Exciting News (not a visa)

Hey!

So this week was a lot more interesting than other weeks have been. I will get to why in a little bit. I am going to reply to Mom's letter to me first...

It is ok that you slowed down on writing me. I understand it is a busy time there and a lot to do. I have been way busy this last week. We set a goal to teach 30 lessons so we have been going crazy finding people to teach and practice with. We are getting pretty good at teaching in Portuguese. It is exciting to communicate in another language. It still blows my mind that people can understand these noises I make at them.


I was thinking of you (Mom and Dad) on Tuesday. I remembered it was your anniversary. I wish I would have remembered on last Friday because I would have sent a card or something. I am glad you two are married and have been for 25 years! That is amazing. You are a perfect example of how a marriage should be. I am thankful for you both and for the way you have lived your lives to be worthy to be married in the temple and allow your children to have those blessings in their lives. I love you both and I hope your day was great!

So my visa is probably not going to come through in the next week and a half or however long I have here. I will probably be reassigned for a time in the States. I am perfectly fine with that. I think I would actually prefer it. I think it would be a great experience to stay here for a while in the States. Maybe I will go to Philadelphia and see Bailey and Chad... Probaby not, but it is possible. Most Brazilian missionaries get reassigned to Atlanta for a while. That would be way fun to go there.

Ok, I'm running out of time so I will tell you the exciting news now...

Elder Holland came and talked to us for our Tuesday night Devotional! It was so sweet! There had been rumors floating around that he was coming, but I have learned to not believe MTC rumors, so I just kinda blew it off and didn't get my hopes up. So we skipped dinner anyway so we could get good seats just in case and it turned out that he actually was speaking. It was amazing when he walked it and we all stood up. The spirit was so strong right when he walked it.

His talk was AMAZING! I mentioned before that I watched one of his talks a while ago that he gave in the MTC in like 1997 and that was powerful. Well he gave kind of the same talk, except it was even better. He is SO passionate about missionary work. He related missionary work to playing a cello. And when you play a cello you have to tune it right before the preformance and make it perfect. He like started to scream at us and he was yelling YOU HAVE TO BE PERFECT EVERY TIME!!! It was so powerful. He was saying that our first lesson has to be perfect so people will want more. He told us to be completey obedient and he said, "if you don't want to follow these rules and you want to do it your way, then go ahead. BUT LEAVE YOUR NAME TAG AT THE DOOR!" He said if we don't do it the Lord's way then we don't have the right to wear his name on our chests. He said, "this isn't burger king. we don't hold the pickles." I thought that was pretty funny haha. You would have had to been there I think. It was funny though. And true. We learned that we are preaching the Lord's gospel, and we need to do it his way. That was the gist of the talk.

He ended by saying why a mission was so hard. He said it's hard because the price for salvation was not cheap. As missionaries we are saviors and redeemers (without the capital 's' and 'r'). We literally help save people and we are part of the Atonement in a way. And it is hard for us because it was hard for the Savior. My very favorite quote from the whole night was "The path to salvation ALWAYS goes through Gethsemene." That was a power statement for me. I hadn't ever thought of it that way. And it really explains why everything is hard. Why life is hard, and why missions and just everything is hard. If we want to be like Christ, we have to experience a little of what He did. It was an amazing talk and it made me want to get out in the world and talk to everyone. I am way excited.

Well, it was a great week and I learned so much. I am only speaking Portuguese from now on here in the MTC. Every day, all day. It is exciting. I can't believe I have learned so much in just 7 weeks. I am not fluent by any means, but I can understand well and speak pretty well. People can understand my sentences and things.

I am out of time. I love you all so much. Your support and love mean so much to me. I really appreciate it. Have a great first week of school and get good grades! Good luck in all of your activites this week!!! Work hard!

Love isaac