Week 3--Provo Missionary Training Center

Ola!

Wow this week was crazy! It went by so fast though which is super nice but super scary. In three weeks from today, I'll be on a plane to Portugal! I'm so excited though.
Last Monday we got to teach real people! Most of them were return missionaries who had served in either Brazil or Portugal. It was kinda scary.. But I thought it went well! We definitely learned A LOT about how to better our teaching.
So on Tuesdays we have an evening devotional and guess who came! Elder Renlund!! He's one of the twelve apostles of the Lord in our day. Just as Christ called apostles, we too have the blessing of having them. Everyone was freaking out! And the devotional was recorded and sent to all the MTC's in the world! I was in the choir and I think Sister Nance and I might have gotten some air time ;) He talked about how you constantly need to feed your faith so that it can grow. "Faith without works is dead, being alone." I loved his talk.
Wednesday was pretty exciting too! We had about 300 new missionaries come to the MTC and my district got to host them. That means we stood at the sidewalk, met the new missionaries, and then took them to get all their stuff, find their room, and then drop them off at their classes. It was so much fun! I met a Sister who is coming to Georgia! Her name is Sister Sermon! Look out for her! Then Wednesday night, Sister Nance and I and the two district leaders got to meet our new Brazilian missionaries. We have 10 new ones. They're so awesome and their going to be amazing in Brazil! Some of them are going to Manaus, Natal, Recife, and some weird place I can't pronounce. This Wednesday we get 9 more Brazilians and the next week we get 30 more!! CRAZY!
We have an Indian elder in our zone named Elder Kartegayen. He's hilarious!! But he's super down to earth and won't deal with anyone who is being a baby. He was hosting someone on Wednesday who was crying as he was walking away from his family. Elder K. turned to him and yelled "Are you serious?!" (read with an Indian accent). The elder quickly stopped crying and they were silent for a while when they walked. Then Elder K. randomly turned to him and said "Don't drink the orange juice." (again, read with an Indian accent). We just about died when he told us that. He's the best.
Sister Nance and I have realized that knowing Spanish is a curse but also a blessing. It's great to be able to understand what people are saying and to be able to fall back on it if we don't know a word in Portuguese, but it really messes us up. I always say the word "ajudar" as "ayudar" like in Spanish. It's super confusing.
I love our teachers! Irmao Read always calls (sisters) us "anjos" which means angels. It's super sweet of him but when he first called us that, we thought he was calling us "anos" which is years.. We were so confused.
We had a donut eating contest last week. I lot. Big time. I'm just not that fast at eating my donuts I guess. Sister Nance won which was awesome! But now we're going on a diet so we stop eating junk. That's one of our goals this week.
So we got some pretty big news yesterday. We were at choir practice and were told that we were getting a new song and that we would be working for two weeks on it. That was strange because we usually just work on it for a week and then get a new one. Brother Eggett (choir director) told us that it was a brand new song written by someone super important and that we, the MTC choir, would be debuting it. He also said that this person's grandchildren would be singing with us. I don't remember how he said it but he somehow snuck it out there that ELDER BEDNAR had written the song and that we would be performing it next Tuesday. Then he said since his grandchildren would be singing here, ELDER BEDNAR WILL BE SPEAKING NEXT WEEK! We're all crazy excited!!! (Elder Bednar is another one of the Lord's apostles and one of my favorite speakers). I think I'm going to die and go to heaven!
So many great things are happening here at the MTC! I'm kinda sad that we're half way done but I'm super excited to see what Portugal will bring!

Eu amo voces!
Sister Hillam

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