Hurrah for Israel

Week two-ish!? It has been ten glorious days in the MTC. Time flies, I feel like I just got here yesterday and yet so much has happened. My brain is scrambled! Despite what one may think, Portuguese only gets harder. I feel like I've never struggled too hard with accents or pronunciation, but I cannot pronounce Portuguese words for my life! It doesn't help that I'm so white, but it's also difficult when you want to say everything in either a French or Spanish accent but it's neither, it's something completely different and the letters make other sounds and sometimes it's like kindergarten and I'm having to re-learn the alphabet. I especially am prone to mistakes. This week I was taught the important difference between mattermos and mantermos, after accidentally saying that we can return to God by "killing ourselves clean" instead of "keeping ourselves clean". RIP Sister Bradley's pride. If you are ever learning for ways to keep yourself humble, just try learning a language and you will quickly realize how slow and mortal you are. My companion Sister Forsyth and I are determined still, so this week in an effort to improve our language skills we decided to do a brief dinner to breakfast English fast, and never have I ever felt so rhetorically stifled. Even if it was just about seven hours, we hardcore struggled. Still, we kind of enjoyed it in a weird way. After Sister Forsyth and I began only speaking in Portuguese, slowly almost every other girl in our district decided to do it too. We carried our English to Portuguese dictionaries around with us everywhere and yelled non-sensible mis-conjugated Portuguese terms at each other while flipping through dictionary pages searching for the right words, but it was so exciting when we finally understood one another. We would scream and laugh in excitement repeating obscure things like ambos and foca until the meaning was ingrained into our brains. After that experience I've never before been so grateful for the English language and that I'm surrounded by people I am able to communicate with.

The Bear Necessities

Tudo Bem! Friends, family and miscellaneous blog browsers!

Let me tell you how truly amazing the MTC is! Everyone here looks like they're glowing! The grounds are beautiful and every lesson, devotional and meeting is inspired. I'm so grateful I get to be here! If I'm being completely honest, thus far, I haven't been the least bit homesick. It probably helps that I'm still in Provo and not Africa, but inside these gates it feels like an entirely different world! It's strange to look outside and recognize my mountains and see streets that I've driven down hundreds of times. We live a pretty strict schedule, we go to a lot of class to learn Portuguese and spend the rest of our time studying, exercising, eating, sleeping and obviously living basic rules of sanitation. The gift of tongues is real, but man the work is hard! We try to speak as much Portuguese as is humanly possible, but that's sometimes hard when you don't know how to speak that much. Still, I'm already able to say a prayer, introduce myself as a Representative of Christ, greet people, etc. And let me tell you, I couldn't have done that all on my own. I may be working hard, but the Lord works harder.

Still Alive!

That was fast!  Got an email from Lia that rather speaks for it's self!

Sister Bradley is in the MTC!

Today, Lia went into the MTC at 12:30 pm after a nice family lunch.  Since the sisters got a little emotional during the meal, Lia decided to keep goodbyes at the curb short and sweet (no tears) - just a quick hug for each of us and a few photos:

Lia sitting on the floor of the van on the way into the MTC, since Mom and Dad haven't replaced all the seats yet.

Taking her suitcase out of the trunk when Sara snuck a candid snap shot.

The token photo of Missionary and Suitcase that Mom always insists on.  And she's off, folks!    

She's a Missionary!

Last evening (7/17/2018) around 7:30 pm, Lia was set apart as a full time missionary by her family ward Stake President.  In attendance: Mark Bradley (Lia's Dad) who participated in the setting apart, Laurie Bradley (Mom), Elyse Bradley (older sister), Sara Bradley (older sister), Moriya Porter (older sister), Joshua Porter (brother in law) and several other Church Counselors.

Lia was given advice to throw herself into the work and give it her all, serving to the best of her abilities even when it will get tough, and to speak the Portuguese language as much as possible while still learning it- even though it won't sound good at first.  It should progress much faster this way.

The rest of the evening was spent playing games with her sisters for some much needed quality time and finishing up her packing.  Her single suitcase can only be 44 lbs for her flight to Cape Verde (still  6 weeks away), which was a difficult feat to accomplish.  The nervousness finally hit, but she was still in good spirits!

Photo of Elyse, Sara, Moriya and Lia outside the Church before the setting apart:

How To Write Your Favorite Missionary

The time has come! If you'd like to write me you can always do it the easy way by emailing your girl at amelia.bradley@myldsmail.net or if you're feeling a little extra, my mtc mailing address and mission mailing address are as followed

Sister Amelia Rose Bradley
AUG29 CAP-VDP
2005 N 900 E Unit 86
Provo UT 84602

Sister Amelia Rose Bradley
Cape Verde Praia
Caixa Postal 420
Praia
Sao Tiago
Cape Verde

I hope you're all ready for whatever wild amazing craziness comes next! Please remember to keep me and all the missionaries in your prayers, I'm gonna need it! Much Love -- Sister Bradley