Sept. 30, 2008

I ai minha família, e tudo bem?..
It´s really great to hear from everyone, and to hear about all the little things that I miss so much..
I tried to attach a voice recording to this..so hope fully that makes it through. I also tried to attach some photos, but wasn´t able to... hopefully next time eh?
Things are going pretty good here, we were able to go to the Campinas temple again today. It is always a great experience..as much as I miss you all, I actually really love it here. All of the elders in my district are awesome guys, we get along phenominally! To be honest, I'm am having so much fun and working very hard.
The language is coming slower than I want, but I am learning so much..We have about two 4 hour classes with the funniest instuctors ever (irmão da luz, and irmão nascimento) eles é muito ótimo, and then alot of mdst (missionary directed study time) time.
All through out the week I feel like I am making no progress on the language, and then sunday will hit, and I will look back and see all of the progress that I have made...I love sundays alot. They are a bit more layed back but probably my favorite day of the week. This week was fast and testimony meeting. It was such a powerful meeting, I dont know if there was a dry eye in the whole room. There is a wonderful spirit here at the CTM, every meeting that we have is incredible and inspired.
Ah, I love the brasilian people already.. I usually will try to sit by a few during lunch and practice my awful portuguese..suprisingly though, it will sometimes make sense to them. They are always so patient. I really love talking to them though, they are all so funny and everyone of them has a great sense of humor. They are the most easy going people I have ever met..so I guess I'm in the right place eh?
Lately we have planning and practicing the 1st and 2nd lessons (restoration and plan of salvation). I have known this stuff my whole life, but teaching it to someone who knows nothing is an entirely different story. I can barely teach this in english! But that will soon change...we have been working on a street contact in portugese.. and will soon be using it.. On friday we will be taken down to the "wall street" of Sau Paulo and will be dropped off for about 4 hours with a bunch of pass-along-cards and a few book of mormons. ..Yeah, I´m pretty scared, but definately more excited! This will be great, I'm just hoping they will understand my cave-man portuguese.
Anyways, we are probably going to go out and explore the town, there is a really cheap tie shop up the street.. I think we will stop by...
Thank you all for your advice and inspiration (and baby stories) they are great to hear and really help me out.
I love and miss you all so much.. take care, and keep me up to date on whats what.
com amor,-Elder Olson