The Contact Contact

November 19, 2010

Hello! I don't have a cool Portuguese greeting today.

I hope everyone is doing well because I'm doing AWESOME-ly. That's a word, right?

Happy birthday, Amy! I'm pretty sure it's today.

And happy birthday, Callie, in a few days! (PS: I'm so jealous of all your adventures and travels and I can't wait to hear more. Thanks, Bro. & Sis. Eatough, for sending me her email!!)

I'm SO excited for my new (on his way) NEPHEW! I have to agree with Ellery that he should be named Harry Potter. However, I've still been crossing my fingers for a Cyrus. :)

Oh goodness. This has been an amazing week, but so have they all. Sister Cook for the Young Women general presidency (acho que) spoke in Relief Society on Sunday and it was really wonderful. But I would have to look at my notes to remember that far back. The MTC Fireside that night, though, was Brother Lusvardi and he gave a wonderful talk about how important love and charity is in our work. I feel like I learn that more each day, and it is so important. When we really love the people we serve, we know how much the gospel will bless their lives and we won't let a slammed door stop us from trying to serve and teach them.

In our Large Group Meeting this week, the teacher told us a story about a little girl he met on his mission, selling tortillas on the side of the road. He said they first noticed her because she was holding her giant tray of tortillas and just sobbing. He said his companion immediately pulled over and asked her what was wrong. She told them that if she didn't sell all her tortillas before it got dark (which it was fast becoming), her parents would beat her. Of course, they, without hesitation, pulled out their small amount of money and bought the rest of her tortillas. They watched as she hurried home, all her tortillas now sold. Afterwards, however, Elder Littlefield realized that if they had really loved her, they would have found out where she lived and taught her family the gospel. Imagine how much better her life would be if her father held the priesthood and she got to grow up knowing her Savior and Heavenly Father! We really are performing a labor of love for the people we will be teaching!

Also on Sunday, the sisters in our branch sang “Lead Kindly Light” (first verse in Portuguese, second in Italian and third in English) and I got to play the piano for sacrament meeting as well. It was awesome. Three of our sisters have left for the field, but this week we got FIVE more Brazil-bound sisters! We have almost fifteen sisters in our branch now! It's crazy.

In class this week we played this great game where Irmão Matheson read a scripture in Portuguese and we had to find it in English. Needless to say, Sister Laimana and I and Elder Gunter were basically the best team ever! Yes. It was a lot of fun. Cool story, right?

For the Tuesday Devotional we sang “Jesus Once of Humble Birth,” arranged by the very first MTC choir director...whose name I cannot remember. I especially liked it because it seems like a good song to begin the transition into Christmas hymns! The sisters in our district have been counting the days until we can sing Christmas songs in class -- the teachers and elders won't let us until after Thanksgiving. :) Which is in less than a week!! Happy Thanksgiving!

Guess who the Tuesday Devotional speaker was? President Monson!!

Okay. I'm just kidding. But we have faith he will come. :) It was actually Elder Kevin Pearson of the Seventy and it was an INTENSE talk. The talks are, like, forty minutes long, but his flew by. I have, like, three pages of notes. It was really, really great. He gave us several principles of power including such things as prayer and obedience. He also stressed the importance of knowing our divine identity. We are striving to truly be, in every sense, disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh. It was so powerful.

We also sang “To Bring the World His Truth” as one of the songs during that meeting. Look at the words and just imagine how it would feel to be one of 2,300 full-time missionaries singing that together. It was awesome.

Um...I had my first meal here where I actually ate everything on the plate. :) Some sort of chicken, noodle casserole. Just thought you should know I finally found something good to eat. Mostly I just fill up on chocolate milk every day. :)

I've already discovered my favorite Portuguese phrase, which I say about twenty times a day: Que vergonha. "How embarrassing." Thank you, Lisa. :)

We had a really great TRC experience this week and I really see how we're making progress. I love it. We've really been trying to speak as much Portuguese as possible, which is good since we have to give the entire first lesson in Portuguese next week.

I forgot to explain my [email] subject line last week [The Bird in the Cafeteria], though I'm sure it was self-explanatory: There was a bird living in the 'rafters' of the cafeteria for, like, eight days. It's probably dead now. :(

The other day we left dinner and one of Sis. Laimana's contacts fell out, so she put it on the tip of her tongue to keep it from drying out (must be a Hawaii thing – ha-ha) and of course a couple elders came up and wanted to contact us in Portuguese. It was just one of those really funny, indescribable situations where I started laughing really hard because we were being contacted while she had a contact in her mouth. The contact contact. Anyway, you probably had to be there. :)

Allons-y!

Sister Brooks

I'm not sure if that's spelled correctly. I asked a sister going to France, but who knows...