It's been a long long, and very fast week at the same time. So, I'm not positive where I left off but I'll dive into it.
So I did the math, it's 10hrs and 50 minutes in class every day, 1hr and 55min total in meal times, and the rest is spread out into transitioning time or shower/dress time if that makes sense. Basically every minute of my 16hr day is planned. It get's very exhausting, because I often can't crash until 11 or so, and I'm up at 6:30 every...every morning. I catch myself getting really really drowsy in class, but so far I have not fallen asleep once in any other place than my bed so that's an accomplishment in my book.
Technically this is the most times I've consecutively woken up before 7 ever haha. Time went by very slow the first week, but now it's going by quite fast. I get to bed late for a number of reasons, the main one being that we often stay up doing fun stuff like arm-wrestling. I'm ranked 2nd in my zone, to Elder Robinson, a farmer's boy from Missouri, who grew up building houses and shoveling and doing all sorts of work.. he's a strong kid, really funny too. 1 of 13 kids haha. I did beat him once though, but after he had already wrestled a couple before me...
There are lots of cool Elders and Sisters in our zone, in total we are about 20, (photo of all of us last week) and about half are Brazil-bound (there's one Hawaiian going to Brazil named Elder Ah Puck -- I mean how do you not make a joke out of that), thus they study Brazilian Portuguese in other classrooms, while the other half of us study Continental Portuguese in two other classrooms, or districts. My district, or class, consists of 4 sisters and my companions. It's pretty nice. We learn a ton, in lingual matters as well as spiritual matters, and we have a lot of fun too.
Oh on the second day at the MTC... I kid you not the second day, not even 24 hours after getting my name tag we were assigned to teach an investigator (a role-playing investigator, but they take it seriously) completely in Portuguese. If you said anything in English, she wouldn't respond. She went by the name of Alda, and it was a challenge. We ended up teaching her a total of 4 lessons, and on the 4th we invited her to baptism. The first lesson being the second day, and the last being just a few days ago. Talk about throwing us in the deep end. Just after finishing teaching Alda, we walked into class the next day to find that she is now one of our teachers. She is Sister Schill, and she attends BYU (like many of the MTC employees and teachers) and served in Portugal. She is a great teacher, like the rest.
The lessons we taught her, or Alda, were often choppy, and poorly executed. (I mean, I've only been studying Portuguese for a week) But the 4th, and last one we gave her, we were able to teach her the entire Plan of Salvation lesson. I was able to share an experience with her, testify, teach her about baptism, and finally invite her to be baptized all in Portuguese. It was amazing. In a logical sense, it was quite a feat, but the Spirit was so strong during that lesson because all we shared was improvised according to what we felt she needed to hear. It got me very excited to go teach real people! Brother Workman, one of our teachers, told us that these role-playing things should be taken seriously, and that if we did we would feel the Spirit testify to us and to them as if it was a real investigator. He said you can't fake the feelings of the Spirit, and he was right. At first I thought it was a little silly, but I decided to take it seriously like he said, and give it my all and it went great. Our next lesson is on Wednesday with a new investigator... Brother Workman haha. But he will have a new name, new story, and I'm sure it will be a great new challenge.
I would often carry a very large amount of the lesson. I'm not tooting my own horn, but I'm picking up Portuguese the best in my class. We only have teacher's for about half of our total class time, the rest is left up to us to study by ourselves, then with companions, and then language study in that order in hour rotations. Elder Karthigeyan and Elder Francis are definitely lagging behind a bit. Elder Karthigeyan is definitely putting in the effort, I'm sure he will start accelerating really soon, (it is his first Latin-based language, so I'll cut him some slack) but Elder Francis is still having a pretty hard time. He doesn't seem to have the motivation to just get stuff done and really learn. Maybe you saw last week's photos, he often nods off in class, or just kinda stares blankly. I try to encourage him and remind him that a language doesn't just fall into your ears. He is still just not growing out of his homesickness, and I don't know what else I can do. He's... stubborn for lack of a better word. I encourage and comfort him, but he often goes "yeah you're right man, I understand," but it just seems to go in one and out the other. Unfortunately, this lack of effort really adds a weak link in our companionship(s), which is why I'm often carrying 90% of the lessons we teach on my back, which can get kinda tough, but it is sure pushing me hard. We're something like 13 days in and he seems to still be at the start...
I forgot, last Tuesday Elder Francis and I got to go with Elder Karthigeyan to get his Patriarchal Blessing. It was a real pleasure. It was awfully long though haha, he's a special guy. That night, a member of the Seventy spoke at our devotion, Elder Keetch. It was a cool talk... I just really hope an apostle stops by to speak while I'm here, maybe tomorrow!
So the Italian Elder I ran into last week, Elder Pacella, is going to Jacksonville, Florida, (take note Gabe) and he's learning English here. I've chatted with him a couple more times and it's really hard to not say some Portuguese in my Italian. Ughgghhh. But, whaddyaknow, his twin brother showed up just last wednesday, a week after him, to start his MTC training for Atlanta, Georgia.. How cool is that! I saw the twin (I had heard about him previously) and got his attention in Italian, and just like his brother, he was really confused as to why and how I spoke his language when my name tag was in Portuguese haha. Good fun, I try to chat with them when I run into them. Still though, I don't think there are any Italy-bound missionaries here, which is still a disappointment. Must be another MTC.
I haven't got a bunch to say about every single day, to sum them up, they are all fun, challenging, bussssy, and full of great lessons and learning.
The language, as you could probably guess, is coming along better for sure. There is still so much to learn, but I'm improving. I understand 95% of what my teachers say, but then again they speak slow, and definitely hold back in speed and vocabulary. We sometimes use a computer program to learn our language, called TALL (I forget what it means) but it has sound clips of native speakers, and let's just say I only understand a quarter of what they say, they speak very fast, and I will definitely have to train my ears when I get in the field.
Often times in class, when we don't have a teacher and we are assigned time to study the language, we'll do so together, and I teach haha. I'm just familiar with how the grammar works, so I can help the others in my class, and I teach with 90% accuracy I'd say haha. (Don't actually like set up a lesson, but they ask me questions and I use the board and stuff to go over concepts like conjugation or articles). I'm constantly answering questions. I'm no expert, that's for sure, but Italian does still share some conceptual similarities to Portuguese, at least on paper, definitely not in sound haha.
Another fun example, "messages" is "mensagems" in Port. So, you would think, simple, "men-sah-gem." Nope, the n, and last m are silent. The first and 2nd e's are pronounced with a strange nasal-focused vowel sound that I still haven't gotten the hang of, and the g is a soft j, almost and sh. Finally, the final s is pronounced as an "sh" making it all (mind you, nasal e's) "mei-sah-geih-sh."
So yeah, the biggest challenge I find to be pronunciation.
Today was pday, of course, and we tossed a frisbee around. There were about 10 of us, with 3 frisbees (we're not allowed to play ultimate :(.....) I came up with a way to make it more challenging and more fulfilling. You throw in the direction of the circle, if you made a bad throw, or had a bad catch, you dropped to do 10 pushups/situps/squats. It was fun. Everyone was on board with my idea and it was far more exercise than just tossing a fisbee.
Anyways, I'm going overtime again, perhaps I should just shorten my scope with what I write, save some time.
gotta run, I'm going to miss dinner if I take any longer,
Elder Ward
The photos are Me and Brady *cough* Elder Hollingsworth, "Elder Ward" written in Hindi, courtesy of Elder Karthigeyan, My district, or classmates, in front of the Provo Temple, and the rest are just cheesy but necessary.
