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Viewers,

Sorry I have been slagging in the posting of new letters. It has been a crazy month and I have not been home since July 4th. I will do better and keep up from here on out. Here are 4 or 5 new posts. Enjoy!

Thank you all for keeping in touch with Tyler, I know it means a lot to hear from you.

So it has been a good week!

Portugal is crazy! Haha, never take for granted the good ol’ USA. We are very blessed over there, that’s for sure!

I’m loving the mission so far though. I have learned so much about myself, and so much about this beautiful gospel. My testimony is strengthened each and everyday. I have seen miracles already, and have had many prayers answered. Times can be tough, but those are the times we learn the most. I’ve come to realize that if times are easy out here, you aren’t doing something right. It’s never going to be easy. But it’s, without a doubt, worth it.

This week (Wednesday) we have a zone conference with Elder Texeira of the first quorum of the Seventy. That will be cool! I’m really looking forward to that. So we will be traveling down to Lisboa. It’s about a 45-60 minute bus ride if I remember right.

It has been pretty hot this week. Some days can get very hot, where other days it feels great. Usually it’s not too bad. It’s definitely not Florida, and I’m thankful for that!

The people here are very friendly though, and I love them all.

I’m so thankful to be here, and to be able to have this amazing experience in my life. There’s so much I’m learning about the gospel, and the culture, about the language, and mostly about myself. I know my life will forever be changed because of this experience! Next week marks my 3 months on a mission! Crazy. I also turn 21 in a couple weeks! That will be weird haha.

Sorry it is short this week, I’m running out of time! But Mom and Dad I also wrote you, so you can include some of that in here as well if you’d like.

All is well though. Portugal is great! I’m doing great! I love you all.

xoxo

Elder Porter

Hey there!

Well it has been a crazy week, full of up’s and down’s!

The language is starting to come a little better, and I’m starting to understand more. So that’s good. It’s just very hard to understand sometimes. Many people here slur their word’s together… making it very difficult to understand. It’s a slow process, but I’m still pushing forward. The Lord continues to bless me as I do as well.

On Friday I went on splits with one of the zone leaders (Elder Nixon). That was great, because he speaks English! ha. It was very refreshing. One of the ladies we taught that night is from England, so we taught in English! Oh it was nice to be able to say exactly what I wanted to say. It was a great time though, and I definitely needed it. I was in the city of Santarem. It is a cool city. It’s a very typical Portuguese city, unlike Carregado. I ate a bollo de nata there (translation- cake of cream?) and it was delicious. Like I said before though, the food here is a bit strange. One night, we ate at a families home… and it was sooo hard to keep it down, and keep eating haha. I made a vow that night… I will never ever complain about your food again mom. Oh how I miss the food in America, and the home cooked meals already.

So at church yesterday I had to help set up the Sacrament, pass the Sacrament, and give a talk. And nobody from the presidency was there either, so we had to preside over the meeting. Crazy stuff. There’s this little boy at church that is in love with me, it’s hilarious. He always sits by me, and just talks and talks. I don’t even know what he is saying most of time I just agree ha,ha. It’s kind of sad that I can’t even understand an 8 year old! Oh well, welcome to my life ha.

So yesterday we had 2 more baptisms. We baptized Anibol, and Carlos. I personally baptized Carlos, and Elder Fernandes (a zone leader) baptized Anibol. It was a great experience. Carregado is so ready for the gospel, it’s crazy. I already have 4 baptisms under my belt, and I have even been here a full 2 weeks yet! How crazy is that? Many missionaries are jealous. A few of them told me that they didn’t even have a baptism until their third transfer! So I am definitely being blessed in that area. I’m very thankful for that. We have at least one more baptism marked for this upcoming week as well.

We have taught many lessons this week. It is just a non-stop thing here. It’s crazy. One night, we were teaching in the church and were in the middle of a lesson… all the sudden someone just randomly walks into the church and we invited him to sit in on the lesson. We had no clue who he was, but he wanted to hear what we were talking about. He is now a progressing investigator of ours. Ha so the people just come to us. It truly makes no sense. That kind of stuff does not normally happen, especially here in Portugal. But the Lord prepares the elect, and sometimes He brings them right to us. If only it was always this easy. Trust me, this kind of thing is not normal here. I’m just in a special place.

I’m definitely in a different country ha,ha. I see some of the craziest things here. I am now keeping a list of all the unusual things I see. I think the list will be VERY long after two years.

But the work here is good. It can be tough, but it’s good. I think if things are easy, you aren’t doing something right. Missionary work is just that… work. It’s tough, but very rewarding. It’s an amazing thing though, and I’m being very blessed. I love it here, and I love the people here.

Thank you for all your letters, they are really encouraging.

Hello there!

This is your son writing you in some random scorching hot building near our apartment. But there are computers here, so it works for me.

If I were to tell you this hasn’t been the hardest week of my life… I’d be lying. I have shed more tears this week, than in my entire life combined I think. I’m not even kidding. It has been so rough. I can hardly understand my companion… I can hardly understand our investigators… I can hardly understand everyone around me. I’m surrounded by many many people, all of whom can’t understand me… and I can’t understand them. I have been so lost lately. The thoughts of, “just go home, you are wasting your time, you will never learn the language, nobody understands you, etc.” have run through my mind probably at least a million times. It’s so so hard when you can’t communicate your thoughts. And when people say something to you, or ask you a question and you don’t have a clue what they said. This is not the same language I learned in the MTC. I felt confident coming in here, but that quickly changed!

There have been so many instances when I have understood a little bit of what our investigator has said… and there’s SO much I want to say… but I can’t. I open my mouth, but the right words don’t come out. It literally breaks my heart. It’s so tough! I’m almost in tears just writing this.

But through all the struggles and pain of not understanding anything, I have learned so much. I have learned patience, and I have become very humble. Maybe this is what I needed in my life. I realize that, but it still doesn’t make it much easier ya know? Sometimes it’s just nice to have someone there to talk to, but I don’t have that. I don’t understand what is going on most of the time, I just leave when my companion says it’s time to leave… and I follow him around until we end up where we are supposed to be.

My companion has absolutely no money… and I’m not sure why. So basically I’m supporting him and myself. Supposedly he is getting some reimbursement from the mission president… so hopefully that comes soon. We have hardly any food… this is the longest fast I have ever been on ha,ha. Food here is weird too. Definitely WAY different than America. I miss American food so so so much. I don’t even like the milk very much here. The milk is weird… you can just keep it on the shelf until you open it, no need to refrigerate it before opening it. It expires in like 2030. So we bought some milk today… and I can bring it home in 2 years, and it will be as good as new. Yuck. The other day we had spaghetti? at a members house. They called it spaghetti at least. I’m really not too sure exactly what it was… but it did have noodles? Interesting. The bread here is amazing though. I haven’t really eaten a lot more than that. So I will keep you informed about food, the more I eat.

I baptized Leopoldo de Castro Ramalho on Saturday. It was really cool. The water was absolutely freezing though ha,ha, took me by surprise. Just to get to the church with the baptismal font was a journey. We took a train, a bus, and a taxi. I really didn’t know what was going on, I was just along for the ride. Another kid named Rodrigo was baptized as well. We are marked for 3 more baptisms this week. So that is awesome!

I’m really bummed about the camera thing. :( have you figured anything out about that yet? I sure hope so. Our bags never made it on our plane either, and we didn’t get them until the next day. That’s because we had to run through JFK just to catch our flight. I had a feeling our bags didn’t follow. But that wasn’t a big deal, because we have them now.

We have been doing a lot of teaching lately. That’s pretty much what our entire days consist of. We have even gone proselyting yet. Crazy huh? The area, Carregado, is pretty cool. Lots and lots of Cape Verdians live here. Our apartment is decent. In American terms, it’s a dive. But for here, it isn’t too bad. Could be a lot worse!

My mission president and his wife are really cool! Very down to earth, and great people. We stayed the night in the mission home on the first night. It was a very nice home. I think it is the only home that has carpet here in Portugal too ha,ha. They have a beautiful view from the house. One of the elders here went to Bonneville High, and another went to IF. Ha crazy huh?

So I don’t have Brittain or Landon’s e-mail addresses but tell Brittain HAPPY BIRTHDAY for me from yesterday, and tell Landon HAPPY BIRTHDAY from me today! I love you guys! I hope you have/had an amazing birthday. I wish I could’ve been there! :)

Oh so about the music. I can listen to any music that is condusive (sp?) to the Spirit. It doesn’t necessarily have to be church hymns it just has to invite the Spirit. So you should go through and make some CD’s for me. You can even put on some Jack Johnson and artists like that. Just make sure the songs aren’t talking about love. They don’t want them to have romantic lyrics. So use your best judgement! So just send my package whenever. Who knows when I will get it though. It gets sent to the mission office, so I won’t be able to get it until I go there for a transfer or something, or if someone in my area happened to grab it for me. Could be next month, or longer. But either way, I’ll get it eventually. It’s the safest, most reliable way of doing it though. I sent you the address already, so you have it.

This has been such a hard week for me, and I have a feeling this week won’t be a whole lot easier. I need your prayers! I’m really working hard. I’m trying not to be discouraged, but it’s really really easy to feel that way! I’m sory I have complained so much, but this is my only time I can express myself. I really do love missionary work though. It is the best feeling in the world to see that light of Christ come into someones eyes. There is nothing more satisfying. It is the only thing keeping me going!

I don’t think I’ve ever missed home as much as I do now! I love you guys so much. I have taken you all way too for granted. Thank you for being you. Thank you for being such a blessing in my life. Seriously. I have the most amazing family and friends in the entire world. Sometimes it takes experiences like this to realize it. But seriously, thank you. I can’t say it enough. Thank you mom and dad for being such amazing examples, and such great parents. Thank you Brady, Landon, Brittain, McKenzie, and Sydney for being such amazing brothers and sisters. Thank you all my friends for being awesome. Two years is a long time. But in comparison to what our Savior has done for us… it is nothing. I’m so glad I made the decision to come on a mission. This is something I will hold close to me for the rest of my lie, I know it!

It has been a roller coaster of a week, but I am doing well. Even though I have been lost, I know my purpose here, and I’m going to do everything in my will to achieve that purpose. I don’t want to leave anything behind here. Nothing at all. I’m surrounded by millions of people I don’t know, and I can’t understand… but I do know one thing. They are my brothers and sisters. They are children of God. In God’s eyes, they are just as important as I am… the President is… or any celebrity or athlete is. Nobody is no more important than someone else. It’s hard to see it this way sometimes… but it’s true. Life can be rough sometimes, and we all have our trials. But we have a Heavenly Father, and a brother, Jesus Christ, who love us more than we can comprehend. I know this with all of my heart. I need to toughen up, and keep pushing through!

Oh an interesting fact. Yesterday at the church, I saw a picture on the wall. I went and looked at it, and it was picture of the ward here with a couple of missionaries. One of them happens to be a teacher at the MTC now, Elder Nelson ha,ha. I thought that was funny. It was cool to see a familiar face like that. Even if it was just a picture.

The ward members here are great! There’s not many of them, but they have such strong spirits. The church is tiny, but it makes no difference. You can feel the Spirit nonetheless.

There is no such thing as air conditioning here ha,ha. It is very hot. I hear the winters get very very cold. It is because of the humidity in the air. I guess it pierces through the skin. I guess someone from the Ukraine that is living here now, said the cold weather here is worse than where he came from. Uh-oh! I guess I will just have to see for myself. I will have to buy myself a coat when the time gets closer.

My companion is a cool elder. I don’t know a whole lot about him, since I don’t understand a whole lot that comes out of his mouth. I do know he is a convert, and was baptized about 4 years ago. He is 24 years old. He is from Cape Verde, Africa. He loves soccer… ha,ha. No, he is a great kid though. It’s a little tough for both of us with the whole language barrier, but it’s good for both of us. I’ve been trying to help him with his English, and he helps me with my Portuguese.

I’m safe, and I’m doing alright. It is very difficult, but I kind of knew it would be. I didn’t expect a trainer that knew no English, but hey, you make the best of what you are given right? Ultimately, it is going to help my Portuguese more than anything else. Just right now, it makes it a bit difficult. But I’m positive I will be blessed because of it. I’m just going to make the most of what I have, and keep moving on forward.

I love you guys more than anything in the world! You are my everything. Thanks for everything you do for me… seriously.

Eu amo voces.

Elder Porter.

So I just found out where I’m going! I will be serving in Carregado for my first area (about 30 miles of Lisboa). I will be serving with Elder Barbosa from Cape Verde, Africa.

But that’s not the best part…. the best part is…..

HE KNOWS ABSOLUTELY NO ENGLISH!

Most people would think this is a bad thing. But I really am super excited! This is going to force me to learn the language now. It’s either I speak Portuguese or I don’t speak. How cool is that though?

I guess he already has 3 baptisms set up… so starting tomorrow afternoon, we are off to work! I hear he is an amazing missionary though. I will meet him tomorrow.

The address where you should send mail for now on is:

Apartado 40054
1500- Lisboa
Portugal

Send everything here for the next 2 years. This is the safest, and most reliable place to send it. It’s the missions PO Box. And since it takes a while for mail to get here, and we transfer often, that will be the only safe way of sending it.

I’m super excited and thought I’d hurry and let you know!

Once again, I love you! I’m doing great and loving Portugal. My language is about to become much much better haha.

Elder Porter

I have safely arrived here in Portugal. We are in the mission office right now, getting ready to interview with President Torgan.

The flights went well. We arrived in New York a little late, and literally had to sprint all the way to catch our flight to Paris. Luckily, we barely made it! However, our luggage did not. So we are all without luggage here in Lisboa, ha,ha. But it should come either tonight or tomorrow, so oh well. Luckily I packed a change of clothes in my carry on! Something weird I thought I´d let you know…. every single word I type on here has red underlines. That´s because I´m typing in English on a Portuguese computer… sweet!

It was so awesome flying over New York, Paris, and Lisbon! We saw so many amazing things! We met a ton of people along the way too! It was a blast. So far we have arrived here in Lisbon, went through a long process of trying to get our luggage sent here… came here to the Mission Office, ate pizza, and that´s really it. Lisbon is beautiful!

And now I have a bit of  a dilemma I need your help with. I left my camera on the plane in Paris. :( not good! There´s a chance they could have it in the lost items place of the Paris Degaulle airport. So I need someone to email or call to try and get my camera! I will give you the information right now:

If you could get on their website and email them somehow, or even call that would save me a camera. If not, I am out a brand new camera :(

All is well though! Its amazing here! Beautiful city. So please contact them as soon as you can! I don’t know my address yet, so just have it sent home to you guys if its possible. I just hope someone turned it in. I’m really bummed about that. Especially because that was a nice camera… and I no longer even have a camera.

I love you all! All is well here, and the flight went just fine! I will email you again with more details when I am able to (probably P Day).

Eu Amo Voces!

Elder Porter

Happy 4th of July!!! :)

How’s it going? You have slacked on writing me this week… I have gotten one letter this entire week and that was from Syd. So thank you Sydney, you are not a slacker. :)

So I have 4 more days here at the MTC. It’s such a crazy feeling! I can’t believe how quickly 2 months flew by! It’s crazy to think that next week at this time I will be living in Portugal!! So nuts! A quick heads up… don’t send me anymore Dear Elders. I won’t get them! We don’t get Dear Elders on Saturday or Sundays, and typically we would get them on Monday, but the mailroom isn’t open because of the 4th of July. So if you send me them, I won’t get them! So I would say your best bet is just to e-mail me back, and I will be able to read that when I get to Portugal. Also, I still have not heard when we will be able to call home. I’m assuming it will be when we are in the SLC Airport, because our layover in NYC is only like an hour and a half. So don’t silence your phone, because I will be calling like around 7am. I know it sucks that it’s early, but it’s better than nothing. And if you don’t hear from me in the morning, it will probably mean I’m calling from NYC… so just keep your phone close to you all day, because I don’t know a for sure time unfortunately! And if you don’t hear from me at all, it will probably mean for some reason we weren’t able to call. Hopefully that isn’t the case! I’ve heard from most of the missionaries we are able to call! So you better answer your phone! :) or I will just leave a voicemail or something ha.

So things have just been crazy getting ready to go and all that. It feels unreal that we are leaving on Tuesday! They called 6 new zone leaders on Wednesday, so we have to help teach them all what to do.

Mom- I had to get a shot yesterday and it cost $97! How stupid is that? I hate how dependent on shots this world is. You already know my feelings about that :) But I put the money on the CC, so I was just warning you. Also, I will need you to call the bank and let them know I will be living in Portugal after Tuesday! Thank you :) are all my loan stuff taken care of? It feels weird not to know anything going on in the outside world haha.

I plan on sending my uke and stuff either today, or tomorrow. Either way, you will get it sometime next week I’m assuming. So tell Dad to check outside for a package. I’m really not looking forward to packing, I hate to pack! I’m really not looking forward to such a long plane ride either haha! I’m going to catch up on a lot of sleep. But unfortunately for me, I don’t fit in planes very well. And that is going to make for a very uncomfortable 12 hours from NYC to Paris. I’m so excited to see what area I get assigned to in Portugal though! I have heard so many amazing things about Portugal!

So after I find out the guidelines on music, I will want some CD’s sent to me! I have no music, and I will be in desperate need. So I will let you know after I e-mail from Portugal. I have no clue when P-Days or anything are, so I don’t know when it will be. I’m assuming it won’t be next week I get to e-mail, but probably the week after. We will see. One of my buddies who is in Portugal already, sent us some pictures. It looks sooo rad!

So tomorrow, they are doing some sort of 4th of July play/musical thing ha. I don’t really know what to expect, but I’m glad we get to do something for 4th of July atleast. And the rumor is that we get to watch some fireworks afterwards, which makes me very happy! :) I hope the rumors are true!

So this week we had Elaine S. Dalton come talk to us- she is the YW General President. It was such a great talk! She talked about faith, and always pressing forward. She talked about how faith is a principle of power. It is also a principle of action, we must act. We will have opposition at all times here on our mission, but we must push forward. We must exhort all our power, and have confidence and faith at all times. She talked a lot about not being afraid to open our mouths. Never make a decision to quit, or turn around, in the middle of a hill. We must make it to the top. We were not sent here to start a race, we were sent here to finish one. This is the greatest race we will ever run. But the Lord is here to help us every step of the way. It was such a great talk!

Speaking of which, last Friday was amazing. I forgot I hadn’t emailed about that yet. Jeffrey R. Holland, Dallin H. Oaks, Richard G. Scott, David A. Bednar, Russel M. Nelson, Quentin L. Cook, D. Todd Christofferson, and Neil A. Andersen were all in attendance. Dallin H. Oaks gave the talk. The Spirit was so strong! It was awesome to see all them sitting all in the same room. We were probably about 40 feet away! Great stuff. I wish I could type more about it, but I don’t have time!

So it’s time to start busting out those foreign stamps, because in 4 more days I will no longer be living in this country. It’s going to be so crazy. I’m really not that nervous, more anxious than anything. Some people in our zone/district are starting to get super nervous about leaving haha. It’s going to be the adventure of a lifetime though, I’m so stoked!

So like I said, DON’T send Dear Elders. I won’t get any of them, so there is no point. Just e-mail me back, or just wait to hear from me by phone hopefully. As soon as I’m able to e-mail from Portugal, I will send my address.

Eu amo-vos muito! Please keep sending the letters! All my friends- I don’t have a whole lot of time to e-mail so please send me a physical letter if you want to talk. I only have enough time to e-mail my family really. And if you do send me an e-mail include your mailing address with it. That will be the easiest thing for me. I wish I could take the time to e-mail everyone of you, but unfortunately I can’t. But I still want to hear from you.

Life is amazing. Smile every second of it. Enjoy every single breath. We are so lucky to have what we do. Don’t let yourself get discouraged, because when you are discouraged life passes you by. We must enjoy every second we have!

I love you all so much. Portugal here I come :)

Elder Porter

I have SO much to write about and only 29 minutes to do so! I will try to get everything in this e-mail! So this week has been like the best so far here in the MTC! As you know, we received a ton of new elders in our zone last Wednesday. We now have 117 missionaries in our zone. This makes it the largest zone in any MTC in the world. How crazy is that?! So we walk into sacrament meeting on Sunday, and one of the counselors in our Branch Presidency (Brother Hodges) immediately asks Elder Graves and I to come talk to him in the hall. I really didn’t know what to expect! He told us that because we have so many missionaries in the zone, they need 2 additional zone leaders. And you guessed it, Elder Graves and I are the new zone leaders! How crazy is that?! We are in charge of 5 districts in our zone. We now have 6 zone leaders, because we have so many missionaries. It makes our life a lot busier, but I love it. Ps… the computers here at the MTC are messed up (they are PC’s) and no computer is letting us use the enter key. Hence the reason this is one big paragraph. So bear with me, please. So we received our travel plans today! We leave 8:30am July 6th, fly into New York, then into Paris, then into Lisbon. We arrive in Lisbon at 8:50am on July 7th. Ha it is going to be a LOOONG day. I’m so excited though! I don’t know how the phone call thing works, or when we get to call home, or if we really even get to, so if I hear anything about it I will let you know. But for now, I have no clue how it works. I got your package today (the picture book). It is awesome! I love it. It turned out really nice. Thank you so much! :) So yesterday we were able to experience one of the coolest things ever. Right now, all the new mission presidents are here at the MTC. They are training to get ready to go out into the field. It makes the MTC a little crazy, but it is awesome. A lot of buildings are closed down because of the training. Pretty much every Apostle will be coming here through out the week until Wednesday. So back to yesterday (thought I’d give a little background). One of the teachers in our zone came running into our classroom out of breath, and pointed to Elder Graves and I, and also another companionship in our district (Elder Peck, Kofford, and Ashby) and told us to come outside. She then told us they needed some of the best Portuguese speakers (I was honored to say the least), to come help the Mission Presidents going to Portuguese speaking missions for a little bit. The Mission Presidents knew no english, so we could only communicate with them by Portuguese. This was a bit nerve-racking, but I was super stoked. So we walk into the building, and start walking down the hall…. and we look to our left, and boom, there is Jeffrey R. Holland standing right by us. I could’ve reached out and touched him we were so close. We promised to be completely professional though, so we just smiled and walked by. So we get to the room with all the Mission Presidents, and sitting in the room with the Presidents and their wives is Russel M. Nelson. He was just sitting there with his wife observing all that was going on. AMAZING. So we start talking to the president and his wife, and he tells us he will be a president in Brazil (can’t remember where). We tell him where we are going, and he gets super excited and told us he served in Lisbon as well! He served from 76-78 I believe. So we were there so he could practice teaching to us. He taught us a lesson, and Elder Graves and I pretty much understood every word he said. We communicated back with no problem as well. He told us he was super impressed with our Portuguese, and he understood us completely. That made me so excited to know I could communicate to a native Portuguese speaker, who knows absolutely no english, and be able to communicate affectively.. That really gave me a boost before heading to Portugal. There is such a great spirit when you are around those types of people, especially with an Apostle sitting 10 feet away from you in a room. So we were really really lucky to be able to participate in that.. Only 8 of us (out of a zone of 117 missionaries) were able to do so! So tonight, we have a special devotional. Usually devotionals are only on Tuesday nights, but they called a special one for tonight. So more than likely we are hearing from one of the First Presidency (and more Apostles will be there as well sitting on the stand). How amazing is that! I’ll wait to send my hand written letter, so I can let you know who came! Word on the street has it that it will be Uchtdorf (I don’t think that is spelled correctly). That would be so awesome to hear from him! We are at the MTC at the best time of the year. This kind of stuff only happens once every year. So as you can tell, life is amazing! This has been a really eventful week for me. I have some more (a little more personal, for the family) stuff I will write to you about in a letter as well. But things are so awesome here! The language is coming along, and I feel more confident to walk the streets of Portugal. 1 week from this Wednesday, I will be doing exactly that. It is a weird feeling, but I am sooo excited. :) Mom, I think I have everything I need before I leave so no need to worry. I can get most necessities here at the book store, so that isn’t a problem. I’ll be sending home a package next week so look out for that. I hope everyone else is doing awesome though, from the sounds of it they are! I will write some more in a letter, so you will get that early next week. Once again, sorry about the lack of paragraphs. This computer is really messed up, but oh well. Eu-amo vos muito! Take care :) can’t wait to hear from you all! :) —– Elder Porter

Ola familia!

I can’t believe it is preparation day again already. Time goes by way too quickly here. I swear I was just writing a letter yesterday! :)

2 1/2 weeks until Portugal! We get our travel plans this upcoming week I believe. How crazy is that?! Although my Portuguese could be better, and I don’t understand everything yet… I am beyond excited! I would rather be trying to learn Portuguese in Portugal, than trying to learn it here haha. Don’t get me wrong though, I do love it here.

I got your package yesterday, thank you! I was just starting  to run low on treats, so it was great timing. :)

So this week for devotional, we had Donald L. Hallstrom come speak to us. He is part of the presidency of the quorum of the seventy. So that was pretty awesome! He talked all about keeping covenants, and excercising faith. It was an amazing talk. He talked about five things we need to do in order to be a successful missionary, they were:

1. Be a disciple
2. Be completely obedient
3. Be a loyal companion
4. Be optimistic
5. Be dilligent

It was an awesome talk, but since time doesn’t permit I will write more about it in a letter.

What is new back home? The weather here has been beautiful for the past few days. We have done all our personal, and companion study outside haha. It has been great!

Tell Brady that is awesome he gave the prayer! What a brave little kid! I’m proud of him. And that’s awesome to hear he is doing so well in baseball! I miss my baseball days! Why the heck is my room pink?! That’s a scary thought. I guess it really isn’t my room anymore… especially now that it is pink. Pink really isn’t my color :)

So life here has been great. The Portuguese is coming along just fine, it can be a bit frustrating still at times though. I think the hardest part is remembering how to conjugate everything. There is like 12 different conjugations we have to know. And since the English language doesn’t really work that way, it is hard to get used to. But I think it will come a lot faster when we get into Portugal. But we are able to communicate ourselves very simply. Which is pretty amazing for only being here 6 1/2 weeks. We taugh another lesson in Portuguese yesterday, and it went really well. The lady was hard to understand at times. She was a native from Brazil. Brazilian Portuguese is a bit different than Continental Portuguese too, so it took us longer to understand what she was saying sometimes. But we still were able to teach just fine. And there will be a lot of Brazilians in Portugal, so it’s good to get used to. The last week here in the MTC, Elder Graves and I are only going to speak Portuguese. NO ENGLISH. Scary.

There is an Elder here named Elder Kapata. He is from Lisboa. He is serving in Orlando. Kind of weird, we are switching places in a way haha. So he asks me all sorts of questions about Orlando, and it turn I get to ask a bunch about Lisboa. It’s a great trade off. He said the only things we have to worry about in Portugal are dogs, and girls. There are quite a bit of stray dogs, that will sometimes try to come bite you. He said you just kick them if they do this, or run faster than your companion haha. But it’s not usually much of a problem. And the girls love the elders there, so they will all try to come talk to us. If that’s all we have to worry about, that will be great. He said there is like no crime at all or anything. There are a lot of gypsies there (I hear that is why we can’t wear black suits), but they aren’t much of a problem. He said we will love it. Everyone there is really friendly. He said his church consisted of 40% Brazilians, 40% Africans, and only 20% of native Portuguese people haha. So we will have some diversity.

So what is Dad doing with the Andersons? How is the business coming along?

That stinks about the tennis matches! My teacher (Irmao Owen) loves tennis, and he said he got to play a few times while he was serving in Portugal. Mostly I will be playing soccer though. The world cup will be going on when I get there, so that might make teaching a bit hard haha. I want to get a rad jersey when I’m there!

I have had a few friends write me. Probably 6 or 7 of them. So tell them thank you! I love hearing from them. And I promise I will always write back! I would love to hear from some more friends though!

Well my time is quickly running out. I am going to write a letter home though there is a story I want to tell you about, as well as a few other things I want to write.

I am doing awesome though. Thanks everyone who has stayed in touch! It’s great hearing from everyone!

I love you all so much! Stay positive, enjoy life, and don’t waste a second of it. I see too many people caught up in the hustle and bustle of everything, and they forget just to enjoy themselves. Life is too short to let it pass by.

Eu amo-vos muito!

Tyler

So guess what! We had ANOTHER apostle again this week! That is 3 apostles in 5 weeks! How rad is that?! This week we had Robert D. Hales. It was so awesome! I’ll write a letter about his talk more in detail, but I’ll give you a few quotes I loved from it. His talk was mostly about obedience, and having the light of Christ. It was such a great talk. If I could’ve, I would have written down every word he said! It was that good. One quote I loved was, “The perfect day is when we can stand in front of God, and our light will be bright enough to stand in His presence.”
“There is nothing that you gave up, that is of greater importance than what you will be doing over the next two years.”
“Everyone has the light of Christ in them, because we are all children of God. We were all born with it. Some may not be aware of it, but they have it. You have to help them discover this light.”
It was such a great talk. And like I said, I will write more about it in a letter!

Tell Brian Willis congrats as well! That’s such good news! I bet he’s super happy about that one.

It has been a great week overall. We had to teach the first lesson in Portuguese yesterday. It went surprisingly well actually. I’m able to understand most of what people are saying. Speaking it is a little more difficult, but we did really well. Our classes are 100% in Portuguese now. We aren’t allowed to speak English while we are in the classroom. It can make things a bit tough to understand, and speak sometimes. But it is definitely helping a lot. We also have a district goal that we go on “english fasts” every single day. Usually we do it between lunch and dinner. So it’s usually about a 4 hour fast.

Just when you think the language is coming along… we will watch a video, or listen to a clip of a native Portuguese speaker. They speak very fast… that’s all I have to say haha. But I think once we get into Portugal, and we start getting used to how they speak, we will pick it up pretty quick. I feel like it is coming along pretty well. I think I know more in Portuguese after a month of learning it, than I knew spanish after taking it for 4 years ha. So that’s awesome.

This week we are getting a group of 7 (I believe?) who also will be serving in Lisboa. So that’s pretty cool! Supposedly we are getting 40 something more in our zone, which is nuts. Our zone was only about 35-40 people when I came in… now we are close to 80… and that’s about to go even higher. Most of them are going to Brazil, and their visas haven’t gone through. Brazil has bad visa problems. Some of them are having to be re-assigned here in the states until their visas go through. They get assigned somewhere they speak Portuguese though (Atlanta, Boston, New Jersey typically) so at least they can keep working on the language until the visas go through. Luckily for us, Portugal doesn’t have visa problems at all.

So life is good here! I’m loving it. 3 more weeks until we are off to Portugal. I’m very excited! I’m so ready to get out there! Ha the plane ride will be rough though. All we will be able to do is read, and read, and read. And maybe convert a few people while we are at it :)

Tell some more friends to write! Send some letters. Post my mailing address for them. And thank my friends who have written me already! I love getting letters and hearing from everyone!

Eu amo-vos muito! Eu estou ter o tempo de minha vida.

Take care! And write!

paz e amor,

Elder Porter