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