The Plot Thickens...

Hello All!

I thought the subject for today´s email was epic and mysterious is roughly equal parts. Nevermind that it probably has nothing to do with what I´ll be writing about today! I will not conform, dangit!

I´ve decided that saying to myself "7 weeks until I get to the field" sounds much better than "8 weeks until I get to the field" haha. Now that´s not to say I don´t like it here in the MTC. I really do. I´m just more excited to get to Teresina! I´m fairly certain though that as I get closer to the end here in the MTC, I´ll be sad to go.

One thing that I´m a fan of here are the mattresses. They are soft, yet firm; Supple but unrelenting. In other words, with the exception of a night or two, I´ve been sleeping really well! I´m still trying to get used to the food, but the future looks grim. I´m really crossing my fingers that it will be better outside of the MTC. But I´m quickly losing hope, because I´ve been told that in Teresina, they like to eat goat stomach. Yeah... it´s going to be just as bad as it sounds. In neighboring Fortaleza, they decided it would be yummy to eat a lizard on a stick. Ha, fat chance! I´m hoping that hasn´t made it´s way into Teresina. I have been able to eat a lot of the bread and fruit here to fill myself up when I eat, and most of the time the chicken is delicious but I´m not so sure about everything else.

Oh! I finally recieved my name tag on Friday! One of the first sentences I learned was "Eu nao tehno a plaqueta, mas eu vou receber minha plaqueta em sexta-feira." I´ve said that more times than I can count. I have yet to find another missionary that´s going to Teresina, so my district has been joking that it didn´t exist because I didn´t have a name tag and nobody else here is going to Teresina. 3 weeks before I leave for Teresina though, there will probably be a few Brazilians who come in that have been called to Teresina, because they only stay in the MTC for 19 days. I´m sure there are a few missionaries at the Provo MTC who are also going to Teresina but who knows. Apparently 150 are still waiting for visas. I´m really blessed to have gotten mine!

The language is still coming really well. I´ve gotten to the point that I just need to start expanding my vocabulary because we´ve covered the basic tenses which I can get by with until I know more. Plus, I´ll be able to communicate with the Brazilians instead of saying 5 words and staring blankly at them for a minute or two.

The city of Sao Paulo is huge. And by huge I mean, gargantuan. If you haven´t seen it for yourself, it´s so hard to imagine. I look out my window and all I can see is Sao Paulo. They don´t even have a distinctive downtown here because this city is so huge. Several places could be considered downtown. The weather has been either nice, or a little hot. For some reason no matter how perfect it was during the day, sleeping at night is a little on the hot side. It´s not the most fun but that´s okay. I think it has something to do with being on the 6th floor.

One of my instructors, Irmao Anderson, served in the Recife mission. So of course I asked him if he knew Ben Wood or Eli Carpenter and he did! He even had a picture taken with him and Eli. I thought that was cool. The world can be such a small place sometimes.

My favorite day in the MTC is Sunday. One because we have our Church meetings and they´re so powerful and uplifting. I´m floating on clouds every Sunday. It´s just amazing! Two, we actually have some free time! I spent this past Sunday taking a nap and it was glorious. I was feeling slightly under the weather though and completely exhausted from one of the very few not-so-great nights of sleep, I imagine that probably had something to do with it.

Overall, things are great! The days are going by a bit faster, and the weeks are definitely going by faster. The first week felt like 3 weeks, this week felt like just over 1 week, pretty soon I´ll wake up one day in Teresina and wonder where the time went!

Until next time!
Elder Rackham