June 11, 2010

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