Week 6: Entre Mundos, Between Worlds

It's been a lot of the same, not that it's been bad, just tiring after a while.

Portuguese -- Yes, I said at the very start of Fala Sua Lingua last week that I would speak only Portuguese. That hasn't quite exactly happened. First, a worker at the mailroom needed to know my package number. And by the end of the week, we would have normal conversations at lunch. 

Now, from the practice we did have, I felt pretty confident in my Portuguese. Until, we took a test of our Portuguese. The test was mostly listening, the part I'm worst at, and I did bad, pretty far below the score that is meant to mean you're ready for immersion. So, that freaked me out, and I was upset. But, it forced me into some humility. I'm used to being good at what I do, mostly because I choose to do things I'm good at. But now, I'm doing something I'm really not good at. Learning a language is hard and teaching the gospel to people well is hard. My district is far better at these things than me, even if they don't realize it. And, as I get to Brazil, it will become only even more so. Humility is something I need in my life, and it's something I will get in abundance.

My mission scripture is Ether 12:27, and I chose it because I knew it applied to me, my weakness, and my need for humility. It's goes:

"And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."

I am here because I know I have weaknesses, and more importantly, I know that the Lord can give me strength in them. This to me is the greatest part of Christ's atonement. Because of it, we are able to repent and become new people. Because of it, none of us are who we were yesterday; we are who we are today, tomorrow, and for the rest of our lives.

Hale the Day That Sees Him Rise -- Around 5 minutes after we started playing volleyball at the MTC field, the workers sounded a siren telling us to go home for the weather, which made no sense cause it was actively sunny. On the way home, knowing Utah, I predict it will start hailing within the next half hour, and 10 seconds later, it does! While we're still outside.

Jeopardy -- We played Jeopardy in our last Portuguese tutoring class, and in order to answer a question, you had to run up and grab a marker off of a chair. It was pretty competative, and both me and one of my companions, Elder Hinton, got so into it that we ripped holes in our pants while lunging for the marker. A sister in our district very kindly repaired them.

Favorite Hymn -- I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go. This week's hymn does not have a long story behind it, but this was one of our sacrament meeting hymns this week. And because I had language on my mind, I was impacted by the second verse's line: "I'll say what you want me to say." I hope to be the Lord's mouthpiece in language and message.

Goodbyes -- Tonight was the last night with our district. Almost all of us will us will be traveling together to Brazil, so our final goodbyes will be there, but tonight, we met with our teacher, exchanged messages and took pictures. They are an amazing group that has inspired me incredibly about who I want to be. Each and every one of them has the opportunity and ability to make an impact as a missionary, and I want them to know that! (They are now on my email list.)

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