CTM Arrival!

HEY HEY HEY 

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT

I'M FINALLY HERE

ALRIGHT so life in the CTM (MTC in English/Missionary Training Center) is pretty rad. And by that I mean we spend like 16 hours a day in a classroom learning Portuguese and fighting over the thermostat. It's what we're going to be doing for the next 5ish weeks until we actually get to head out to the various parts of Brazil where we've been assigned to serve as missionaries in and I'm so excited!! My district (group of about 4 pairs of missionaries; we have half Sisters and half Elders) are all so nice and so fun. My companion (fellow sister missionary that I'm with 24/7) is super sweet and reminds me so much of my friend Sis. Mickelson!!! She's hilarious and so willing to talk to everyone in Portuguese and I love her! 

haha okay so here's a funny thing somebody said to me this week: "Sister Morata...your eyes...Chinese??" Most Brazilians think I'm either Chinese or Japanese and don't believe me when I say I'm American!! (all the other American missionaries are pretty branco)

Aaaand another thing is that we have to call people here by their titles, like "Elder" and "Sister" and we have to avoid inappropriately casual language AKA we can't refer to people as "dude." Let's just say that I'm still getting used to that hahaha

Okay sorry this email is so jumbled; we get less time to email in the CTM than we do when out in the field (outside the CTM). 

So learning Portuguese has been capital R O U G H. When people tell you that you have to practice teaching missionary lessons in a foreign language on the second day in the CTM, they are (alert) NOT KIDDING. Let's just say the first couple days I wanted to cry my eyes out because it's total immersion and I understood about -5% of what anybody is saying to me. In fact, I actually cried during choir practice on one of my first days here because I was so overwhelmed (I wanted to go home), feeling like I could never get the language down. But I know that missionaries are blessed with the gift of tongues, to speak and understand languages when they're on the Lord's work, so I had faith that if I just stuck with it, I'd get enough of the language to accomplish what the Lord wants me to accomplish. So here's where the miracle comes in: my companion and I were in our first lesson with our "investigator" (person who is interested in learning about the church, but this investigator was a practice one/was really our professor but he never breaks the 4th wall) and we were struggling to teach about eternal families and God's love and I remember just looking at my companion, speaking broken portugues, and you could just feel it. Like, the Spirit of God was SO STRONG. That is the gift of tongues. Not necessarily magically learning all of portugues in 24 hours, but speaking what you can and having God take care of the rest. We may not have said in words what we wanted to say, but you could feel the truth of what we were saying. It was absolutely amazing. I testify to you that these gifts from God are real and AMAZING. 

Also, we got to see a recorded broadcast of a missionary devotional (spiritual speech type thing) given by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland at the MTC in Provo, UT. It was FANTASTICO (my companion's favorite portugues word). I don't have time to share all I learned, but I'll share this gem: "Missionary work is hard because salvation is not a cheap experience. It is not easy for you because it was NEVER easy for Him. The road to eternal life always goes through Gethsemane." 

Holy muffins. Arrow to my soul.

I'd like to leave that thought with my testimony that Jesus Christ has felt everything we have felt and more. He can comfort us because He knows us. Christmas isn't Christmas without Easter. He came and because He came and lived and sacrificed and died and lived again, we can overcome all and live again. Christ died for us and now He lives for us. And I am so BEYOND happy to be able to share that message, share the love and the peace and the joy I feel from this restored gospel to the people here. 

I love you all! Thank you so much for all your support and love and prayers. 

Todo meu amor,

Sister Morata

PS. I wish I could send pictures but the computers in the CTM don't process memory card readers or whatever :( 

PPS. GREEN GREEN GREEN, all of São Paulo is SO GREEN (at the least the part that I've seen). I didn't know this much green existed in one place naturally (hahaha @ desert rat lyfe)

PPPS. 8 years of French classes have come in so handy. The grammar is really similar in Romantic languages so that's a huge blessing. Except when I accidentally say something French to my instructor instead of in Portuguese. Oops hahaha