Elder Olsen letter 24 February 2009

Wow I have alot to talk about. And I barely have any time at all. so iam going to try and fit it all in. Well I got here in Brasil safely,and I all I can say is that it is amazing! The city of Sao Paulo is sobeautiful, and HUGE! there are a ton of people I can´t belive it. Wellthe CTM here is way different than the MTC in Prvoo, there are about160 missionaries or so, compared to 2000 in Provo, so it is a lot morepersonable. The CTM president woodward is an awesome man, and he andhis wife try to get to know everyone personal, so it actually is alotmore personal here. I am just barely getting back from the temple inCampinas, and it is so beautiful there, off the back side you can seethe city of Campinas, which is just huge, it is probably about 2 timesbigger than Salt Lake, and there is a ton of people there, it was agood feeling to overlook the city that I will be serving in, and toget a feel of how big it really is. I have a 5th floor bedroom thatoverlooks the city of Sao Paulo, which is incredible. Have you gottenmy letter yet? It has my memory card on it with about 20 pictures orso of my mission so far. Well I will just work backwards so far totell all the stories I wanna share.
My new companion´s name is Elder "sorry I have to take out names because anyine on the internet can access this" . Heis a brilliant Eler. He is so smart, he is learning porteguese reallyfast, it makes me a little jealous but not to much, We work extremelywell together, and get along great. So far my progess on myporteguese, is well it is coming along... I have decided that I amgoing to learn the gospel really well first, and not concrentrate somuch on the language. I learned that from David and Andrew when they said that they when they were here worked hard on the gospel and not so much on the languuage. The food, is well different. It is kindastrange, for breakfast they have lunch meat and rolls, and all the weird stuff, so you eat all your meals within like 8 hours of eachother, breakfast at 8, lunch at 12, and dinner at 4... so I go to bed about every night straving. But it is all good, because today on my p-day we are going to pick up snacks so I don´t die.
On Sunday I was choosen to give a talk, on Charity, and it went pretty well I guess, I wish I could´ve had more time to prepare, I was called on the spot to talk for 5 minutes. But my branch presidency is amazing. They are all on mission´s here, serving for the Perpeual (spelled wrong) education fund missions. They overlook all of Brasil,and choose people to use the fund. They are all retired bankers and businessmen. But they work in Sao Paulo so they only come to this side of the City on Sunday´s. The CTM has a werid time wrap thing that goes on. The days seem to go by so so slow, not like a bad slow, just a okI have been studying in the same classroom for 14 hours today, but then at the same time, the weeks fly by, but at the same time the weeks haven´t gone by fast at all. I can´t believe it has only been 3weeks. I feel like I have changed so much, and that I have learned so much! I love it, this will defintely help me with school, because classes won´t seem that long once you have sat through CTM classes allday. My teacher´s are Iramo Ientz and Qurinio. They are from Brasil and served here in Brasil. They are just aweome. Iramo Q is halirous,he is so funny, Brasilian´s like to make fun of Argentinie´s and so he has some funny jokes about them.
This Friday we go proselyting in downtown Sao Paulo... and I am pretty nervous. I am so exited and ready to go, but nervous that my porteguese won´t be good enough. I have been trying to memorize 5 different street contact apporaches, which are about 5 minutes long apiece. And also just trying to learn as much church saying as i can;like the church is true, Jesus Christ´s died for us, saying´s like that. I gave a practice one to my teacher yesterday and he said that my accent is coming along really well, and that when I speak fast I almost sound local. Which is encouraging news.
Well I had an amazing flight over here, Mom it was pretty awesome to see you, all my district was way jealous about it. They all really are mad at me, because I get more packages and letters than pretty much all of them combined. So everyone in my district thinks my mom is the greatest. I had a pretty awesome experience happen after I came backfrom talking to you Mom. So when I went back we had about 50 minutes till boarding so we were just talking with our whole district when this local Brasilian started talking to us, he was a member of the church and spoke perfect english as well. So my district was all crowded around him, talking and stuff to him in Porteguese, but since I had been consentrating on the gospel rather than the language Ireally didn´t have that much to say. Well right next to the big crowd was the Lady who had a tiny little baby in her arms, and a little boy running around playing with his cars. I just leaning over and started talking to her. I first thought that maybe she was with the other guy that everyone was talking with, but she turned out to not be. Anyway I just talked to her for about 20 minutes about her family, Her name was Liz, she had a 4 month year old daughter named mila, or milee, and a 4 year old boy named Lucas. We talked about her family, and my family,she was really interested on how I had such a big family. Then I made a good transition from that to lesson 1, and how the gospel blesses families. I ended up giving her the whole first lesson by myself for like 25 minutes or so. I was nervous as I approached talking about the first vision and Jospeh Smith, because the airport was so loud, there were tv´s on and people talking, I didn´t think that I would be able to bring the right spirit with so much comotion. But as I started talking about Jospeh Smith the spirit was just booming, and as I recited the first vision it was almost like we were in a bubble, and it was just us there, and the sprirt. After I finised she said wow...and was really interested. I started talking of the BOM and everything. Well after I finised she asked a couple of questions, I answered them and everything.. I told her I had a BOM that she could have. I ran and grabbed it, gave it to her. Showed her Moronis challenge, showed her 3 Nephi 11, challenged her to read and pray and she said she would. It went really really good. I am not sure what happened, I saw her after the flight to Sao Paulo, helped her carryout her luagge and everything. And she said it was nice to meet and that was it.
I had been praying that I would have a missionary experience on my flight, and the Lord gave me that opportunity. I had many flaws in my lessons, I wish I wouldve testifyed more strongly, and brought up more about families, but it went okay.. I have alot more to learnabout missionary work. Good thing that I had like super missionarybrothers, so I can turn to them for my example.
I love this gospel so much. It has blessed me so much since being here in the CTM. It is an amazing experience. I love this missionary work so much. I love our Savior Jesus Christ so much, I am so indedted to him for his atonening sacrafice. Family, Pray for missionaries. I can feel your prayers, I know that you are all praying for me so hard. And I can feel it, thank you so much. I will try to live up to this impossible mantle of missionary. I don´t feel like I can ever be aneffective enough on my mission. There is always things I can improvein. Pray for me this Friday, pray that I will be able to proselyte well in porteguese.
Read Alma 5:26-29. This scripture is amazing. Personalize it, changethe names to I in the verse. I have tried to ask myself these questions daily.
I love you so much! I have the greatest family in the entire world,you support me so well, I love it. Thanks for everything. I hear that it takes 8-10 days for a letter from me to get to Utah, but I sent letters today, so expect them in 10 days or so. It´s a buck a letter,so it is pretty pricey, they stole all my money too, haha, they don´t want you to have money while in the CTM. Well my 45 minutes is up, Ilove you all.
Love,
Elder Olsen