Week 1 - July 31st 2012

We recieved Mackenzie's first letter this morning.  His preperation days are on Tuesdays, so if you want something to get to him, make sure you email him by Monday night.  Spelling and punctuation have not been edited, the letter below is as we recieved it.

WOW oi!! boa tarde from Brasil!!!!

ok so here is my first email.  this is definitely a weird experience being out here on my mission.  the first week has just flown by.  sorry for no capital letters we have so little time that i just want to type and tell you how it is going.  The ctm is great.  my district is awesome.  there were 11 of us but last night one of them went home.  so a trio that we had split so that another elder could have a companion.  even though its only been a week i feel like i have grown so much!! and im learning the language pretty fast.  for example for companion i wanted to type companheiro.  it was straight diving into the language.  no holding back because they want us to learn the language fast and to be able to teach in it.  i have 2 instructors.  irmao amarzan and irmao leo.  irmao is brother.  irmao armazan is from here in sao paolo and irmao leo is from italy.  so im going to wear the badge that christopher gave me tonight haha.  i dont even know what to say haha.  my companion is elder miller, he is from sandy utah.  hes an ok guy we just have 2 different personalities.  i have 4 other roomates.  elder packard, elder richards, elder azevedo, and elder cayres.  elder azevedo is from chile and has met elder archuleta, and elder cayres is from here in sao paolo.  luckily elder azevedo speaks english and we can translate from english to portuguese so we can talk to elder cayres.  its so much fun talking to them.  they love american stuff and we quote movies and other stuff.

we went to the temple this morning.  every tuesday is my pday and we go to the temple on pday mornings.  it was a great experience being there with like 50 other elders.  and when i was done i had a feeling that the person i went through for was very happy.  i was praying and i had the strangest feeling and i felt happy myself.  i helped someone out today!!! wow the time on this is flying.  i wish i could just sit here and type to everyone all day.  sorry if i cant respond to everyone at once.  so little time.  im sending this to everyone though and forward on to who you feel like forwarding to.

i really dont know what else to say except that i feel like im doing the right thing.  yah its so different here and i finally feel like im in brasil.  i feel the spirit constantly almost all day.  i love you all and hope you all are doing good.  write me, email me

Love, Elder Mackenzie Sant