March 8th, 2014 // MTC

Tuda Bem! Tuda Bem! 

Holy

Cow.

The MTC is something else. In terms of effort on my part, this is the hardest thing I've ever had to do. You literally arrive, throw your bags in your room, and get right down to it. I guess it feels so stressful since they just changed the missionary age and cut the time we have to learn the language by a couple weeks. Think about condensing your week college schedule into a day. Gaah. 

But hey, I love my branch. (The group of elders who arrived the day I did and are speaking PoooRTUguESE with me.) There's only six of us and five of the six are going to MoOOOzAMBIQUE. So that's pretty rad. We're a pretty eclectic group. I'm companions with Elder Adams. If you want a vague idea of what he is like just think of Chase Amerjan and that vague idea will be 100% accurate. He also went to school with Shaylee Milne in Roy, Utah, so that's a pretty strange connection. Another Elder in our branch, henceforth known as Elder T because absolutely no one can get his name right, is from Hawaii. He had never been off the island until he reported for his mission. Going from an isolated island to continental United States then straight to third world Africa? Dude is in for an adventure. 

The Gift of Tongues is real. I've learned more Portuguese in three days here than I have with two years of French in school. Como? The Spirit, man. To put this into perspective, I've been here for about three days now and I've already taught a lesson to an investigator. At this point I'm much better at understanding it than speaking it, but I can spin a sentence or two in response to what's being spoken. It's just so crazy man. I can't imagine where we're all going to be in six weeks time. 

Anyway, my companion and I are real sharp so we figured daylight savings was today and ended up severely limiting our sleep time. Out of email time, hope all is well with you all. Love you and praying for you guys.

- Elder Mortimer.

 

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Psstttt..

 

  Hey! This is Bret, Morgan's sister. I will be updating this blog every week with his new emails, pictures, news, etc.

 

You can subscribe by entering your email in the space below his picture to the right.

 

Also, hopefully this blog will be a bit more visually appealing at some point.. buuut midterms and such are cramping my creativity. Alas, it will be done soon enough. Have hope.

 

Prayers for my brother are much appreciated as he continues to learn the language and missionary ways. Thank you for all of your support, it means a lot to our family.

 

If you want to email him or write him, his information can be found on this nifty flag created in Paint (PAINT WIZARD 4 EVER):

 

 

 

Thanks again!

 

  Bret Mortimer