We didn't get to go to the temple last week like elder brannen. our first day was today and we went to the campinas or something temple. it was really fun but we luckly didn't have to speak portuguese. sorry my english is bad but we are trying to speak portuguese as much as possible and so i've been trying to think in portuguese too. we taught an investigator our first full day and it was crazy. but things have been getting better portuguese wise. we actually committed him to baptism last night so that was exciting. That day i wrote you is the day they give us 10 mins to write our family so thats why there wasn't much detail but i've already said i'd right you first so don't worry. the layover wasn't bad because we meet other missionaries going to the mtc there too and we all just talked. my companion's name is elder thomas but we got put in a trio yesterday because we got a new elder so my other companion is elder close from north calorlina and elder thomas is from colorado.
the temple was the old video and because it was a ton of english missionaries we saw it in english like i said but without the they replied in portuguese so that was fun. hopefully you undesrtand what i mean by replied.
so there is like maybe 7 or 8 districts usually only one brazilian district and the rest are split between american and hispanic. we have a group of elder from one of the hispanic districts who we get along really well with, one of them is going to go to the same mission as me and we get along really well. speaking of which he is one of those people that can hear something and remember it, so he plays the paino by ear, the flute and can sing other languages by ear. pretty talanted. every body here loves music and plays at least one instrument. doesn't really bother me that i don't play though, it's just cool how talanted they all are. I have didfferent talents.
I'm don't have any one you know in my distric other then sister smith because we arrived the same day. every one else is in other districts but elder brannen is in my group that goes to the temple so we went with him today. we stay in the ctm(portuguese) for 6 weeks and david will go straight to his area i believe.
Haha what talon sounds like in english is what we sound like in portuguese, I'm glad everyone sounds like they are doing well and having fun. ALSO, don't send me packages!!!!!!!!!! i forgot to tell you last week but they specifically ask people not to because it's a big customs hassel and what not. letters are okay, haven't had a chance to go get stamps yet though....probably wont today because we honestly get an hour of p-day today because we had to travel so far to the temple bc the sao paulo temple is closed for cleaning this week. So don't worry about the shorts or anything, I have everything I need. if you send the card i guess put it in a letter or however they say to do it. I'll probably need it but I have like 400 of their money here so don't worry I have plenty for a while. We are going to go look at these AWESOME scripture cases today during our one hour. Truely incredible, made of leather, personally ingraved with like a picture on the front(your choice, example?army of helaman or jesus), mission on the side, name and so on. they are about 40 american dollars but honeslty I feel they are worth it. I would send you a picture...but we can't take camera's outside the ctm and I forgot the cord.....so I have to look for one today or next p-day. but I have a couple pictures I took already. The brazilians are so nice, we have two roommates that are native and they are so fun to talk with, we just have to speak portuguese.
Gospel doctrine sounds fun and I'm sure it will be good. Ask brook to show the the scritpure I found about yolo on byu memes.
There is like 6 branches two of each language so we have sacrament (portuguese) elders quorum (kinda portuguese) and then I think district meeting. idk we had a diffrent sunday schedule the first sunday.
haha emmy will get it eventually. Brazil is so beautiful. There is a lot of poor people though but there is also super rich areas.
So we had a devotional video from 2011 christmas by elder bendar about the character of christ. amazing devotional, Idk how I will get a hold of it because it's only for missionaires but I think he gave a similar talk later so go look it up. It was freezing the first few nights we are here but for my mission It will be like way hotter so I have no worries. I just can't wait to get there. it will be so much fun. The cool thing here is weeks go fast but days go slow. Like super slow. Lots of language study. I can read portuguese really well, most of the time, writing and speaking are another thing. my companion had a ton of spanish and so is picking it up super quick and french made it hard in the beginning but as long as I don't remember french at all I do really well. It's funny though when I try to say somehting and it comes out french. All in time though.
I'm not discouraged at all though so don't worry. It's hard but I'm always super happy and having a great time. Also somehting about your font, it just looks weird and really big. I feel like the elders probably think I'm blind.... :p This is probably the longest letter I've had to have ever written. Thank you for all the food and letters and the cuff links. I am truely grateful for all that you all have done for me. Tell me how the first week of school and been and how was disney world?
Keep reading and praying every morning and night! I love you all!!!!
Elder Simonsen
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