Hey all! Elder Horton
here. I'm gonna start off by answering all the questions. My companion's name
is Elder Andrew Johnson. My teacher is irmao walker (brother walker). My bed is
suitable for my needs. It's a long twin so I'm fine at nights. I haven't had to
break open my bedding yet because they provided us with bedding. I don't think
we forgot anything in packing. We pretty much only wear the suit on Sundays,
when going to the temple, and when meeting with the branch presidency.
Otherwise we all just wear pants and a short sleeve shirt because it's
comfortable. It's still a bit weird sometimes to look down and see the name tag
that says Elder Horton but it's awesome. I love it. I am indeed the tallest one
I've seen so far. I saw another elder who was 6'7" but I'm still taller. I
did get my pants from Mr. Mac, thank you. Thank you also for disconnecting my
cell phone :) You're awesome mom. How'd Andrew's job interview with BMW go??
That’d be good :D As for dad's car book....I was enjoying reading that, perhaps
I would like it if you printed it off and sent a copy. Or maybe just copied and
pasted into dear elder and let them print it off?
Dad, I thought about that
too while I've been here that we share the same title as the general
authorities of the church. And we represent Jesus Christ of course as well. Bed
is long enough. Companion Elder Johnson from Twin Cities Minnesota. The
food....is too good. It's not really all that good but it's good enough for me
to get... 3 main meals and sometimes ice cream. Yeahhhh I've gained a bit of
weight while here. I'm like 215 now :D Can't tell though. Most spiritual
moment? That's a hard one. Temple today was amazing. Some devotionals have been
amazing. Some prayers have been amazing. It's amazing how much you pray here.
I'd say probably at least 20 times a day. In Portuguese :D I'll talk more about
the temple and devotionals later.
Mom again, responses
to yesterday's letter. Yes you can share my email with the whole family, I can
email just about anyone pretty much. I got a dear elder from a sister who'll be
serving in six months who we were good friends in the same ward together at
BYU. She say you post my info on Facebook so thanks mom :) it was a nice letter
from her. I like both ways to get mail, it's a nice break during the week and
it saves me time on pdays. So both. My Sunday was awesome! We went to church in
the main building called 1M where the cafeteria is. We have 10 elder and 5
sisters in our district so we actually have a very large district. Most
districts are only 7-9 missionaries. Our branch is composed of 8 districts I
believe. Church was awesome too. What we do for sacrament meeting is we're all
supposed to prepare a 3-5 minute talk in Portuguese and then they call on us In
the meeting to give the talk. Good news: only 2 people are called on and it's
usually people leaving. The rest of the time is taken up by the branch
presidency and their wives. They take turns and probably recycle their talks
every 2 months because then they'll have completely new elders. The studying is
going amazing. Both of the gospel and of the language. We are scheduled for
classed usually 2 times a day and each session is 3 hours. Usually though the
second session is teaching nosso pesquisador (our investigator). His name is
abrao. More on that later. No everyone is not in the same place with the
language. I'd probably say, humbly, and my district would agree, that I know
the language the best. People come to me for checking grammar and asking
questions. The reason I'm so good is because of my Spanish background. It's
amazing how similar Spanish and Portuguese is. If I don't know how to say
something in Portuguese I'll just say it in Spanish, check it later and I'm
usually right. A lot of rules and conjugations are very similar as well. Irmao
walker actually pulled me out of class to tell me not to answer all the
questions even if I know so others can learn haha.
Sleep, yes. Usually around
7.5 hours mais o menos (more or less). Healthy foods? Definitely not. Getting
enough? Definitely too much. Exercise? Every day for about 50 minutes.
That's awesome about Jon
and Shelem. What was her interview with? She get it?
That's awesome about
AnnMarie as well. Or as I say lately, muito bem (very good)
Alright now I'll just
free-write. I was gonna try to upload some pictures but I think I need some
special adaptor... I've seen lots of people I know since being here! About 20!
People from school, people from dance class, people from Greenville. I'll list
off some people you know. Elder Daniel Buffington from the other Greenville
stake is actually in my district. Elder Zac Wilson from somewhere in South
Carolina.. Sister Mady Spencer from august of course. Sister Lexi Wilcox you
probably don't know but we went to EFY together my first year. I had a list so
I might be forgetting some because I forgot to bring the list.
Ooh! Elder Bednar's talk "Character of Christ" Watch it. It was so amazing, I'd recommend it to everyone.
The first wed, Thurs, Fri,
and sat here were super crazy and super busy....like maybe you have an idea but
probably not. We drop off our luggage and go to the classroom and the teacher
doesn't speak a lick of English. unico portugues. Which is awesome! Best way to
learn! It was just a bit hard starting off. At the point I'm at now, I can read
about 80% of Portuguese that's put in front of me and can understand an okay
amount of spoken depending on how they speak, with what accent and how fast.
With the lesson with Abrao I understand most of what he says and if I don't I'll
just say como? or repita por favor? And I'll usually get it the second time.
With my responses, they’re slow but mostly accurate...kind of haha. I get
my message across. Abrao read the book of Mormon in between our first lesson
and our second and we asked him if he prayed about it and he said nao (no) and
so we actually had him pray right there in front of us to know if it was true
and it went very well. Afterwards he felt the spirit and I managed to talk
about the good feeling being the spirit and somehow getting to baptism where I
invited him to be baptized and he said he wanted to know more but was
interested. Okay so Maybe I should also mention that he's not a real
investigator, he's just pretending. I'd feel really bad if he was real. He does
a real good job of pretending though. It was kinda funny when we had him say
the closing prayer too, he was thanking us using our names so he was like
"eu sou grato por Elderrrrr.......Horton e Elder.......Johnson" As he
looked at our name tags haha. Way cool guy though.
Time is passing faster
lately. It was so slow last week but it's good now. I'm starting to see how 2
years will just go by. An elder said the night before he left for his mission
that we giving up 2 years of our lives and families so others can spend
eternities with theirs. We're doing God's work here and I know I'm where I'm
supposed to be. I couldn't be happier if I was anywhere else. I have a friend
who used to always say "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens
me." Lately I've really had to rely on Christ as I prepare for lessons or
am learning His gospel or the Portuguese language. Without Christ I can do
nothing but with Him, I can do anything. Quando nao tenho Cristo, nao posso
fazer algumas coisas mas com Ele, posso fazer algumas coisas.
The new temple video! Is
absolutely amazing, I really love how they did every part of it with more
emotions and realistic situations. That's all I'll say about that though. I
also love the Provo temple, it's the first time it's been open for a month or
so now so it was super busy but thankfully they have a large capacity.
AnnaMaria...I mean
AnnMarie <3 XD Thanks for the birthday present I've been using it lately to
take notes and write down what I want to write about on pday so muito bem :)
I'm happy I can type fast
otherwise this would be hard to fit in in an hour.
I don't think I really
have anything else to say.... poissss (soooo) Tchauzinos! (little good byes!)
eu amo minha familia (I love my family) E também eu sei que Cristo é nosso
salvador e também eu sei que esta igreja é verdadeira e eu estou fazando a obra
de Deus (And also I know that Chris is our Savior and also I know that this
church is true and I am doing the work of God) Em nome de Jesus Cristo, amèm
(in the name of Jesus Christ amen)
That was an
AWESOME letter!! I started reading it aloud to Andrew and Shelem and
started crying, so Andrew read it to us!!
Hah,
sounds like you. Good thing I didn't say *pat pat pat* I don't know if I'll be
able to send any pictures this week...but most likely next week
So are you in
the main MTC in the bunk rooms? How many Elders in each room? Sorry
if I may have missed some of Andrew’s reading – I was a bit emotional and
haven’t had time to re-read it to process all the info properly!!
Yeah
I'm in the Main MTC bunkrooms, we have 6 elders in our room and that's about
standard lately but they used to only do 4 per room. Thanks for the pictures
yeah I got them :)
Glad you got the photos! You sound so good! Kelsi Lucas
is going to the Provo MTC next Wednesday …. Instead of the Brazil one.
Muito
bem! I'll look out for her
I've
gotta go now though sooo maybe I'll get back on later...but don't count on it.
I'm sad I can't send pictures right now. Ate logo! (see you later)
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