Ten Little Indians

That´s how many days I have left here at the CTM!

I´m trying to count them down because I really do want to enjoy my remaining time here because I only have the opportunity to be here once. And it´s such a unique opportunity too! But if I were to say I wasn´t excited to head out to the field, that would be a lie. A big, big lie.

The population here as jumped, no -leaped- to almost 300 missionaries! Visas came into the Provo MTC by the boatloads apparently, because 4 out of the 7 days last week, American missionaries were showing up; Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It usually around 20 missionaries too! I hear some more missionaries came in today too. 30 some odd Brazilian missionaries are coming in on Thursday too! There´s going to be a few missionaries going to Teresina because today is exactly 3 weeks before transfers, and they stay for just under 3 weeks.

Today we were able to go to the Campinas Temple. It´s about an hour and half away from here. I really liked it! The view was awesome. I´m 90% sure that we could see Sao Paulo because the Temple sat up on a hill. But... then again you can never be too sure because Sao Paulo is so huge, I can´t tell where it starts and where it begin.

On Friday we go proselyting for the second and last time. This time though, we drive into downtown Sao Paulo and proselyte there. It´s much better there. My branch president taught us some great techniques for street contacts. I hope to apply what I´ve learned!

I´ve been studying a lot on humility this past week. It´s amazing to see what I can learn when I´m diligently studying the scriptures. I learned some wonderful things that will help me stay humble. I took a break from the New Testament when I studied humility, but now I´m returning to it. I love reading it and then putting it into perspective of the history at the time. I´m sure I´ve learned about it before but it never really sunk in that the Savior´s earthly ministry was only 3 years, but the apostles labored roughly 30ish years after that to maintain the church! Despite intense persecution of the early Christian church, it´s such a testament to their efforts that Christianity was able to take root like it did.

My instructor in the morning went to Belem on his mission. At that time Teresina didn´t exist and Belem included half of what the Teresina mission is today. Fortaleza had the other half. He never served in the state of Piaui which is half of Teresina, but he did serve in the state of Maranhao which is the other half of Teresina. I was able to talk with him a lot this week about it and I´ve become even more excited!

My time is short this week. I have one more chance to email here at the MTC, then I´ll be in Teresina!

Love,
Elder Rackham