2. Finally! I have a P-day!

It honestly feels like it has been an entire month sense I was home. I have learned so much Portuguese I probably speak it better that my Spanish. You will have the excuse the typos again. I am on a time limit. I guess I can read your emails thoroughly when I get the the field. Another unfortunate thing is that I cannot upload pictures so you will get a lot of those when I get in the field too.

It is incredible how efficient this system has become to prepare missionaries. We taught a 30 min lesson the second day in the CTM and then we have had a lesson every night sense. I was even able to answer our investigators questions during our last two lessons. Just remember, this is all in Portuguese. Our investigators are actually other instructors though and they are sympathetic but most don't speak English. During our last lesson, the investigator was to tired that she was dozing off while I recited the 1st vision. I couldn't believe it. We had an amazing experience the day before though when we committed her to baptism. My first companionship was a threesome, and after expressing some doubts about baptism, our most quiet member started baring his testimony ( it was the first time he said something off script and it was sooo powerful). I took his momentum and told her that we would clear up all her doubts and that the feelings of joy she had while we taught would be with her always after baptism. Then, our senior companion bore his testimony and offered the challenge again. Of course, the accepted. All of this was completely unscripted. The spirit was so strong and I could feel help through the gift of tongues.

Then, Tuesday night rolled around and we learned that our pday was being moved to Friday. What a bummer? To better the surprise, I found out the next morning that new guys from Provo had flown in and that I was getting a new companion. At first I was really scared because I relied so much on my senior companion for discussions. But, we went to the temple today and I totally feel that this is exactly what I need. Elder Mortensen doesn't really have a Spanish background and has to take more time memorizing words but I am so grateful that he is a hard worker and a wonderful companion. And we were blessed with conference, so we don't have to teach until Monday. But we start two lessons a day. My newest goal in lesson giving is to be able to have parts of the lesson completely memorized to I don't have to use notes. This past week we have spent about 2.5 hours preparing for each lesson.

And on Monday we are going to have two new investigators, since our old investigator just became our teacher in the classroom. The missionaries back home were right when they said not to waste study time. We are given about 4 hours of personal study opportunity time each day and it is very easy to get distracted. It is so hard to remind yourself to stop speaking English when you just want to say stuff so badly. It was quite a coincidence that when I set a goal to go a whole day with close to no English I got my new companion. I lasted about 6 hours and just had to speed up our communications. I will have to try that goal again soon.

Brazil is wonderful. The weather is absolutely perfect right now. It rains about every night just a little bit and and temperature is always about 60. I know it will probably get hotter that Texas but for right now, there is no other place i'd rather be. The city seems a little cramped and the driving is a nightmare but everybody is so nice. Oh, and the food is amazing. Almost as good as home cooking. i would have put a winking face right there but the keyboard is not working. sad face. haha. I don't think I am going to out grow any of my pants though, because all of the deserts are fruity. The only relief is Wednesday when we get chocolate, banana pizza. it is muito bom (very good).

I think the hardest this with the language right now is pronunciation. It is quite different from Spanish. The R's are H's and D's and T's sound like G's but only in certain situations and the L's are not really used for sound but just to change the position of your mouth for the next sound.

So, we were told we only needed to study chapter 3 of preach my gospel but the entire book is so amazing and helpful. Tell Daniel that he need to start reading it now. Aubrey can too. I forgot to mention that we added two Brazilians in our room. They are awesome to talk to and they teach us so much. Here's a surprise, they use napkins here instead of rolls of toilet paper. it threw me off guard at first. There has been kind of a cold going around and I have it right now. Just a super runny nose but it is not really slowing me down. It was annoying during my temple session though.

I hope everyone is doing good back home. I am glad to hear the report about Daniel. Tell Brealynn and Aubrey that I love them. I just want to thank everyone for their emails. It is really awesome to feel your support. I love you.

Love,

Elder Jacobson (Andrew)

the word for twin is Gemeo with an accent on the first e. I really have used this one. well, im out of time. Love you all again.