First FULL Week of MTC!

Olá amigos e família!!

It was my first full week of classes and let me tell ya...it has worn me out!  As busy as each day is, they surprisingly go by pretty fast.  I mean it's already another p-day!  We have two 3ish hour classes a day as well as all my studies...personal, companion, and language.  So my day is pretty full!

I'm continuing to learn new things each and every day, both for missionary work and in the language.  Understanding the language is harder for me than speaking it.  I can read it pretty well and speak fairly well, but there is always room for improvement!

My district keeps me laughing throughout the week which helps the days go by.  We decided this week to make all our backgrounds as a picture of one of our instructors and it gave us a good laugh throughout the whole class haha!  I'm so grateful for a district who makes me laugh and shows support!  I truly cannot do this without them!  Even though we can't be together, I always look forward to spending class time with them on zoom as we find ways to always have a good time!

We've been able to practice teaching pretty much everyday this week.  Our instructor, Irmá Cruz, has been pretending to be an investigator so it's not a real person to teach but at least it gives us practice in both teaching and speaking Portuguese!  I have to admit, the first two days were really rough!  I often would get lost throughout the lesson because I couldn't understand anything that was being said.  The last two lessons were a little bit better, I've been able to follow along a little bit more but it is still hard.

My companion and I, Sister Matsen, get to share a message with someone for the first time all on our own TOMORROW!  How exciting!! So, stay tuned until next week's email to hear about that!

Something I learned this week is that progress does not come instantly.  It takes time.  We have to go through our ups and downs to be able to learn.  My instructor for my afternoon/evening class shared a picture that says "progress is not linear" and it shows a girl climbing these hills.  She goes up, then down, then up again, and so on until she reaches the very top.  Irmá Cruz also showed a video that taught this principle too.  What I took away from this was that we can't be afraid to fail.  We have to make "30,000" mistakes (as the video said) in order to learn.  So, mistakes are the only way to learn and to grow, which ultimately shows our progress!

I applied this to my language learning because I have been pretty shy about using what I know with the language in class.  The video said "abrir a boca" which means to "open your mouth."  I have made it a goal to not be afraid of making mistakes and that I just need to "ABRIR A BOCA!" in order for me to learn Portuguese! 

That's all for this week!

I love you all!

Sister Findlay

Pictures this week!
1) my family and I hiked the incline here in Parker for the very first time
2) my district with all our backgrounds
3) "progress is not linear" picture 





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