What to say? I never should have been nervous. This place is amazing and I know without a doubt that the Lord is taking care of me. Elder Carlson (my companion) is Awesome! He is just like Jacob Winters. I'm so lucky!
The MTC (or CTM in Portuguese) is an AWESOME place. I wish I could write Kelsey and tell her that she was definitely right when said it's like Hogwarts here. I love my teacher. He really seems to know us and what we're going through/feeling. Everyone we talk to tells us that Irmav (Portuguese for Brother) Butters is the best teacher here. Just another way I know that the Lord is watching out for me. The work here is exhausting but also very rewarding. We have one language teacher for our entire time here and I am thankful for that. Our schedules are harder than anything I've done before. Tomorrow I wake up at 6:30 and have the next hour to "Arise and Prepare". 7:45 to 8:00am is breakfast. 8:00 to 12:30 is classroom instruction - we stay in the same room for 4 1/2 hours. That's the hardest part. We have lunch from 12:30 - 1:00 and then we have gym! We will have 45 minutes each day. It's basically like a high school gym/basketball court. You can do 4 square, basketball, volleyball. After that we have until 2:35 - 5:35pm. This is when I'll be teaching my first investigator in Portuguese. We can't use notes so we've decided to mostly have the investigator read from the Book of Mormon as well as one of the many English/Portuguese pamphlets we've been given. After that we have dinner from 5:35 - 6:05. Then more classroom instruction from 6:20 until 9:30. Everyone keeps telling us if you can make it to your first P-day then everything will get easier. Fortunately I went through 3 years of this in Cross Country, haha.
Ether 12:27. This has become one of my most favorite scriptures. I know that as long as I do everything in my power, the Lord will provide the rest. The language is proving to be more difficult than I had expected and I struggle to pay attention over our 4 hr intervals of class. The Lord is showing me my weakness and I know that He will make me stronger than I could ever be without him.
