March 25th, 2013- First week in the Missionary Training Center

 Well so far so good! I'm definitely enjoying the Provo MTC. My first day here I was assigned with Sister Solorzano as my companion, but she is fluent in Portuguese so they moved her to an advanced class and put me in a trio with Sister Nelson & Sister Bergloff. So far I've really enjoyed being with them. They are always excited to share their testimony, and are eager to learn the language. I love my district! The Elders are so nice & so are the Sisters. We all try to have fun at the same time as learning how to teach the gospel, and learning a new language.

     My first two days went well. I think I was a little shell shocked at first, just trying to figure out what was going on. We didn't really have a teacher & so we all were pretty much teaching ourselves Portuguese which was stressful. We taught our first lesson to an investigator, in Portuguese, on Friday. It was alright, I mean I struggled a little bit because I was frustrated that I couldn't communicate all the way. Friday was probably my hardest day here. I definitely broke down by the end of the night, but I prayed to have the strength to make it through the next day & Heavenly Father definitely answered my prayers. I've really come to understand the art of patience. I realized that I needed to be patient when it comes to learning Portuguese. I also realized that I needed to cut myself some slack. I'm picking up the language pretty fast, I mean faster than I've ever picked anything else up, but instead of patting myself on the back I was putting myself down and comparing myself. I just really want to learn this language and be able to teach. That night I prayed for comfort & help and I definitely got that. Saturday went really well. We taught our investigator again & the lesson went really well. The spirit was strong & she really seemed to understand us. Ever since then I've really enjoyed being here. I've been working really hard to learn the language of the spirit & have challenged myself to finishing the Book of Mormon before I leave (which is 14 pages a day). But I really do love it here & I really am enjoying this experience. Today was P-day & we got to go to the temple which was way awesome! I really enjoyed getting out of the MTC:) & getting to feel the peace that the temple brings.