Easter Sunday in the MTC

Hola familia e amigos.

I’m sad to say there’s not a lot going on this week so I don’t really have anything to write. I want to give a huge thank you to Aunt Kathy, Shauna Bere, Mary Sage, and Brooke for your letters! I absolutely loved hearing from you guys. I can’t say enough how much I love getting letters emails and dear elders. They are the best part of the day!

Okay, the one highlight this week was Sunday! Happy late Easter by the way!! It was really cool.  We had an entire MTC wide sacrament and Boyd K Packer and his son Allan came and spoke to us. It was so amazing to sing all the songs as an entire MTC and have an Apostle speak to us again. His message was wonderful. They both talked about the Atonement and conversion and building your relationship with the Savior. It was wonderful. We then had individual fast and testimony meetings and we all bore our testimonies in Portuguese.  It was amazing and it’s kind of funny, I think about spiritual stuff in Portuguese now before I do in English. I can almost feel the spirit better in Portuguese and my prayers feel more meaningful in Portuguese.

So, obviously things with the language are getting better. My companion and I are trying really hard to keep progressing and it’s hard but we are making progress for sure. Oh! also, we met our OTHER future mission president this week! Ha ha, how crazy is that? He and his wife are here for training and reviewing their Portuguese so we got to meet them and they say "Hi" to us at meals.

Please keep praying for me. it’s getting hard to keep up because the further we go the more responsibilities we have and I can barely manage the ones I have now. On Wednesday we get to become investigators so we understand how a person learning about the church should feel when we teach them. I’m so sorry that I can’t think of anything else to say so I’ll just tell you a little more about the people in my district.

My companion is Irma Barlow, she’s also from Maryland, and she’s from Potomac. She went to BYU and studied comparative literature so obviously we get along really well and have the same interests. She’s so loving and I appreciate her so much. Irma Patterson is from North Carolina/ California and has the most awesome sounding family! She’s a totally sweetheart and went to BYU Idaho.  Irma Layton is from Utah, went to Weber state, and she’s so righteous it’s ridiculous. She always keeps us in line. We definitely need her.  In the other classroom are the other four members of our district; Irma Bringhurst is lovely, from Utah, and such a sweet girl. She has a beautiful voice too and she keeps trying to get me to sing in church with her. Irma Davis is just as sweet and the two of them have quiet dignity down packed. They are so humble and spiritual. I love our elders. Elder Platamone is from California he’s a convert and he and his sister are the only members in their family. He loves to dance and he’s such a goof. Elder Tucci is from Australia and he’s probably my favorite person who I feel closest to as legitimate friends outside of the MTC context. He’s crazy and reminds me a lot of the entire group of guys from home like Joe and Ethan and Alex and Mitch. He would fit in with them so well. anyway, I really don’t have anything else.

I love you guys so much though and I pray for you guys and think about you all the time.

Love, Irma dean