日本人街!? (A Japanese District!?)

Saturday, March 11, 2023; Brazil Mission Training Center, Sao Paulo, Brazil:

Oi!

I go to Manaus in 4 days!!

This week has been good. Again, it was mostly similar to the last few weeks. So, I made this email long (Sorry!) describing languages, food and schedule here at the Brazil CTM a little more in depth.

Saturday the power was cut off. The CTM was using a generator, so we had power, but it didn't allow for air conditioning. Wow, I took that for granted :) The heat and humidity sucked. Luckily the power turned back on.

Sunday was good. Since it was the first Sunday we fasted for dinner Saturday night, and breakfast Sunday morning. Then for church Sunday we had a testimony meeting. The branch president told us he would love to hear Portuguese testimonies but since we were all English native language speakers, we could also just speak English or a combo of both. Maybe 10-12 people bore their testimonies in English, Portuguese or both. We had a class where we talked in depth about the sacrament prayers. Each word is important and has meaning. Even the first one- 'O'. Then my district and I had family home evening. This week we ended up having a brief discussion on some scriptures we loved. After that we had Sunday choir practice, which was awesome. We had a devotional with the CTM presidency. It was good.

Then Monday started my last week of classes here at the CTM.

Basically, here is and has been my daily schedule for Mon-Thurs, Sat:

6:30a-Wake up, get ready for the day, plan with my companion Elder Pohm.

7:45a-Breakfast

8:30a-Three-hour class

11:30a-Study time

12:15p-Lunch

1:00p-Three-hour class

4:00p-Study time

5:45p-Dinner

6:30p-Study time

7:10p-Exercise time

8:00p-Study time

10:00p-Write in journal, get ready for bed.

10:30-Lights out, Sleep

*Study times include personal and companionship study, as well preparing for other things, showering, anything like that.

Monday and Tuesday this week were kind of sad. Being here there are lots of opportunities to practice my Portuguese with other missionaries and interact with others. Because of this I made a ton of friends here. Missionaries who don't learn a new language just spend one week online and then 2 weeks at MTC/CTM's. Those who learn a new language with their alphabet do 2 weeks online and 4 weeks or so at a MTC. And if it's a new alphabet language you do 2 weeks online and 7 weeks at a MTC. I guess because Spanish and Portuguese are so similar, people learning one from the other only do 3 weeks at the MTC. When I first got here a bunch of 3-week missionaries also came. And this Mon/Tues that time was up, so a bunch of my new friends left. While it's too bad, tons more missionaries showed up so that was cool.

This week a new district of Brazilians arrived going to Tokyo, Japanese speaking. They will be here 7 weeks total. Along with them, there are a bunch of Brazilian and Spanish speaking missionaries and Americans learning Portuguese. Most special the MTC has a French speaking missionary learning Portuguese and several Portuguese-to-English missionaries. This week one Australian missionary left, and a German-English speaking missionary arrived, both learning Portuguese.

Food at the Brazil CTM!

This isn't necessarily a full representation of Brazilian food, but here is what they serve at the CTM. It is all you can eat during mealtimes. Every morning we have options of simple meat and cheese sandwiches, eggs, cereal, yogurt and a few rotating items. My favorite is this Cheese bread stuff that comes looking a little bit like cream puffs that I eat every day. Lunch and dinner are similar to each other. First there are usually several cold salad ingredients. Then most days it's rice and beans. For protein there are several kinds of meat or meat dishes, anything from chicken to fish to sausage. Besides that, there is often a dessert, jello, pudding, or other things I don't know but just eat. Along with that we have a variety of juices, some sodas, water and milk we can have. I usually drink a soda called guarana and add a random juice to it. There are some meals they do about once a week that are different. For example, one night we have pizza. A cheese pizza type, two different meat pizzas, and a dessert pizza. Another meal which is my personal favorite, is one with potato wedges, cheese sauce, and other kinds of meat. Potatoes are my favorite food and that hasn't changed. Yet at least.

We had two mock lessons with the same CTM instructor we have been "teaching". In the last one we invited him to be baptized. He said yes, but I feel like our broken lessons and Portuguese may not have quite deserved a baptism. Not yet at least. But I learned so much from teaching someone in Portuguese, about letting the spirit guide me, and working with my companion. And how to teach a person, not a lesson.

Wednesday, we had choir practice which was super cool because one of the songs had Japanese which fits because there are Japan assigned missionaries. Then we had a devotional which ended up being a broadcast from the USA MTC in Provo. M. Russel Ballard, Acting President of the 12 apostles, was the key speaker. It was great. He gave tons of good ideas and experiences and advice.

Then for p-day we got to attend a new temple, the Campinas Brazil temple. It was a 1.5-hour drive but I loved it. The drive had tons of greenery, and lots of little collections of houses built into hills. It was also interesting to pass a 'wet and wild' fun park and a billboard for 're max' realty? I didn't know Brazil would have those, but I guess so. The temples are all so beautiful and I always feel peace when I am inside. The Campinas temple looks very large and castle-y on the outside whereas the São Paulo temple looked kind of small. The Campinos temple also had these huge blue glass windows on the front and back that were very cool. A random fun fact was I thought the endowment officiator looked like Jango Fett from Star Wars 2 ;)

I took a language test for my last week of the CTM and let's just say it humbled me. My language skills in Portuguese aren't that good. Yet :)

This week I have felt so many desires for how I want to be as a missionary, and after my mission. These desires I have are a lot harder on practice than in my mind, but I know what matters is how hard we try. Jesus makes up the difference. We just have to trust him and put our shoulder to the wheel :)

If you have any questions for me or things, you are curious about my mission so far just send me an email at

- Olson.david@missionary.org - and I will respond to you or include it in my next email.

Eu amo vocês! I love you all!

Elder D. Olson

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