The First Few Days!

Hey everyone!

The past 5 days at the MTC (Missionary Training Center) have been awesome! I am really enjoying it here! My companion Elder Joder is from Switzerland and is 23. He is probably the oldest missionary here and I am the youngest haha. Him and his fiance wanted to both serve missions before they got married! What great idea! They both got called to the same mission in Greece reporting on the same day haha so he was switched to the Portugal Lisbon Mission! He was in the Swiss military for 10 months and worked at a Metal producing company and payed for his entire mission! He is mostly fluent in 4 languages German, Swiss-German, French and English he is like 70% fluent in He often asks me what different words mean haha and now he is learning Portuguese! He is also getting his name changed on his name tag because it is a bad word in Spanish haha

Thursday night we met and were interviewed by the Branch Presidency! I was then called as District Leader! Our District has 10 missionaries, 4 Elders all going to Lisbon! The other Elders in our district are Elder Martel who is from Canada and Elder Cortez who is from Washington State! We have 6 Sisters and one of them, Sister Jorgensen played soccer at UVU before her mission! They are all going to Cape Verde, some African islands near Portugal! Our Zone leaders are super cool! Elder Barnes and Elder Goes! they are both going to Boston speaking Portuguese! Yesterday our zone, 2 districts went on a temple walk! It was awesome! the Provo Temple grounds are amazing they are so big and beautiful! This morning we had an opportunity to go to the temple! We woke up at 5:45, skipped breakfast and went to the 7:00 session! It was sweet! The peace and Spirit that I feel there is amazing. 

I love walking around the MTC campus and just seeing so many missionaries here working hard and united in the same work! There are over 2000 missionaries here and 500 arrived on the 14th!! There are missionaries going all over the world and so many are learning new languages to preach the gospel in! The first night we had classes about loving those that we teach! The Brother teaching it returned from the Tennessee Knoxville mission 4 years ago, where my Dad served! I also met another Elder who is going to serve there speaking Spanish! Last night President and Sister Mehr spoke at the Devotional! They also attended our District meeting! Oh how lucky we were! The Spirit there was amazing! Then we watched Elder Bednar's the Character of Christ talk. It was great! He talked about how with just a testimony you aren't truly converted, but by developing the Character of Christ you will truly be converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ! 

Friday we taught the first discussion in Portuguese, it did not go very well...we knew what we wanted to say but did not know how to say it in Portuguese! Saturday we followed up with him and that went much better because we were much more prepared! Friday for exercise time we played basketball and 4 square, Saturday we played Spikeball and Soccer! It was so fun! there are some really good soccer players here! I try to take advantage of that hour because we sit down for 10+ hours a studying the gospel and Portuguese! I am working hard in the language and hope to memorize the 3 pages of basic core by the end of the week! I am very determined to learn Portuguese! The Spirit here at the MTC is incredible! I feel the Spirit so often and more than I have ever felt in my entire life! I love the MTC and am going to make the most of it!

 View from the temple!

 Studying

 My companion and I

 Thanks grandma A!

 Learning Portuguese

 The zone!

My desk