CTM Week 1

Ok well it has been a long week, but it has also been a great one. I will start off with the questions from last week. I met missionaries at the Atlanta airport. Elder Johnston (blond), Elder Martin (black hair and glasses), and Sister Chugg (shortest sister) came from the MTC in Provo so they are not in my district. Elder Davis (tallest), Elder Porter (my companion), Elder Arazani ( short one), and Sister Pyles came straight to Brazil. On the plane there were games and movies that we were apparently allowed to watch and play as long as we felt comfortable. Basically I didn´t watch any movies, but I did play chess and sudoku. Other than that I slept or read scriptures. I was only close to Elder Davis on the plane, so we talked also. I did have some trouble in the Atlanta airport because the stations didn´t have the same names as on my schedule, so that was confusing. So I waited for it to come up on the board then went to it. There was a lady who took us to a van then took us the the MTC. Sister Snider ( I think that is spelled right) met us and talked to us about the CTM, Elder Snider wasn´t there till later that night. My companion is Elder Porter (as said previously) and he is from Texas. There are 8 people in my district. The people who came straight to Brazil with me and two sisters from the Philippines and Elder McLean who arrived yesterday and nobody knew he was coming. First day was really easy because we had mostly free time. The second day on the other hand was hard. My daily schedule is 6:30am-9:30 or 10:30pm, and I have breakfast, lunch dinner and a snack. I have classes on Portuguese and time to prepare a lesson for an investigator (one of our teachers) which we give every night except Sundays and Tuesdays. Portuguese is great. I am already able to understand some of what people say sometimes, but it is already better that my Spanish. I love the food here! We have rice and beans every meal which is awesome and the rice is much better than the rice at home. There are rolls at lunch and dinner which are soft in the middle and have a seam perfect for stuffing meat into. The only semi bad meal is breakfast which usually consists of a big roll meant for a sandwich of cheese and spamy ham. That is about my only complaint.

I have not gotten home sick yet, but others have. The temple was awesome today, I got to perform comfirmations in Portuguese. I think I am a trial for Elder Porter, because I am weird, and I think I annoy him with some of the stuff that I do. The Brazilians are awesome. Also I get 45 min for email not 30. Daniel´s suggestions for shaving have really helped, and the lotion helps a lot too. There is bad new though, I think someone stole my speaker out of my bags when they were coming to Brazil. Also I lost my water bottle between flights 2-3 so I have been using a plastic one. I bought a hymn book today, now all I need is the thing that says what hymn is what. The whole CTM participates in a choir before devotionals, and so I found out that singing in Portuguese is really hard. I haven´t checked the mail yet so I don´t know if the letter came or not. Oh we have devotionals on Sundays and Tuesdays which we have to wear suits for. Other than that I wear short sleeve shirts everyday. I wish I brought more shirts for exercising though, and I wish that I had brought my running shoes. By the way I do not look like a Brazilian (dad). Apparently my name is really hard for the Brazilians to say. Also everyone calls Elder Porter harry potter.

I had a really good experience this week. I had a little bit of a Job moment in the sacrament meeting this week. I was sitting in the meeting and I started having thoughts like ``you shouldn´t be here.`` or ```You should just go home.`` and I thought no I should stay, I am doing a good job so far, and just combating these thoughts, and then I realized that these thought cannot be coming from me, they must be from Satan, and the overall effect was that it strengthened my reason and my thoughts about why I am on a mission. This confused me, because we were told that the MTC is the most holy place besides the temple in Brazil, and I was in a sacrament meeting. This confused me until I was in my bed at night and I remembered the story of Job, and in that story God allows Satan to do bad things to Job. So I thought maybe God did that today with me. Maybe he let Satan tempt me in that holy place because he knew that it would strengthen me in an area that I would be tested in. This is kind of an example of trial. He lets us have trials so that we can become stronger, and can handle trials he knows will come. Also after one of the devotionals I came up with a phrase that the other elders refer to as ``wise words form Elder Pettingill``` along with the ``not so wise word from Elder Pettingill.``

I love you all and I am so glad to have such great people for family members.

-- Elder Pettingill