Eu não tenho muito tempo agora e meu Português é ainda não certo, so I'll just get into it. I love hearing from all of you, so thanks if you wrote me! Mom and Dad, I hope you have a good camping trip and enjoy Zion's Canyon. I'm hoping to go there once I get back.
Life is still crazy busy here and I'm downright relieved that I won't be here longer than six weeks. Don't get me wrong; it's fantastic here, but I'm eager to get back in to the real world again. I'm learning so much here that it's kind of hard to believe how far I've come from four weeks ago. Portuguese has progressed well enough (at least when giving lessons) that I can worry less about whether I can be understood and more about how I'm responding to the investigator and relating the gospel to them. I'm struggling with teaching a lot more than Portuguese, I think, because it is pretty difficult to try and relate what to teach to someone you just met/know little about/can barely understand/all three. Still, I'm often really surprised by what the Spirit can make out of my fumbling attempts to share a message that I know is true but can hardly express. my district has started a new teaching approach where we teach each other, with each of us impersonating a person we know well to have the gospel taught to them. It's really a fascinating exercise, because you can see how what is taught to you can really apply to and help real people, as well as understanding the sorts of questions a person would have during a lesson. I'm also picking up all sorts of off-the-wall skills that I can't even think of right now, but that I hope may come in handy. I learned to do that ridiculous finger-snap thingie (though I never want to be caught dead doing it, seeing as it's not even a Brazil thing; it's just a Mormon boy thing). I've learned to work the Brazilian Portuguese keyboard settings like a pro; I'm slowly improving at volleyball, and I've learned to say "hello" and "goodbye" and "excuse me" and "thanks" in a dozen languages besides Portuguese, because I ask basically everyone I talk to about their mission languages and I talk to a LOT of people here. I suppose it's all good practice. I've seen quite a few people I know around here, mostly from BYU, though Elder Matheny got assigned to my branch and I see him pretty often.
About last week's mystery devotional, the speaker turned out to be Richard G. Scott, which was fantastic. His talk was brilliant, naturally, and he said some wonderful things about prayer that helped me out an awful lot. He exhorted us say unrushed prayers and take that opportunity to pour out our whole souls to God, rather than just listing off our requests and then hanging up. God knows every corner of our hearts, but he also wants us to come to him with our problems and show that we have enough faith in him to ask for what we need. You don't need an appointment to talk to your Father; you can call on Him at any time or place. I just think that's such an amazing reassurance to have. He told us about the three kinds of responses we can get to our prayers. Most people are aware of the feeling of comfort and peace that signifies a positive answer and the unsettled feeling, the stupor of thought, that we get when God wants us to do something differently. But I hadn't heard much about when you simply don't receive an answer. That's one of the hardest things to feel and I've felt recently that I wasn't getting some answers that I needed. But Elder Scott reassured us that no answer is indeed an answer, that Heavenly Father is telling us that he believes in us enough to make the right decision. He lets us grow by exercising faith in him. It's hard to say everything I felt, but I felt that Elder Scott was speaking directly to me at times, or that the Lord was speaking to us through Elder Scott. The Spirit in there was indescribable, especially when he gave us an apostalic blessing that all missionaries learning a new language would have the gift of tongues and guidance of the Lord according to our faith and diligence in studying. I guess you can't really argue with something like that and since then, though I'm still studying as hard as ever, I haven't been too worried about Portuguese. I feel like i should leave you with an inspiring scripture, but even though I've run into a ton just in personal study this week, I haven't got my notebook or my scriptures at the moment and can't share them too easily. So I'll just bear my testimony that I know that Heavenly Father answers prayers through the scriptures. It's really quite astonishing. Especially if you read with a specific question in mind, familiar passages and verses leap out in new ways with new meanings and they can apply to you or to whoever you're praying about, be it a companion, family member, or investigator. So read the scriptures! It's all in there!
Anyway, I hope regular life is proceeding smoothly and comfortably for everyone. Good luck!
Sister Nielsen
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