| | | Boa Tarde/Bom dia Irmãos e Irmãs!
It's so good to be able to
email you all on Preparation Day! It's been just over 5 days since I
left, and since then, I have spent my time here in Provo, Utah, at the
Missionary Training Centre! While I reside here, my Preparation Day is
on Monday, and during that time, I get to visit the temple across the
road, I get to do my washing, eat breakfast and lunch, have an afternoon
nap (not really but I do anyway) and we have a class at 6PM. It's
currently 3:30PM on Monday which means its 7:30AM on Tuesday in the
future! How's that for yah!?
-=| THE MTC |=-
The Missionary
Training Centre or MTC for short is great! The food is actually amazing.
We drink around 3 drinks at each meal cause everything is on tap, so a
glass of water, a glass of chocolate milk and assorted soft drinks to
cover the last, which is most excellent. The learning side of it all is
absolutely amazing. I have far outdone myself, as I thought I wouldn't be
this far in my language study. I can read the language with a middle
ground of understanding it, I have a few things memorised and my accent
is coming along great. I already have an American accent which is
awesome! I'm kidding of course, but I am adored by many for my accent.
People get upset when I tell them we cull kangaroos because they are a
nuance but it's true!
Our District (class)
consists of 11 people, 8 sisters and the trio of elders, including me,
and we are part of the largest Branch in the MTC, consisting of
Portuguese, Italian and Romanian. What a blessing! In our District, I am
the District Leader so I am practically in charge of our group, which
is pretty neat, but I don't really have any control, I just answer for
everyone when talking to the MTC Presidency. It's a great calling and
responsibility as I get to personally know each individual missionary in
our District
My companionship is a trio. Elder Slade is from
West Jordan, called to serve in the Massachusetts Boston mission, and
Elder Freeman from Southern California, called to serve in Mozambique
Maputo with me! Both these elders are excellent examples to me and help
me understand the language greatly, as Elder Slade had studied Brazilian
Portuguese for a year prior to serving his mission, and Elder Freeman
studied Spanish for a while in school, and a lot of the principles he
learned can be utilised, which is a blessing to the two of them are to
me, as I have NO TRAINING in Portuguese or any romance languages. I only
know Asian languages which is NO HELP honestly, but we are doing super
well!
-=| THE TEMPLE |=-
The temple is just across the
road which is crazy, and literally, driving down any road in Utah, there
are just temples and chapels everywhere. In the Provo Temple, they run
Endowment sessions every 20 minutes, and in the Brisbane Temple, it
takes us an hour to get through one before you can enter the next! It is
actually crazy! But the temple is so different, there is so much
woodwork and darker colours, and we don't move rooms, which saves so
much time, which is probably how they can get through sessions, mind
you, they have 4 layers to the temple, and 6 endowment rooms, 12 sealing
rooms and a full industrial grade laundry downstairs. ITS SO
INTIMIDATING HONESTLY, but what a blessing to be able to attend the
temple every week!
Anyway, it's been good to
let you in on what happens over here in the American Continent. It's
pretty good actually, but the food is so sugary. And most Americans hate
Vegemite which is upsetting cause it's SO GOOD. But if you have any
other questions or want some more in depth knowledge or something, just
email me!
Thanks for reading this weeks issue of Elder James' Chronicles!
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