district going to Brazil are getting their reassignment letters this week, so I'll update you on that. It's weird to me that they're going to leave in a week.

It's kinda funny how cooped up you feel in here sometimes. The other day my companheiro was feeling sick, so we went to the medical center and they sent us to the pharmacy a block away. It was a short walk, but it was so weird to me, because the only time we're ever allowed to leave campus here is to go to the temple. The experience was really refreshing, actually. We even got to nap afterwards, which was really nice.

I'm feeling more and more confident in my ability to communicate in Portuguese as I go. We had a talk about the Seahawks and the Broncos with our investigator yesterday, without trouble. I do mess up a bit sometimes. Like the other day, when I messed up pedimos (we asked) with pedamos (we farted.) Our investigator broke character and just laughed hard for a bit before I realized my mistake. It seems like the best stories with investigators are always about me and my companheiro. We just do dumb things.

We also have good experiences in lessons, too, don't worry. In our last lesson, we talked about how we feel the spirit and our investigator shared with us a story about how his dad had a heart attack and he couldn't leave work to go see him in the hospital so he just prayed and prayed, and somehow his dad recovered. It was really touching. And like you said in your letter, yeah I'm pretty used to just tearing up like every day here. The Spirit is pretty crazy. Maybe that's not a great description of the Spirit, but that's what it feels like.

That's just about it for this week, I'll update you on a few other things. We're supposed to do In-Field Orientation this Thursday, and I really have no idea what it is, so that'll be fun! I'll just leave you off with some Portuguese trivia of the week, which is their version of CTR. To keep the acronym, they actually say Conserva Tua Roche, which means "hold on to your rock." I think that's really cool.

Say hi to everyone for me!

Love,
Elder Penner

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