Semana 2

Oi!

How is it going guys! How was your fourth of July? As you can probably guess they didn't do too much here for the fourth but the cafeteria put up some cool decorations for us and we had fries and burgers instead of the regular Brazilian food. Thought that was awesome of them! So we have an activity of physical every morning, whoops meant physical activity but in Portuguese you translate it that way haha. (I guess it is good my mind is starting to think that way and I have to stop & think how it should be said in English.) Anyway, every morning we go play basketball. We aren't allowed to play actual games but it depends on the instructor out there with us. We love hollering "cesta" when someone makes a basket- got to use the Portuguese everywhere haha. (Cesta means basket/bucket.) Too bad Wolfgang (aka Elder Schulthess) isn't here to tear up the court with me! There is an elder in my district, Elder Christensen, and he is pretty good. Probably the best player I have ever played with. So it is a lot of fun - we look forward to it everyday.

I got sick two days ago so that ISN'T fun. Everyone in the CTM is getting this bug that got spread around and I thought my companion and I were in the clear but I spoke too soon. I will be alright though! You know me nothing keeps me down too long.

I got a quad of Portuguese scriptures today at the temple. I am ready to spread the gospel! I am also getting this super cool leather scripture case today. They have a lot of leather things here that have CTM or gospel sayings on them! As you can tell I am pretty stoked about it. haha

This week was really pretty much the same as last week. The one thing you know in the CTM is that the schedule pretty much stays the same everyday, not too many surprises. It is just lots of class & study time with eating meals in between and physical activity in the morning. The only thing that was different from this week to last week is that we now have 3 Brazilian investigators that we teach per day so that is hard but fun. (For those who are not familiar with the term "investigator", that is what we call someone who is investigating/interested in the gospel and wants to be taught the gospel.) We are now down to two because one got baptized already. (Here in the CTM the investigators are just the instructors role playing/pretending to be people who are not members and are interested in the gospel.) Another new thing we did this week is that we went on splits. Two American missionaries with one Brazilian investigator. I got paired with Elder Woodward and that was fun! It was an experience trying to communicate, it was hard but super fun!

So something that I am super looking forward to this week is.......... we are going street contacting/proselyting!! That is going to be super sweet but hard at the same time. So they give us 10 Book of Mormons, 5 per missionary/10 per companionship, and they bus us up to the main streets of São Paulo to walk around and talk to people about the gospel & give out Book of Mormons to those wanting to learn more. I am super excited for it! It is three hours long so hopefully we will get some good opportunities to speak to people. I have to admit I am a little worried they will speak too fast but you just have to get out there and do it.

We went to the Police Station this past week to get all set up with our government ID´s. I felt like it was a good chance to go talk to someone so I left my seat and went and sat by this teenager. I could tell that in the beginning he really didn't want to talk to me but I talked to him anyway. I was nervous that I wouldn't know what to say but the Lord helped me! I talked to him about what he does for work, what his name was, how bad I was at Portuguese, who I was and what I did as a missionary, and where I was going for my mission! The more we talked the more interested he became. He ended up having to leave with his family since they were done but that was super cool to have that experience! I hope that I planted a seed that may bring him to be interested in the gospel later.

Thanks for all the cards and letters. I LOVE MAIL! I am jealous that you guys were at Hilton Head beach without me but more jealous that you ate tons of crab!! Makes me hungry just to think about it!  Good luck to Christiana on her teaching job in Utah.  Tell her I love her. And thanks Dad for sending me those pictures. Good times. Most of all thanks for sharing those scriptures in Mosiah with me. I have been reading in Mosiah too - it is one of my favorite books. I felt the spirit strongly as I read them and it strengthened my testimony so thank you for that. I want to share a scripture with you guys too it is Romans 1:16, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.." Do not be afraid to share the gospel. We all know how it blesses our lives and it will do the same for others. It can only benefit people and if you do it, the Holy Ghost will take care of the rest! You never know what that person is going through and maybe that is just what they need at that time! So I challenge you to just put yourself out there and share the gospel that has brought you happiness!

Love you guys!
Elder Davis