I'm doing great at the MTC

Handwritten letter received from Elder Ostler

Elder Ostler and his companions

Familia!

Tudo  bem? Tudo bem. I'm doing great at the MTC. I love it so wipe those tears away. I'm in a tripanionship because Elder Wilson didn't show up. Elder M and Elder D. I love them. Elder M is the DL. A convert at 16, so cool, super strong. Elder D is fluent in Spanish so he helps alot with pronunciations. They are both really good at Portuguese.

Our district is awesome! 7 Elders and 6 Sisters. There are 3 of us Elders straight out of High School.

The Portuguese . . . is coming. This morning during companionship study I was having a really tough time. But once our teacher came in I was fine. I understand almost everything he says . . . ok maybe 41% but I can't speak it. Right now my mind is trying to speak Spanish but I'm not learning Spanish and it's hard to know when the words in Spanish and Portuguese are 1) exactly the same 2) kind of similar or 3) no resemblance at all.

We are teaching our first investigator tomorrow. Day 3! Crazy. In Portuguese. We are going to work on that right now.

It seems like there is not enough time to do everything here.  Read the Book of Mormon in 6 weeks, read the mission handbook by Sunday, memorize our purpose in Portuguese, mas, tudo bem.

My rump hurt so bad by the end of today. Sitting all day long. We met our Branch President today. We all got up and introduced ourselves and bore our testimonies. It was cool getting to know the elders and sisters more in my district. My love for them is growing so much.

My companion and Sister O are both fluent in Spanish so it seems that they are miles ahead of us. Right now I'm struggling most with pronouncing words. Some of the letters don't even make the same sound, sometimes. Like if a word starts with r it sounds like an h or if there is a rr, you say h instead of rolling it. de makes the 'ge' sound as in genius but only if it is at the end of a word or alone. di always makes the 'ge' sound. It's really hard to pronounce the name of the church. But don't worry, I'm getting it.

There are times here when the Spirit is just so strong and I know that I'm supposed to be here and I know the Lord will help me.

I love you all. . . but I don't miss you yet :) I'm going good. Tudo bem.

Love, Elder Ostler