Oi! From Brazil!

 As you can see from the title from this weeks entry, I have officially finished the 3rd week of my CTM training, so now there is only 3 more to go before I enter the field in Orlando, Florida!  Wow, so crazy.  It's blown by and just taken me by surprise how fast this last week went by.  This week started in a very unique way, I got to see two of the missionaries in my district in person!!!  It was kinda weird to see their full body, and officially meet them in person for the first time.   The wonderful Elder Doller, and Elder DeWitt!   Now this week was a challenge in terms of learning Portuguese.  Our instructors challenged us to go Tuesday-Friday with no Google Translate in class (which we were all basically living on that for the first two weeks).  However!  It went surprisingly well!  Instead of looking things up, I was able to ask for meaning and definition in Portuguese, which honestly helped me learn even better....

 E aí meu amigos e familia!  This week has been a big difference from last week.  I've been getting a hang of the online scheduling and I've actually been learning a lot a lot of Portuguese!  It is extremely exciting, and the Lord has definitely been giving me so many blessings, but specifically the Gift of Tongues.   Now, you may be wondering, why is there a flag of Florida on this blog that is all about Brazil??  Well, Monday was a very exciting day.  In the evening, my companion, Elder Draper shared that he had gotten his temporary reassignment while waiting for visa things to work out.  He was called to the Arcadia, California Mission!!!  From there, everyone in our district began to get calls all over the states, and I got mine to....you guessed it....ORLANDOOOOO!  SEAWORLD, AND DISNEY, AND PUTT PUTT GOLFING!! (I've probably used that theatrical reference at least 20 times this week.  And yes it is the Disney mission.)...

 Olá to all my friends and familiá!  As you can see, I'll be slipping some portuguese phrases in here and there, I'm trying to practice to learn the language as quick as I can. Use Google translate if you get lost :) (I use it all the time in class!) What a week this has been!!  It's a little crazy to think that I only started the MTC (or the CTM as we call it in Brazil) only 4 days ago!  It has been a very different, yet fulfilling experience.   Monday and Tuesday of this week comprised of saying goodbye (temporarily!!) to my best friend, going to the temple with another friend who will soon be serving in Ukraine, and getting set apart as a Missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints!   Wednesday began my new experience in this online CTM.  As a missionary, I have to have a companion every time I leave the house.  I have a actual companion (more on him later) but I had the amazing opportunity to have a companion even ...