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| Elder Perry and his mission district at the Campinas Temple on P-day |
This last P-day we all got to drive an hour and half through Brazil to the Campinas temple! It was an amazing drive through Sao Paulo, and the temple was beautiful. It was great to have a break from the grind of classes in the MTC.
Here at the CMT, we wake up at 6:30 am, eat breakfast of bread/meat/cheese, morning study, eat lunch of rice and beans at 11:30, classes till dinner at 4:30 pm, then classes until bedtime at 9:00 pm. And it's that all day every day. It's great, but also not easy.
Our companionship of three got two more roommates this week! We are now rooming with Elder Rojo and Elder Santos, who are from Argentina and Brazil respectively. It's funny at night when Elder Rojo and I are both trying to learn new words from Elder Santos, even though we all speak different languages. My Spanish has helped with talking to Elder Rojo, and we have both learned a lot since we got here. I have also been teaching Elder Santos some English this week, and on Sunday night he said his first prayer with us in English. That was a pretty cool experience. It's great to be learning with these guys.
My Portuguese is progressing faster than I ever expected. Our district has been practicing every day to role-play teaching lessons in Portuguese. Even though there are some awkward moments of having to flip through dictionaries to find words, we're all able to teach very well. We have also had to memorize several things this last week. We started with memorizing our missionary purpose in Portuguese and a baptismal invitation. These last two days, I have memorized the first vision and Moroni 10:3-5. I feel more and more confident talking with people in Portuguese every day.
I had my first really cool missionary experience on Thursday too. All of us new missionaries traveled to the federal police station to sign documents and get fingerprinted (again). While we were all sitting around, it was cool to see that every missionary was talking with someone else at the station. I was talking with this man named Sami who spoke English (thank goodness). He was from Pakistan and was getting his PhD in Sao Paulo. He asked what we were all doing in Brazil, why everyone's names were "Elder", and who we were older than. I gave him an overview of the church and he was really engaged. Then he asked me, "How do you know any of this is true?" right as we were leaving the building. I wish I could remember better what I had said to him, because as I stood up to leave, he handed me a business card and said he was interested in learning more. I can tell you it was the spirit talking to him then, not me. I have talked to an instructor and he said he will help me or someone else get in contact with him. I'll keep you all updated.
We were able to listen to a MTC devotional last night that was given by Elder Bednar a week ago. He told all the missionaries to "Be good and go." That was the main premise of his message. As long as we're doing what's right, Christ will help us with whatever we're doing.
Elder Perry
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| Elder Perry with companions Elder Roylance and Elder Magleby |
