MTC Week 1

January 8, 2013

Hi Everyone!

I hope everything is going great!  The MTC is amazing and the spirit here is so strong.  My companion is Elder Jung (pronounced young) and he is great.  Elder Kyle Rutledge is in my district plus he's also my roommate!  On the second day of my MTC experience they had us teach an investigator in Portuguese.  It went pretty well, even though the only things I knew how to say in Portuguese at the time was: Ola (hello), Oracao (pray), Tudo bem (which can mean like eight different things), and Otimo (which means awesome/excellent).  We like to yell OTIMO! whenever something exciting happens.  Anyways, it went pretty well.  We've taught our investigator about three times and each time it gets better and better.  It's amazing the amount of Portuguese I've learned in my short time here.  I can almost speak in complete sentences now.  It truly is amazing what the Lord can do.

A lot of the missionaries here have been sick with some gastrointestinal virus and they bring it up every time we have a meeting.  It's on the decline now and no one is getting sick anymore, but they won't let us shake hands or anything like that.  I didn't know this whole epidemic made the news.  It really wasn't as bad as they were making it out to be.

Everything is going great and my district is awesome.  There are 12 missionaries in my district.  Five are going to Maceio like me and the other seven are going to Recife (pronounced Hecife).  I love my district, even though they like to say things like "Getting Swole" and "Baller" from time to time.  People do this weird snapping thing here and I think it's kind of annoying and yet everyone does it.  We spend all day studying and it's way intense.

I run into Elder Chris Jessee, Elder Joel Neilson, Elder Quinn McCann, and Elder Joey Jenson a lot.  It was really great to see Chris again and we got our picture taken a lot (sorry I can't send them this week, my computer won't let me.)  He left to New Hampshire yesterday and I miss him already.  He was one of the missionaries that was unfortunate enough to get the gastrointestinal virus.

I'm predicted to leave the MTC on March 4th.  We're not allowed to say the word Visa.  V**a has become a swear word around the Brazilian missionaries and we'll probably be in the Provo MTC the whole time.  I'll see you soon George, Josh, Ken, Connor, and Jason.

I've got to go and I'll talk to you guys next week.  Love you guys.

Love,
Elder Johnson