July 24, 2012

{Daniel's arrival at the Brazil MTC, July 11, 2012}

You guys are crazy! Love that you've been writing so much! I feel like I haven't been writing you back enough at all! So I guess I should tell you my email rules...turns out I only get 30 minutes a week to email! And while I'm in the MTC, it's only for family. SO, as you can imagine...5 emails from you guys take up a lot of that time to write you back:/ Letters get here in about a week, but they take longer to get there! So I'll be writing you handwritten letters more often in response to the questions I can't make back to you in emails. I can make them more personal anyways :) In fact, I'm sending a huge letter home that I wrote most of the stuff I already wanted to say today. ALSO I can't even send pictures back home via email. Meh. So if you want to sign up for that Mission Ties email service, it would actually be way more efficient.

So the day after I mentioned the Hepatitis shots business...they pulled me outta class and basically told me I had to get both shots. You could imagine how futile my asking them how necessary the vaccinations was since I know NOTHING about them...haha so they took me and a group of about 10 Brazilian Elders to get the other two shots. We walked a mile or two, and hopped on a bus to a metro station. I thought we were stopping to take a potty break when we got in line at a little brick hut in the middle of the station with people walking every direction...but turns out they like to kill a couple birds with one stone, and right after you take care of business in the bathroom, you can walk out the door, into the neighboring one, and get vaccinated for STDs. Ghetto? Yeah, -ish. Do they run a clean-ish operation? You bet!

Also, turns out Caitlin's iPod is a bit of an eloper! That little thang ran away with me to Brasil in my carry-on, and I totally forgot to mention it in last week's email! Pretty hilarious actually. I think I'll sell it for tie money;) Just let me know what to do with it! I might end up having to wait til I'm in the mission field to send it back, not sure though!

In some good news though, I finally got one of the intructors role-playing as an investigator to be baptized! Taught her three lessons now, all in Portuguese! My poor companhiero Elder Willis is struggling to speak Portuguese, so he's mosly silent during the lessons. Yikes.

I have met some seriously AWESOME people here though. There have been guys here that the moment I met them, their persona and the Spirit have confirmed right off the bat that they're good guys. It's amazing to be around people who want to be here, are supposed to be here, and have worked hard to be here through major sacrifices. It's humbling. I can't imagine how hard it would be to be here if I WASN'T ready. Pretty sure I'd want to go home!

I'm outta email time, so I must bid you adieu! Love you guys, write you soon!