Week Five.

Hello everyone!

Just real quick I only get 30 minutes, it freaks me out so I type really fast and mistype things a lot and then I have no time to go back over and re read it. (Blog note:  Friends and family are updating entries prior to posting so you can actually read it.)

Well Happy Halloween!! It doesn't really seem like Halloween at all. I just know its Halloween because it's the end of October. It's a bit sad because I love Halloween with all the scary stuff, and fall, and everything about it.

But I have now been here a month! Well over a month. It's hard to believe. But they have a saying here days seem like weeks and weeks seem like days. It is so true here!

I made it through a month at the MTC with out getting injured, but then on Saturday....duh duh duh! I got injured! Yep that's right. I sprained my ankle pretty bad! They said it's a high sprain and I pulled two of my ligaments and might have even torn them, but it's really hard to tell what's all going on in there. I have been on crutches for the last two days and am trying to get off them. I always have to debate with myself is in more painful to walk around on my foot and have sharp pains shoot up my leg with every step or go around on my crutches where my arm pits are bruised now and I can feel every muscle in my upper body and it is all sore now. I try and go around with a smile on my face, and still act pleasant but I think that most people can see that it's a gritting pain smile.  They can tell by the way I walk around – more like hobbling around.

Well let me tell you the story of how it happened. I was in gym on Saturday and I was playing volleyball. I love playing volleyball here it is a lot of fun. And a lot of the Elders I play with are really nice. I have been playing with the really good people. (There are two courts one that's medium and one that's good, well MTC standards). They are mainly all Elders from Tonga and they are pretty good and hit hard, but they are impressed with how I play. :) Well someone set me up and I went up and spiked the ball and it was a nice hit! But as I came down there was this huge Tongan standing right there and I landed on him coming down. My ankle popped and I was down! All the elders were trying to help me, but I kept brushing them off and telling them I was fine. Then I realized I wasn't. So I hobbled over to the medical people they have there. She poked and probed around and told me it was sprained. Well I could tell that. I sprain my ankle a lot. But it felt really bad! Then Sister harries comes running in, some one hold her what happened. (So...I will try to tell the rest of the story quicker because I'm running out of time). They told me there was no doctor on Saturdays. But it hurt so bad that I went to the front desk and had them call the on call doctor or something. They told me they were going to take me to the Provo health clinic. So we got to go in a car in the first time in a month and go out into the real world!! It was so weird. We went there and they pocked around some more and boy did it hurt. And they took an x-ray for safe measure. Nothing was broken. They said I had a lot of impact on my bones though from past sports. But then you could see in the x-ray how swollen my ankle was. It was pretty big! And still is. So he prescribed my some medication. They wrapped me up and gave me a nice ankle brace. We then got to go over to Walgreens to get the medication, but because we had gone straight from gym we didn't have any money or anything with us. So some nice elders we were with (who were also getting medication and were at the doctors) lent me some money so I didn't have to come back. We were gone most of the day. I then come hobbling into the cafeteria where everyone who knows me stops and asks what happened. Then our elders from our district didn't know where we were, so they started being very worried until they found out.  The Elders have been super helpful and nice these last couple of days. Two of them are even fasting for me today, so I can get better and then when my visa comes I can be well enough to go. They are so cute! I love them all. So that was my exciting adventure this week in a nutshell. I can tell though my ankle is getting better. It's still pretty painful and I’m still off and on crutches, but it is getting a bit better.

Real quick other news:

- Sis Dalton came and spoke in relief society yesterday. She is so amazing and is such a great speaker

- A new district came in this week and because I am now the coordinating sister I get to do the orientation with them. So that was a lot of fun. They are now our roommates too. It's nice having other girls now in our zone as the other ones have left for Brazil. There is also another district coming in this week, and there are 3 sisters. One is from Ecuador so that might be interesting.

- More visas are coming in!!! Two people from my district left this week. Then 3 more got their visas. So tomorrow our district will be down to 5 people, three elders and two sisters. It will be interesting.

Wellll I love everyone, and hope everyone is doing well

Love,

Sister Rebecca N

Week Four.

Hello Everyone!

I have made it almost 4 weeks already in the MTC. I can't believe I've already almost been here for a month. The days here are blending together. We always loose track of what day of the week it is, and half the time we don't know what time of day it is, because we are in our classroom all day, and it doesn't have a window. We will leave class to go to a meal and we can't remember if we are going to lunch or dinner. It's funny sometimes. So a few exciting things happened this week. For our devotional on Tuesday night Elder Richard G. Scott came and spoke. It was way amazing! He talked about how we can receive the spirit, and how we always need to carry something around so that we can write down spiritual impressions that we get. He did a question and answer thing, but in reverse. He asked the questions and would have people respond back to them. We then were able to talk about it afterwards as a district and it was so good, and it brought us closer together.

Yesterday I was also made the coordinating sister for our zone! It's not too exciting, but still a lot of stuff to do. I am like the female version of the zone leader. I am in charge of all the sisters in our zone, which at the moment there are only 4 of us, so it's not that much. But we are getting two new sisters in our zone this week, they will bee the first new sisters in our zone since Sister Harris and I came in. It's strange having only 4 sisters and 70 Elders in our zone. Also all the elders know you, because there aren't that many sisters, but we don't really know every single one of them.

Back to the Coordinating Sister thing.  I basically interview them and make sure they are doing good, and check on them every night. Also when new sisters in the district come in, like this week, I help train them. I spend Wednesday and Thursday night with them. I was so looking forward for it to be Sunday this week, so I could have some down time. But little did I know once I got called, I then had to be in meetings ALL day. From about 8am-8pm (mixed in with my other classes and meals, but the rest of my time was spent in meetings). I was pretty exhausted after yesterday, but I am sure that I will love my new calling and to be able to help the sisters in my district.

Good news here for visas. Even more came in this week! 2 Elders from our district are leaving tomorrow, so we will only have 8 people in district. Some now only have 4 or 5 people. So numbers are getting fewer as they head finally to Brazil. Sister Harris and I are thinking that we might get ours in about 2 weeks. We are pretty sure that we will be getting to the Brazil MTC eventually. We have taken the average of what it seems like for people to get their visas and that's why we think two weeks. It is so Exciting!

Something kind of funny that happened this week was that we had a fire drill. It was during our first gym time of the week, so some of the Elders got mad. They evacuated the whole MTC,  2500 missionaries in total out of the buildings. We all went over across the street to the playfields that are over there.

During TRC this week (Training or Teaching rRsource Center) we were able to teach a local Brazilian. Which was a bit scary, but fun all at the same time. She's Japanese decent but raised in Brazil, and her husband is Australian, pretty funny. She was so cute and super nice to us. But boy oh boy did she speak fast!!!! Our teacher said that it would give us practice for our mission. We found out that in Recife they speak REALLY fast, which all the missionaries from our district who are going there (including me) are the slowest speakers that are in class. So it's pretty ironic right now. but we will get it....eventually.

I am so grateful to be here, and even though times here are sometimes hard and over whelming I know that the Lord is there to help me through this. I have been so blessed with a good district and an AMAZING companion. Thank you for all of your support!

Love,
Sister Rebecca Nelson

Week Three.

I finally filled out my online visa! So it's one step closer to getting my actual visa and going to Brazil! Me, my companion Sis. Harris and one other Elder did our onlines on the same day, so now our whole district has ours in. So we were pretty excited. But something even more exciting a bunch of visas are starting to go through! A good handful of people from our zone got their visas the day after we filled ours out, even one of the Elders in our district got his too! So there is bright hope in our future. Sister Harris and I are thinking that we might get ours before our time is out at the MTC and that we might not get reassigned stateside first. So it is pretty crazy. How fast do the visas usually come after you fill out your online (you might be asking)? Well... No one knows! They really don´t.. It is totally random! It looks like they do it by what area you are going to. I've heard it takes anywhere from 2 hours, to 7 months, both extremes. But anyway it is pretty exciting!

They have also been running out of room like crazy for people here at the Provo MTC, mainly for the elders. But even for the sisters sometimes. We are actually in a guys building. The whole floor is just sisters, but there are Elders below and above us. So when we are all quiet sometimes we can still hear the 19 year old boys jumping around and yelling for a couple hours after we have to go to bed. It just makes you laugh sometimes though. There are only usually 4 people to a room. We only had roommates for the first 4 days we were here, other than that we've had the room to ourselves. They are also redoing 2 whole buildings that are supposed to be used for sleeping, so they moved a whole other set of bunk beds in our room. So everything is really tight now. All of the Elders now have 6 people in their rooms.

The weather here has also warmed up! Again, last week was cold for some reason. But a heat wave came or something. Last week we could barely find enough blankets to keep us warm, now we don't even want blankets to sleep with. It's kind of funny, but it's been nice because we can have our gym time outside in the nice weather.

So this week for our MTC Tuesday Devotional Sister Julie B. Beck came and spoke, the general relief Society President! It was pretty neat to hear what she had to say. She also grew up in Brazil because her dad was the mission president down there when she was little. I felt like I could really relate to the stories that she told us. We also got to do TRC (Teaching or training resource center) for the first time this week, where volunteers come who are members and we teach them lessons. The spirit was so strong and it was the best thing so far. I really enjoyed it!

Sis. Harris and I have also done choir the last two weeks and it's really fun.  My Portuguese is coming along, and I can understand more than I can speak, but I can fumble along sentences.  I love being here and am blessed to have a great companion and district and teachers and leaders!

Week Two. (My First Full Week!)

So this week was pretty good! It was nice to have my first full week and actually be able to get into the swing of things. So now I kind of know what I am doing. :)

This week they actually taught us how to plan and how to use our study time wisely. I wish we got that our first week but they said that we would have forgotten it. But it is so nice knowing the best ways to study. During the day we do have some gospel discussions in class, but the problem is it's all in Portuguese, so we can barely understand what is going on. I wish we could have lessons like that in English, but the time will come that I will be able to understand.

We taught 3 practice lessons this week. Mine and Sis. Harris's lessons have been getting a lot better. By our third lesson the investigator said that he could understand us a lot better then he could earlier. So things are coming along -  Except this week I found out that I was praying to a heavenly sink!!! So when we pray it's supposed to be Pia celetial, which is heavenly father, but I was saying Pia Celestial, which is heavenly sink! And I had been doing it all week! It's was pretty funny though, the investigator had to correct me.

Oh so I didn't explain this yet. When we go to Brazil,I am still called Sister Nelson, even though I am speaking Portuguese. That's because “irmas” are sisters in Portuguese but in Brazil they call the nuns irmas, so we don't really want to be confused with them, so they will call us “Sisters”. Also I have found out that my chances going to the Brazil MTC are very very slim, and that it will probably take a while for me to get to Brazil. The visas are taking forever to be approved. And actually most people are spending their whole 9 weeks here in the Provo MTC and then getting reassigned to another mission in the states until their visa comes which can take a couple of months. But it totally depends, because I have heard stories where they get it really fast too, so we will see. I will go where ever the Lord wants me to go though.

We have weekly devotionals Tuesday nights and the cool thing is that they bring in general authorities and some times even apostles to come speak! So it's like a mini General Conference all over again. They do the same kind of thing for Relief Society. They have all the sisters in the MTC meet for Relief Society, so it's about 100 to  150 people, and they bring in an authority  to speak. Like this week we had one of the Counselors from the Primary general presidency speak. Way cool huh?!

I really love my district! All of the Elders make me laugh so much, and they add comedy to the day when it could otherwise be boring or predictable. And I love it so much. Sister Harris and I usually go back at the end of the day and laugh about the things that happened.

I have started to play volleyball during gym and it is my time to relax and it is so nice! So this week the weather has really turned cold! And no one in my district brought anything warm to wear, since we all packed to go to Brazil.  One day it even snowed a bit. And the room I sleep in is FREEZING!!!! So basically I am really cold all the time. But yesterday we watched the Joseph Smith movie and saw what they had to go though, and I think to myself I really shouldn't be complaining. But I still love it here and I am learning so much. The language is coming a bit easier and I can now stumble my way through sentences. I love it!

Note:  Letters sent  via  http://www.dearelder.com/  will reach Rebecca the same or next day while she is at the Provo MTC.

First Week in the Provo MTC

FROM THE MTC in PROVO - My companion is Sister Harris. She is really cool. She is from Sacramento CA and attended BYU. We are a lot alike and get together very well. We are blessed to have each other. Our district (group) is already becoming a family here. There are 11 of us in our district and we are the only girls. We heard that in our MTC zone there are 60 Elders and only 7 sisters, so they were excited to have us.

I have ran into multiple people that I know from school and from home, so it was nice to see familar faces. Our day consists of being in class all day or studying!! From about 7:30am - 9:30pm that's what we are doing. Class is over whelming at times but when I get back to my room at the end of the day, I look back and realize I love it.

I feel like we have already learned a lot of Portugese (in just 5 days), we have learned some basics and also how to pray and share our testimonies. On Friday we already taught our first lesson in Portugese, and it went a lot better than we thought it would. It was supposed to be 25 minutes long, but we were only there for 15 minutes.

We wrote everything down and read from our paper and when we asked him questions we had no idea what he was saying and just said "boa" = good. But the Spirit of the Holy Ghost was there, which was the thing that mattered the most. General Conference on Oct 1st and 2nd was amazing, it was funny to see some of the young men as Elders sit though all of the sessions because they never done that before. While in the Provo MTC on our Preparaion Day (P-day) we get to go to the temple which is so nice, I love it!

Sister Rebecca Nelson