Last E-mail from the MTC in Brazil

This will be the last email you all will receive from me while I´m at the CTM. I leave to go to Teresina on the 26th of February, just 3 days from now! Plus it´s my birthday then! It´ll be really cool to get to the field on my birthday, be assigned an area and a companion, and then getting to work!

The world here in Sao Paulo Brazil keeps getting smaller and smaller! An Elder Lopez arrive here a a couple of weeks ago from the Provo MTC. They have each district posted at the help desk that has all the names and hometowns of the missionaries here. I took a look and saw a hometown of Herriman, Utah! It turns out Elder Lopez and I were in the same grade at Herriman Elementary! I don´t think we were ever in the same grade, but we did have the same english teacher 6th grade, Mrs. Earl. I´ve found so many connections with the missionaries here! It´s so neat having that connection with them. It´s definitely helped us grow closer together as a district.

I´m so glad for the opportunity I´ve had to be here in the CTM in Brazil. I hope I haven´t taken it for granted. I know that things happen for reasons we don´t always understand. Sometimes we understand them down the road a bit, but sometimes we never understand them. Either way, I know I´ve been here with my specific district and with other specific missionaries for specific reasons. I know I´ll enjoy looking back and reading my journal here and seeing some of those reasons make sense to me and I´ll understand a little piece of why I was here in Brazil at this time.

I´m going to miss the CTM. I´m definitely going to miss the prepared meals. Not necessarily the food, but not having to make the food is nice. I´m going to miss the completely planned out schedule that we have. I´m ready to leave it, but I´ll definitely miss it. I´ll also miss my instructors and the different friends I´ve made with the other teachers here. They´re so much fun. But most of all I´ll miss the missionaries I´ve become so close with. They´ve put up with me for 9 weeks, I don´t know how they´re still sane haha, but I´ve learned so much from each and every one of them. But hey, I´ll see them at some point after 2 years!

It´s a shorter email this week. I´m trying to cut myself down to an hour of emailing on PDays because that´s about what I´ll have when I get to the field.

Tchau!
Elder Rackham