Letter of Oct 11, 2010

Not a ton has happened since I last wrote, but I´ll try to find some cool things to tell you about, and I´ll try to send a video.

In my house we have some gecos that live with us. They´re pretty cool.

I made up my own recipe for banana pancakes. They turned out well, and I made a lot of pancakes this morning :) They were delicious. Thanks Mom Annette for getting me that mapoline stuff.

I don´t think Brazilians have that much ingenuity. They copy a lot of stuff from the states. All their music and movies are pirated from the us, and if its not a direct copy, then its an American song turned salsa with Portuguese lyrics. It´s funny. All their shirts have English on them, but a lot of the time the words are spelled wrong. One of our investigators, Nildinho (nil-gene-yo) has a shirt with a soccer ball on it that says `word cup`. I think its funny, but he doesn´t have a clue.

We were going to baptize Nildinho this week, but he didn´t come to church again :( It makes me sad. I might get transferred next week, and I want to have at least one convert before I go. We have 3 people who would be eligible for baptism if they would just make the decision. We have a grandma and an 18 year old boy praying about baptism right now. I think we´ll baptize the 18 year old and Nildinho this next week. I´m good friends with both of them. The grandma has only heard one lesson, but she watched conference last week and enjoyed it, so if she decides to be baptized we can teach all the lessons and have it ready for next week.

This week my district leader invited all the missionaries to bear their testimonies. I was up by the organ, so I raced to the pulpit and bore mine first. I said, `Meu nome é elder Fôrçai. So um missionario novo. Eu tenho 3 mezes no Brazil. Estou aprendendo a lingua agora. Esta dificil, mas eu se que por nossos provaçãos podemos crecer e aprender. Eu se que a igresia é verdideira, e que o livro de mormon é verdideiro tambem. Eu se que por oração podemos receber força, e que por obediencia podemos receber bensãos e voltar viver com Deus de novo. este é meu testimunho no nome de Jesus Cristo. Amen.´

This time my testimony felt different. I wasn't saying what I believed, I was just stating true facts; like there wasn´t a question in my mind. It felt good. Afterwards an RM bore testimony that the gift of tongues exists and used me as an example. The members were really impressed with me and wanted to shake my hand and congratulate me. I felt really good. I know that God could have allowed me to learn Portuguese instantly, but he had something else he wanted to teach me, like patience. After I bore my testimony I got the feeling that I´ve learned what I needed to learn from this trial, and that things are going to start to get better now. I´m becoming more confident in the language. I contribute to conversations from time to time, even though I don´t always understand completely what´s going on. I think things are going to start improving really fast now.

I hope the video I´m uploading works. It´s just a 20 second clip in my room. I didn´t take any cool new photos this week. Next week will be a new transfer, so I should have a lot to talk about. I´ll probably have a new companion. Maybe a Brazilian one. Who knows. I love you all a lot. Thanks for your letters and prayers. If you have any questions for me be sure to let me know!

Love,

Elder Forsyth