Goodbyes and New Challenges!

Olá amigos e família!!

Cannot believe I am sending another email!  This week flew by!  

Just another week in the MTC.  It's still the same old schedule.  Studies in the morning, class, more class, more studies, and so on.

This week was our last week with our instructors and let me tell you I miss them so much already! Irmão Corrêa and Irmã Cruz were THE BEST INSTRUCTORS EVER!  They have helped me in so many ways both in Portuguese and learning to be a missionary.  It was so hard to say goodbye to them!  We got two new instructors for this next week and the rest of MTC and they speak ONLY Portuguese, so bye bye English (at least in my classes haha).

We had been working on a little green pamphlet called Basic Core which I think I mentioned in one of my previous emails.  It has 6 tasks with 5-6 phrases and some extra vocabulary words to memorize.  Well that's another thing we said goodbye too lol.  Now we've moved onto Intermediate Core -- which is soooo intense.  By the end of MTC, we have to have 1,500-2,500 words, 250-500 phrases, AND 9 scriptures memorized!  Let me tell ya...VACA SAGRADA!  (This means holy cow in Portuguese and it is one of my district's inside jokes lol). This is a lot of memorization!  It's hard right now, but I know by the end it will have helped me learn Portuguese.

My district is the BEST EVA!! We have grown so close together and have soooo many inside jokes that I couldn't count them on one hand!  It's the best and I couldn't have gotten through these weeks without them!  I know I say this every week haha, but seriously it's true!

As I said last week, Sister Matsen and I had an opportunity to share our very first message with someone all on our own!  She is a new convert to the church and she lives in Brazil so it gave us a chance to practice our Portuguese.   It went fairly well for being our first time.  Could we understand her that well?  No.  But the Spirit was so strong that I knew our message was delivered to her!  We shared about the Savior and His Atonement and how He understands us.  As He performed the Atonement, He felt EVERY single feeling of doubt, pain, illness, fear, etc.  He has been through it all and HE UNDERSTANDS US! 

We have also had an opportunity to teach someone every Tuesday and Friday.  It is an investigator that the MTC gave us...they could be someone acting as an investigator or they really could be an investigator wanting to know more about the church.  It's been a neat experience getting to plan lessons for us to teach her.

Spiritual moment for this week is actually from today.  I watched a missionary devotional given by Elder and Sister Rasband.  It was mentioned that "in times of doubt or fear, we are invited to HEAR HIM!"  Just like I said above, the Savior understands everything we go through.  When we turn to Him and hear Him, we can be comforted and will be able to feel the Spirit more in our lives.  I know this to be true because I have felt it in so many experiences.  Even here in the home MTC, I have looked for opportunities to simply hear Him.  So, how do you Hear Him?

That was kind of a lot for this week, but I guess I had a lot to share!  

Amo vocês!  Love you all! 

Sister Findlay

Pictures this week:
1 and 2) group pictures on our last day with our instructors
3) me and my comp
4) family did the incline again today 








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