I'm so blessed!! Just one week til I'm in the field, less than 3 months til Christmas, and Elder Barrus and I are the Zone Leaders now! I discovered the Christmas hymns this week in my Portuguese hymn book. Silent Night is my fav- "Noite Feliz" literalmente happy night haha. Also my favorite words this week are sonho (s-own-y-oo), which means both dream, and donut.. those Brazilians are on to something and xique (shee-key) which is really fun to say and means fancy. I talked with a native Brazilian this week over skype! It was so fun Elder Barrus and I were talking about where we were from, and he was like "I don't know the U.S. very well, but I really want to go to Harry Potter World in Orlando" Ta SERIO?! I freaked out haha I was so excited it was hilarious. His name was Guilliherme, he is my age, baptized by some missionaries last year, and wants to serve a mission next year! What an inspiration. It was so cool I understood like 85- 90 percent of what he said.
I am already cherishing my time here at the mtc, it is such a special place. Some missionaries complain about it being secluded, but I know it's so that we can be as close as we can to God and have no distractions. I love it for that because I have felt so close to God this week especially, and I've been able to learn so fast and so well. I've never felt so edified and spiritually enlightened. I'm understanding things I couldn't understand before, and I know it's because of the special spirit here, and my sacred calling as a missionary that I can understand it.
I've received a lot of personal revelation through the Spirit here, especially as I've watched talks by Elder Bednar, he is my favorite. I watched another this Sunday about Doctrine, Principles, and Applications. He understands so well how to really teach through the Spirit, and Christ's Character, and love for us. I have been really interested in charity lately, and as Elder Bednar suggested in his "Character of Christ" talk I got a fresh Book of Mormon this week that I am dedicating to the study of Charity. I'm starting at the introduction page tomorrow, and reading all the way through focusing my annotations and study journal notes on Charity. I invite you all to join me, and start reading again with a cheap BoM so you can mark it up (if you don't have one, the missionaries can give you one), and really study whatever topic you want, maybe you want to learn about faith, or repentance, or whatever. Write me what you learn, and I'll update you all next week on what I've learned about The pure love of Christ- charity. I know that we will be blessed with understanding and enlightenment as we do this, and we can really change our lives. "Actions and behavior don't change actions and behavior", Doctrine (gospel truths- the "why" we do things), when understood and taken to heart change actions and behavior. If we really want to change our lives we can do so by learning about Christ's Doctrine, this is a great way to do that!
So the other cool thing I have to point out this week is that I get my reassignment (my VISA has still not come) on Thursday, which is the same day squid gets his call, and it is the weekend of conference, and I opened my original call the weekend of April conference, SO cool! I'm actually really stoked to serve in the US for a while, i hope I get called somewhere with a Chickfila! haha or the east coast cuz I've never been there or somewhere where one of my friends is serving! I love you all, have a great week!
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