Week 5--Provo MTC

Lots of things happened this week so sorry if it's kinda jumbled around! Desculpa!!

Elder Bednar came!!! He gave the most amazing devotional! It was all about "the one." God knows each of us personally and he knows exactly how to help us and it is our job as missionaries and as children of God to go out and find "the one" and help them come unto Christ and understand their divine nature, that they are also children of God. It was AMAZING! At the end we got to sing his song "One by One" and man.. that was such a humbling experience. Words cannot describe..

President Burgess of the MTC came into our Sacrament meeting yesterday. He has a sweet spot for us Portuguese speakers since he served in Brazil. He shared this scripture from 2 Nephi 31:3 in the Book of Mormon:

"3 For my soul delighteth in plainness; for after this manner doth the Lord God work among the children of men. For the Lord God giveth light unto the understanding; for he speaketh unto men according to their language, unto their understanding."

He related this to how we are as missionaries right now. Our Portuguese isn't amazing right now but that's okay because the Lord delights in plainness. We always talk about how we're called Portuguese speaking because the Lord knows that if we were speaking English, we would "information throw up" on our investigators and tell them too much about super deep things. I'm so grateful that I have to blessing to learn this amazing language. It's so beautiful!! (especially if it's the continental accent haha sorry mom)

So we were playing Frisbee outside during exercise time and just casually passing it around in a circle with the Elders and someone threw this beautiful throw my way and I totally thought I was going to catch it but nope. Somehow my hands missed it and it went straight into my nose. Now I have a great purple bruise on my nose. How fun!

Our teacher, Irmão Read, challenged us to only speak in Portuguese for 24 hours. Man it was so hard!! And we definitely weren't perfect but it was great practice and helped us realize how much we actually do know!

We got to Skype a real Portuguese person last week!! Her name was Dalila and she lives in Oreias or something like that. She was super sweet! But sadly the correction was TERRIBLE! But we could feel the Spirit when we were teaching her and we knew that she could too. She was adorable!! I already love the Portuguese people!!

We also got our itineraries!! We're heading to Portugal early Monday morning!! ahhhh so excited!

I also realized this this week: We are called to preach the Gospel BECAUSE Christ lives!! We do everything BECAUSE He lives! If he had never atoned for our sins and be resureccted, we would have no purpose in this life. We would have no need to share the Gospel. BECAUSE of Him, our lives have purpose and we can truly experience joy in this life.

Eu amo esta igreja e eu sei que esta é verdedeira. Eu amo meu Salvador e Redentor. Através de Jesus Cristo, eu posso vencer todos meus problemas e desafios nesta vida. Eu quero que todas pessoas tinha na oportunidade para ouvir esta mesagem de esperança e amor. A Igreja de Jesus Cristo dos Santos dos Ultimos Dias é verdadeira!

Com amor,

Sister Hillam