Week Five!

Week 5: Friends, Fireworks, and…Children?

Another great week in the MTC!! I can´t believe I have been out for over a month? Where does time go? I will be leaving the MTC on Tuesday and going into the mission field! AHHH!!! I’m nervous, excited, and just about every emotion there is! I love the MTC here, it will be sad to leave. Thank you so much for all your emails and prayers. It means a lot! I think about you all everyday and I’m glad you are all doing well!! 

This week was super awesome! Every week in the MTC is full of spiritual and funny experiences.  I have to tell you a special story. One of my roommates from Brazil is super cute and fun and literally always happy. One night she came into the room really sad and down.  I knew something was wrong. I didn’t know if I should just let her be because I knew she was sad or if I should try to figure out what was wrong. I knew I couldn’t talk Portuguese very well but I had this overwhelming love for her in that moment, I had to talk to her. I asked her how her day was and she said it was fine.  I asked her if she was sad and she said no, but said something else that I didn’t understand. I got my dictionary out and she found the word in Portuguese.  She showed me the word “phobia” and I said, “of what?” And she said, “here!” I knew that she was tired and didn’t like to be stuck in the MTC for so long, she was getting really down about it.  I asked her when her P-day was and she said tomorrow.  I told her how she´ll get to walk around and see the temple and how it really helps to get new scenery.  She hugged me and said thank you. I told her that I loved her and that I care about her.  Then she pulled away and looked at me with her big brown eyes and started crying and said I love you too! We both hugged again.  Writing this story doesn’t do it justice, it really was so special and touching. I know the spirit was there and even though I could barely talk to her, we were on the exact same page and language didn’t even matter.  I love the Brazilian people; they are so kind, loving, giving, and fun people.  That night she gave my companion and me some presents—her favorite lotions and creams.  We said “No, we can’t take these, they’re yours aren’t they?”  She said, “No, remember me, keep them.”  I was so blown away how she didn’t even hesitate to give us her stuff.  So I went looking in my suitcase and gave her some of my things too.  It was so awesome. The Brazilians are such incredible people.

I have a funny experience that happened with my companion when we were teaching our fake investigator Carol (she is really our teacher). Afterwards, the whole day I practiced the line, “can we close with a prayer on our knees?”  The word knees in Portuguese is joelhos.  I literally practiced the whole day for this lesson.  So my line came at the end of the lesson and I said, “can we pray on our children?” And I didn´t even know what I said, but my teacher busted out laughing and my companion looks at me and says “joelhos!!!” It was hilarious! My teacher was laughing so hard and then told my other teacher about it and she said something to me the next day! It was hilarious! 

A spiritual moment was when my companion and I sang to our investigator Come follow me in Portuguese.  The spirit was so strong and our teacher started crying after we were done.  Then my companion started crying and then when I bore my testimony on music and the spirit I started crying too.  It was cool because usually I am so worried about the language the whole time I have to remember feel the spirit, help them feel the spirit. And even though my Portuguese wasn’t perfect, the spirit was so strong.  It was so cool. That was a night I will never forget.

This one night around midnight there were super loud sounds.  It was so scary!  It sounded like we were being bombed! It went on for like 10 minutes and woke everyone up.  Our Brazilian roommates were like, “they are fireworks!”  The next day everyone was so tired because of the fireworks that went off the night before. It was funny because so many sisters were so scared and praying that we would be safe.  They were scared we were in a war or something! hahaha!! 

It was an eventful week!! Love you all! Tchau tchau!! xoxoxo

-Sister Smith