Week 12

This week was a pretty good week,

First of all thank you for the donuts and guaraná, i have an awesome video now on my camera when we opened the door to show the others. We had a little donut party that night, fun stuff. I have a chocolate bagel every morning too, mhm yup.

Probably the best thing all week was Wednesday when me and my companion were called down to another building, we didn't know why. We found out though, that they had an investigator who was from Brazil, but was taking the discussions here in Provo in English. She has a date to be baptized already, but she wanted someone to teach her some of the lessons in Portuguese, so they chose us. It was about an hour and a half lesson, and we taught how to pray, how to testify, about the plan of salvation. So that was way fun.

Also, one of our teachers on skype Brother Diniz, decided to introduce us to his family and have us teach them the first lesson. So we did, but while he was introducing us, my companion forgot what mission he was serving in because... everything they say about Brazilian women is true. bahahaha.

Well the clock is counting down, since we're in our twelfth week, we have maybe 2-3 weeks before we either get reassigned or sent to Brazil. Yesterday about 8 members (in their 14th week) of the MEGADISTRICT (laser sounds) got reassigned to Georgia and Arkansas.

Me and my companion have been sharing our testimonies in Portuguese with 9 random people a day, we have lots of time, and it helps with making contacts.

There's a couple other players that were on the United Rugby team the year after me here, and some of the Polys on our floor had a ball, so we were able to pass it around a bit. Nice.

I'm glad Mariah liked the letter, it was fun writing it :D

Love you
-Elder Webber

Week 11

Actually the MEGADISTRICT (laser sounds) is pretty sweet. We've actually had to learn how to plan things out effectively, we spend a lot of time on Skype talking with our Brazilian professors, we play a couple grammar games (Like black-board golf, which takes FOREVER, just like real golf)

Me and my companion have had some really powerful lessons, especially the second lesson, which is surprising since it's all in Portuguese and we probably sound like 5 year olds.

A little thought: You know you've been reading the scriptures too much when you write the date "Jew 17" instead of "Jan 17" (which I did) We've almost passed the Russians in the amount of time in the MTC, they're here for 12 weeks I think. booya.

Good to hear that I've been officially kicked out of my room, did the blood-thirsty vultures circle around a few times before they yoinked everything? And I don't mind snooping, I like to brag about my many worldly possessions, gold, silver, and precious things.

I think what I wish I could do the most right now is to be able to play one more rugby game... I'm sick of these no-contact sports. ugh.

Thank you Mariah (and Joseph) for the cards and....artwork.... haha, I liked it, and thank you for the chocolate chip bagels. How ever did you know?

That's pretty much about it I think. Indeed

Muito Bom, Fica Gelado.

:D Rock on, sweet.

-Elder Webber

Week 10

Well we're in the MEGADISTRICT now. *laser sounds*

Pretty much the first hours of the day are for prep, breakfast and our three hours of study time, just like in the field. So I guess that's good, but the rest of the day is completely free and we can use it up however you want, We've had tons of language study and lots of rounds of "who would win in a fight between..." Scripture edition.

I've been pretty lucky with my companions so far, but i know that I'm gonna have some that'll make me want to punch a monkey ( which i hear are all over in Goiania). But I've had lots of time to figure out how to be that good kind of companion.

We learned yesterday that there's nothing more important and that gives you more success as a missionary than learning to plan effectively and set goals and have a plan, so I guess that falls under that category of being "long-suffering".

We also learned that the Brazilian term for going to the bathroom is "baptizing a Lamanite"

Genesis just blows my mind. But I read Abraham, which was way interesting. Many off-topic deep discussions about that. You know you've been in the MTC too long when you start having "doctrine studies" about whether or not there are other "races or intelligent life out there, and if so, do they have their own diety, or are they just sentient life?"
yup.

Well there's only so much prep you can do outside of the mission field, we'll probably end up getting reassigned at 14 weeks if we don't get sent, but we'll see how that goes.
The days crawl by almost too slowly, but the months go by fast.

Also, most of us have forgotten how to respond to our first name, we tested it :D

Love you,

Elder Webber

Week 9

And about learning the language, we don't really have much of a choice here :P It's either learn the language or go home, anybody could learn a language if they spent 9 weeks here. I've learned more here than I did taking 3 years of German.

Still no word on the visas, we'll probably be here for a while. If we're not gone by next week we join the MEGA DISTRICT, which is the district for all the Brazil missionaries that have been here longer than 9 weeks and are waiting for visas... there are quite a lot of them. so that should be fun.

Thanks for the dictionaries, I'll probably need one, they gave us a mini one here but it doesn't have that many words, so that'll help. and about the music, we can't listen to any here ( not even motab) and i have no idea about my mission, i guess i'll just have to wait and see. But from what I've heard about my mission president, i'm gonna say no. Have you heard the song "the Lords prayer" by Motab and Andrea Bocelli? I heard it a long time ago, and i listened to it again here. Probably best song by motab.....of all time. yup.

I ate all the oranges, not too shabby. it's a nice break from all the candy I eat. I put one of the slabs of grandma's fudge on the "sacrifice table" I dunno if I mentioned it, but in the hallway of our dorms there is a table (ironing board) where if you don't want anything you sacrifice it by putting it on the table, and if the gods accept your offering it'll probably be gone within 20.

We're petitioning our district leader to let us have a "p-day fight night" but we're not sure how that'll pass. Something about missionary guidelines or something. (9 weeks without hitting anybody has taken a toll on our minds, we feel like a bunch of hippies)

well, have fun, don't burn down the house.

"operem os orpoes!!"
--MAN THE HARPOONS!

--Elder Webber

Week 8

Christmas was pretty good, thank you for the presents. :D I'm wearing my hat right now, and have the pictures set up and am working on eating all the candy. And I liked the letters/cards you sent, haha. Funny stuff.

The biggest news this week is that my companion is now in Brazil. Four elders in my district got their visas this week, and left on Tuesday, so now there's just 6 of us left here. I have a new companion, he's the district leader, but it's still kind of eerie. And we still dunno when we're leaving. And another one of us got put into quarantine, so now there's only 5 of us walking around. It's weird.

I got to host on Wednesday; the ones that stand on the sidewalk and rip kids away from their parents and tell them to stop hugging and such. That was fun :D. Got to stand out in the snow with hot chocolate and watch everybody say goodbye. Awesome.

We've done a couple "language fasts" already, where we try to talk nothing but Portuguese all day... those have pretty much lasted until lunch, cuz someone wants some french-fries or something, and doesn't know the word, and all the english comes forth.

Still the champ at the dot game, and nobody wants to play the push game anymore :D

We're supposed to write a talk each Saturday in case we're called to talk on Sunday, on Christlike attributes, I was running out of time last week, so I'm glad I wasn't called. But here are parts of it. Just so you can read some port-too-geese.

A humilidade é meu tópico, meu tópico é humilidade. Eu vou falar em humilidade, e em humilidade eu vou falar....
A humilidade é a disposição de submeter-nos a vontade do senhor e dar no senhor a honra por tudo que for realizado...
Eu sie que humilidade enlata mostrar voces um todo mundo novo, lustroso, brilhante esplédido...

Humility is my topic, my topic is humility. I will speak on humility, on humility i will speak...
Humility is the willingness to submit to the will of the Lord, and give honor to the Lord for all that we accomplish.
I know that humility can show us a whole new world, shining, brilliant, splendid...
(Aladdin was stuck in my head all week, and I had other stuff to replace it in my talk, so no worries)

Eu amo voce, e o pensi de voce.
(love you, and thinking of you)