Oi Minha Familia!

Oi Minha Familia!
HAPPY P-DAY!!!!! It's my first one yet and I tell you what, it is most needed and well deserved. Ten days of non-stop studying has been exhausting - but so great! My P-Days are Friday (obviously). AHHHH this is so surreal!! I'm so excited to be emailing all of you! We got to get on this morning and print off all of our emails so reading them doesn't count against our computer time! BOOYAH! I love whoever came up with that sweet little missionary help. (: Anyway - thank you all SO much for all of your emails!! They have been so incredibly fun to read and I've really needed all the love.
Things are good here! My companion is Sister Cleveland!

(I told some of you about her, she is Sister Barnes's cousin! Sister Barnes is the girl I blog stalked... ehem...) It's so funny cuz we both knew we would be companions before we even came to the MTC. It's been good. She's from CA and she's 20 - a BYU goer and has had 5 years of Spanish. So she rocks at Portuguese. My District is AMAZING. I seriously love my district. We have so much fun together and everyone is so supportive. We have the best teacher and... yeah... we're pretty spoiled. In just a week we've all become so close and I feel like I've known everyone forever. CRAZY part is that 3 of our elders got visas last week so they leave on Tuesday! We're so happy for them, but there were definitely tears shed cuz it's gonna be so sad to lose part of the district! There will only be 5 elders and 5 sisters then. I live in the same room as the other sisters and they're great. We've had a lot of fun. We decided our motto for the 6 weeks here is "Acredite em Milagres!" which means "Believe in miracles!" and has really helped bond us too. It's been really cool seeing the miracles of the MTC. One of them being how they handle SO MANY PEOPLE!!! haha

The food here is SO GOOD! I have such a hard time deciding every meal between chocolate milk, blue powerade, and POG. It's so cool! And I saw Sarah Workman the other day! It was so fun to see a familiar face! (She works in the MTC Cafeteria.)

The Portuguese is going well!

I have been amazed at the fast pace here. On day 3 I could already understand almost everything that was said in class, and we had to teach a lesson in Portuguese with only 2 and a half days under our belts!!! I was SO TERRIFIED. I pretty much just read straight out of the Preach My Gospel manual which makes for an incredibly boring lesson, but it was supposed to be a half hour and that's the only way we could think to fill the time. haha we've since taught 3 more lessons and on this last one, I didn't have A SINGLE NOTE IN PORTUGUESE!!!! I had a few English notes to remind me what to say, but I spoke for like 15 minutes without any portuguese prompts. It is SO COOL!! haha I can pray and testify without any notes or planning before hand (which is really nice when they start calling on you in class to do those things...) and I don't really get nervous to teach in Portuguese anymore which is a huge blessing. A miracle actually. I'm still horrible at it, I'm sure. But being confident enough to speak with mistakes has been a huge miracle in my life. I couldn't do that for a long time in German. I was tooooo shy! haha OOOH my goodness I can't stop speaking German. It's crazy. I had an interview with my professor em Portugues and he asked me to say the opening prayer. I totally broke out in German and had to stop and think for a bit cuz I couldn't remember Portuguese! He laughed after and I said "Es tut mir leid!" haha OY. That's been rough... but it's getting better. My German now is like "Ich komme de Seattle Washington e Eu gostou kaesa!" haha Gertuguese. Or Porman. It's great. :) The other day, our "investigator" said he would be baptized and I yelled out "JA SPITZE!" and didn't even notice. *sigh* I have gotten better tho. I just need to learn some exclamation words em Portugues. haha I love Portuguese. It's been so fun to learn and it's such a gorgeous language! Keep praying for me that I'll do well with it. It's hard. But I've learned a lot about the importance of obedience and hard work. I work so very hard and the results have been more than what I deserve.

It's pretty surreal being here still. The other day I was watching a devotional by Sherri Dew (on the tv) and some Elders walked in late and in my head I was like "MISSIONARIES!!!" And then I looked down and saw my own tag and was like "woah. That's mine." haha it was so crazy! People will ask my name and I still go "Andrister King... Sister King!" haha It's kind of funny. :P

Trying to look cool cleaning showers

Aaaaa!!  Foam in the face!!

Sleep is a little hard to come by here. We are working so hard for so long that when it comes time to lay down at night my mind is always racing and I'm always trying to remember the million things I learned that day. Most days I wake up singing some song in Portuguese but it always turns out something like what ran thru my head this morning: (to the tune of "Onward, Ever Onward" in Called to Serve) "Quando! Cinco Quando! Pode ler meu gato sim!" Which translates to "When! Five When! Can you read my cat yes!" hahahaha I should learn that song in portuguese. It's ALWAYS in my head and there are always random Portuguese words popping out of my mouth. The other day I woke up saying "Teu amor meu Pesquisador!" Which is "Your love, my investigator." HAHA Where does my brain get these things? Pesquisador is probably my favorite word tho. So that makes sense. Anyways, I got an extra blanket from the custodians and I've been sleeping better now, which is good!

I LOVE getting the Dear Elders. I have loved those SO MUCH!!! It's so so nice to get an email at the end of a long hard day. It's kind of nice to get those cuz I can read them every day and it's same day delivery and FREEEEE so... anyway. I love those. And like I said, there's nothing better than working hard all day and getting a sweet happy note from one of you. But I do get a decent amount of time to email on P-Days as well, so no worries there. :)

Well, it's definitely been an adventure. I love the Provo MTC a lot more than I expected to and I've learned SO MUCH. We've been challenged to read the whole Book of Mormon in the 6 weeks that we are here, so that's been cool. We've also been challenged to memorize like 30 scriptures em Portugues... sooo... that's gonna be hard. But we'll get there I suppose. The temple is closed for almost the entire time I am here (it opens like 3 days before I leave) so I don't get to go, which is kind of a bummer. But it does give us more time on P-day which is nice. haha Some of you asked about sending pictures in email and I really don't think that's a problem at all! We'll have to experiment I guess, but I imagine the MTC lets us open pictures! If not... for sure I'll be able to in the field. :)

I love you all SO SO MUCH. I can't even tell you. Thank you all for being so supportive, for your letters and your love! It means so much. I'm doing well. I'm happy, I'm healthy, I'm learning a TON, and I'm in good hands. Da Igreja e verdadeiro!!!! (I can't do hash marks... the e is supposed to have an apostrophe thing over it...) The time is short, but I'm grateful for my 90 wpm typing from working at Sawtooth!! wooooot!

I LOVE YOU!!
Sister King