Week 1

picture of Erin from last summer. She'll send home a memory crd of pictures for us, and I'll share them here later. Here's a letter from her first week at the MTC:


Hullo there! I hope you are all doing well. I love it here at the MTC. Of course, there are hard times, but as Rachael said, if it weren't going to be awesome, it wouldn't be so scary.

I love my companion. Her name is Sister Chatwin. She's from Wellsburg, UT. Google it. She went to college to study automotive repair, specializing in automatic transmissions. She's also an amazing artist, and much more patient and Christlike than I am. :) Not that that takes much, hm? :) There are 7 of us total in my district, 3 elders and 4 sisters, Pretty cool, huh? We're all waiting on visas. The elders are all going to Curitiba, and the other 3 sisters are going to Cuiaba (Coy-a-buh). And then there was one.

My first Sunday here was excelente (es-seh-len-chee). Our branch is made up of our district, and I think 2 other districts of elders, all of which are gonig to Mozambique and Angolla, both Portuguese speaking countries. Now you know. Sister Sorensen (one of the other sisters in my district) and I were asked to play a violin-piano duet. We played Come Follow Me, and we both felt like it went really well, especially for the fact that we kind of made it up as we went along. She's a super talented violinist.

Then we went into the gym for Music and the Spoken Word and Relief Society. Yep, we have RS all together. Isn't that way awesome? Both meetings were fantastic. Elder Cecil O. Samuelson spoke to us in a fireside Sunday night. He spoke about ministering of angels. It was most excellent. Sunday nights are also Movie Nights. This week we watched Legacy. I laughed the whole time. If you haven't seen that movie, please do. One complaint, the guy who played Jospeh Smith kind of creeped me out. I hope he never reads this... :/

Portuguese is coming along nicely. I think it's the most beautiful, celestial language there is. I get frustrated when I don't pick it up as well as I would like, but then I remember that I've only been here a week. We've learned to pray and bear our testimonies, and we've learned basic questions for getting to know someone. What is your name, Where do you live, etc. My favorite, though, is singing os hinos (the hymns) in Portuguese.

Oh! How could I forget! On Thursday night, some sister in my residence hall microwaved something in it's plastic and set off the fire alarm. So, we got to evacuate and stand outside for 30 minutes. I took videos of us all singing hymns together. They'll be on the SD card when I send it home.

My email time is almost up, so until next week, I love you all. You can write me on DearElder.com, and they'll print them off here, and put them in my mailbox. So cool!

Love always,
Sister Reynolds