week 1

"Hey Mom. So I can only email or write letters on wednesday (p-day). I couldn´t email home on my first day but I did send a letter home. It takes about a week and a half for a letter to get from my hands to your hands. I have very little time to write anyone but I´m keeping up in my journal as much as I can. I slept very little on the first plane ride and not at all on the second plane ride. The plane from Texas to Brazil was delayed about two and a half hours so I placed some pass along cards and told people to search the website for information. We met up wtih another missionary and two sisters in the Texas airport. On the plane from Texas to Brazil I started talking with a couple who´s plane was delayed a day so that they just happened to be sitting near me on my plane. I talked to them then told them about The Church. They are fluent in English and Portoguese. I wrote inside a Portoguese Book of Mormon and had the other missionaries sign it. They started reading and then the woman had me sit next to her and teach her about the book. Good experience. The language is hard but I`m learning. Went to the Temple today. I don´t think there could be a more beautiful celestial room in the world. The traffic here is beyond scary. I´m glad I won´t be driving. Everyone here just makes their own rules and motorcyle drivers zoom past you going in between lanes. Cars just drive across multiple lanes without signaling at all. There´s not enough time to do anything. Tell Rick to study, The Book of Mormon, Preach my Gospel and all the required reading before he leaves. There´s time for him now but he doesn´t know what busy is till he gets to the MTC. I feel like I´ve been here an hour because there´s never any down time. I hear The food is better than the Provo MTC. The CTM (Brazil MTC) and the CTM cafeteria are Beautiful. There´s an open court yard in the middle of the building that is full of trees and is completely beautiful. President Neal A. Anderson is speaking to us Friday. Tell Jimmy that the accent on "de" (as in the english "the") is sometimes pronounced like in spanish but most of the time it´s like saying the letter g. Apparently in my mission they say it the spanish way. I´ve had fun studying, and you get an hour of work-out time usually every day. I´m very happy. I feel the spirit here through the day, every day. My CTM companion (Elder Hollandsworth) is a great guy. He has a terrible accent even with the simple words but is a very nice guy. There´s two other American elders in my room and two Portoquese elders who speak zero English. We taught each other how to pray in each others languages. I can bear my testimony (sort of) in Portoguese. I have never laughed harder than I have talking with the Elders and Sisters in my District. Tell Aaron to study Now. Good to hear about all of you. I can´t make a new paragragh on this Portoguese computer the Keyboard has some weird keys too. Love you Always" - Elder Hanson