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.
My district for the most part gets along great. All us Sisters share a room and get along with each other pretty effortlessly. It definitely helps that everyone is so amazing and respectful. Also, I'm like ninety-five percent sure my companion is angel sent from above. We all have really good talks about spiritual things and doctrine just when we are hanging out at lunch or going to bed. We're still teen girls, so of course this week we stayed up a little bit later than we should've a couple times talking (and believe me we paid dearly for it in exhaustion, don't break curfew kids) and played MASH; just in case anyone was wondering, after my mission I will be living under a freeway overpass in Scotland with my seventy children. It's insane the amount of bonding we've already experienced and I'm going to be heartbroken when I have to goodbye to them after these six weeks. On the other hand, we haven't bonded as much with the Elders; I don't think they want to be friends with us nearly as much as we want to be friends with them. I mean, they're all really nice and patient with us Sisters, but let’s just say they were significantly less enthused than we were when we decided to eat meals all together. We invite them to come play volleyball and whatnot with us sometimes, and granted they do come a decent 40% of time, but only after a bit of convincing (begging). Our relationship with the Elders is best described in a poem written by Sister Crowder this morning while at the field:
It is another sad day
For the Sisters of District K
For the Sisters of District K
When once again
The Elders say nay
The Elders say nay
-Sara Elizabeth Crowder
A quick spiel about our fantastic teachers: Irmao Haycock, (no relation to our Haycocks) only spoke in Portuguese when greeting us the first day, but luckily has spoken mostly in English since. We are his first district, meaning our first day was his first day. It's a little weird because he's only 21 and hasn't even been home from his mission a full year, but he acts like he's 35. He doesn't know what “low-key” or “shook” means. Also, he looks just like that Mormon actor who's in the RM and gets called to Boise Idaho in the Singles Ward, and I think he also is the junior companion from the Best Two Years. So if you ever wonder who teaches me all day here at the MTC, it's basically that guy but he speaks Portuguese. Irma Ludlum unfortunately doesn't look like anyone in particular, but she's way gorgeous. She tends to run a tighter ship and teaches in Portuguese a lot more, but they're both really good at what they do. Our district has a running joke about how they should date, so whenever we hear they have a meeting or talk about lesson planning/ corresponding, we'll all raise our eyebrows at each other whilst whispering “oohs” and “ahhs”. On the downside, both of our teachers learned Portuguese in Brazil, so it's very possible (most definitely possible) I'll get to my mission and have no idea what’s going on, but what'cha gonna do.
This week in choir we are singing the song “Hurrah for Israel”, which was written by Utah state prisoners for Elder Groberg (not quite sure if that's his name but it's the missionary that the Other Side of Heaven was made about) because of a line his actual companion said that was put into the movie, but his companion said it in reference to the story about the mission "farewell" of Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball. Which, if you haven't heard that story, you should definitely take the time now to look it up, even though it won't be as awesome as when our choir director tells it. Anyway, despite the song being written in complete unison with zero separation of parts, it is like the most difficult song the MTC choir sings, but it's really cool and also the only song we as a choir stand to sing (also a reference to the mission farewell of Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball, so you should seriously look this story up).
Another awesome missionary related message (all MTC messages)- I heard it this week given in passing by a girl in my zone. She was saying how on our name tag we have our names (Sister/ Elder so and so) at the top and then the name of Christ underneath it because Christ supports us in all things. Everyone in the room was like "wooooaaaaahhhh" (like missionaries are when they hear anything missionary related) and it was a total mic drop moment. A couple other things that I heard this week and really liked were: "it was pride that killed charity", "other people deserve more than the frown on you face", the entirety of both 1st and 2nd Peter, 3rd Nephi 11 (when Christ visits the Americas) and Acts 5:40-42. Also, during class one day while sharing scripture thoughts with each other, Sister Forsyth and were giving a brief thought about families and then Elder Wilson gave this comment that was just completely mind blowing and was way better than the original thought we gave (Whenever Elder Wilson speaks I feel like I'm listening to a general authority), and the spirit just washed over the room. You hear so many inspired things and feel the spirit so strongly here that I think it's impossible not to love the MTC (even if it does low-key feel like prison sometimes).
The MTC is way cool because you have all these young, diverse people who are passionate about the Gospel, learning and working for the same goals. It's such a good feeling and I love everyone I meet. Oddly enough though, there are a few people who don't seem to want to be here that much. You'll have missionaries counting down the hours till their mission is over and we're all still in the MTC! Not that it's really any of my business, and the mission is a learning and growing experience for everyone, but it's pretty clear that the missionaries who are only here to get it over with are never as happy. If you don't want to be here, it will go slow, you won't get along with your companion, you're lessons will go poorly, neither you or the people you teach will feel the spirit, and honestly you probably won't like your mission. It makes me think of a saying one of my Girls Camp leaders always said, which is "You gotta want it!" The Lord doesn't ask for robots, he asks for missionaries. You can't spend you're mission complaining like Laman and Lemuel and expect to be blessed like Nephi. Luckily for those missionaries struggling now, another saying that travels around the missionary grape vine is "it doesn't matter why you came, it matters why you stayed". I'm blessed to be surrounded by so many amazing Sisters who share my ambition of being here and loving the work. Time flies and we enjoy almost every second, no matter how long the lesson, no matter how difficult the language gets and no matter how bad my accent may be. We are always smiling, laughing, singing and enthusiastic about the sharing His word.
- Sister Bradley
Eu sei que o evangelho verdadio e Eu sei que Russell M. Nelson e um Profeta. Eu sei que Jesus Cristo e nosso redentor e o Livro de Mormon contem a palavra de Deus. En nome de Jesu Cristo, Amem.
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