-Nature valley sweet and salty bars
-Tiger milk bars or other peanut butter protein bars
-fruit snacks
-different color gel highlighters (blue green etc)
-compression shorts I forgot mine
-the pack of cards in the car I drove. I havent found a place that sells cards yet.
I don´t know what else... I will think about it more and send them next week.
btw don´t send me skittles or sugar babies because of sugar difference. (I wonder what this means...I just sent a package with some papers he needed with a pack of Skittles in there! Whoops!)
I think that I am flying to my mission, but that is just what I have heard.
Well this week was great, and interesting. We made a goal as a district to only talk in português for the entire week, so far we have done pretty well. Although we had a devotional from Elder Holland this week which was awesome. I will talk more about that later. I cut the hair of most of the Elders in my district this week. I don´t know if that was allowed, and I haven´t asked yet so... It happened because Elder Davis and Elder Arzani tried to get their hair cut by the guy at the ctm but he wasnt there for the time they went, and then they tried to do it in the city during p day, but the line was really long. So I cut Elder Davis´ hair, because he was willing to let me touch it, then after Elder Arzani saw that it looked good, he had me cut his hair. Then Elder Porter thought that his hair could use a cut, so I cut his as well. Then the next day I cut my own, because I didn´t want to try and find time in my schedule to get my hair cut. We were going to go proselyting again on Saturday, but because of carnival we didn´t. Now there is a bunch of LDM (BOM) in our room because nobody came and got them back. Elder Davis turned 19 this week, so I made people sing the portugues happy birthday song to him five different times. I don´t think he liked it, but it was his birthday. I gave a talk on Sunday, and I gave a lesson. The talk was 4 minutes (don´t you guys wish your sacrament meeting talks were that short, although it was in portuguese), and the lesson was 10 min in English. We had a good devotional that night, but I don´t remember a whole lot, and I am not going to try and find it because of limited time, but I will say that I listened to the entire thing in portuguese, although I didn't understand everything. They had the closest they have come to American food this week, and they have tried quite a few times to create american food. It was hamburgers. They tasted almost like they were american, except the meat was a little off, and they didn´t have ketchup, just some Brazilian version. Me and Elder Porter have to try and teach a lot to our ``investigators`` this week because they want us to teach the ordinances as well before we leave. So far we haven´t gotten though an entire lesson yet.
I am both excited and terrified for the mission field, although I can understand portuguese even when a person is talking fast (sometimes). I still can´t respond to things in the ways that I would like to, and sometimes I can´t answer questions whatsoever; most of the time it is just answered in a way that no actual brazilian would say. This week I met, for the first time, other missionaries going to my same mission. My companion for divisions (splits) this week is leaving at the same time as me, and to the same mission. He is from chili, but is fluent in português. I am really enjoying the teaching practice. My companions in all the divisions have been really great, and have taught me a lot. They haven´t put brazilians in my room so it is just me and Elder Porter until we leave. So we have a lot of room to ourselves
Now on to Elder Holland´s devotional. It was amazing. He talked about so much that can help all missionaries, but one thing that he emphasized was that there should be no missionary that comes home, and goes inactive. He talked about how it doesn´t matter how many conversions or baptisms we get as long as we convert ourselves. He also talked about how we are not trying to get people to join a church, we are trying to get them to come unto Christ, and receive a remission of their sins. He said that the reason that Baptism is important is because it gives us a remission of our sins. He also talked that we need to work with a full purpose of heart, and how that means we need to be engaged in the work, and how we need to embrace the work. One thing that I thought about while I listened to him talk is that I want to be able to bear my testimony with the power that Elder Holland has, and I realized that if I have full purpose of heart then I will be able to testify with the power of the Holy Ghost, which is the power by which Elder Holland testifies. He also talked about the power of the Holy Ghost, and the importance of the Holy Ghost. He talked about when the Nephites were waiting for Christ to come back to them, they prayed for the Holy Ghost, and how the best thing for us to have would be the Father appearing to us, then the next would be for the Son to appear to us, and then the next would be to have the Holy Ghost with us. The Holy Ghost is a member of the God Head. He is on the same level or at least a similar level as God, and Jesus Christ. He talked about how salvation was never a cheap experience. It is hard just like it was for Jesus Christ. (Missionary Work and the Atonement by Elder Holland. Click on the title for a link to the talk he is referring to. It is a classic talk missionaries listen to in the MTC. It is a great read!)
Tchau,
-- Elder Pettingill
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