Oi!! Olá todos!! I hope everyone has had a great week!! I love you guys and am grateful for all of you!! The new area is amazing!! The people are so loving and our branch is just so great!! I love the language even tho I can’t understand like anything or talk at all haha!! But let’s get into this week!!
Well this week was a lot of learning haha I feel like I’m starting back at square 1!! But it’s nice to have Elder Bell as my comp! He’s a great teacher and has been patient with me in learning the language!! But my highlight this week was getting to know the people here. I have never felt so much love and warmth so far on my mission than this branch here!! Everyone welcomed me and called me by name!! I felt welcomed and loved right from the start. I love the language and the culture and I can’t wait to get to know them better!!
Something funny that happened this week is I literally got to church and understood like 10 percent of what was going on 🤣🤣 the cool thing was the spirit was the same of course but like people would come up to me and just start talking I’d just smile and catch like one or two words enough to get the gist of what people were saying haha!! It was hilarious because I felt like the greenie in the Best Two Years…”This isn’t what they taught me in the MTC!!!” That’s literally how I felt haha!!
My spiritual thought is actually from Preach my Gospel!! I’ve been studying in of course the learning your mission language section HAHA!! There’s this quote by President Thomas S. Monson that I just absolutely loved!!
“There is one language … that is common to each missionary—the language of the Spirit. It is not learned from textbooks written by men of letters, nor is it acquired through reading and memorization. The language of the Spirit comes to him who seeks with all his heart to know God and keep His divine commandments. Proficiency in this language permits one to breach barriers, overcome obstacles, and touch the human heart”
I loved this quote!! It’s helped me understand that as long as I work on my own conversion it doesn’t matter if my Portuguese is awful!! Because the spirit will touch their hearts and teach them!! But I hope you all have a great week and keep being amazing!!
Amo vocês!! Tchau tchau!!
Elder Castillo
Fotos!!