Email/Chat 04/03/17

My week has been great. The meeting with the President went pretty good. I didn't understand the whole reason why he was there, but I got the jist. He talked mostly about how to set goals and why we set them. Most of it I already had some understanding of. At the meeting with President Oliveira I received the letter from Grammy. I loved General Conference. My batteries got recharged too. I loved all of the ones I could understand, so only the ones I heard in English were the ones I could understand, but the others I tried to listen to. I loved Elder Christofferson's talk as well Hales' talk. I liked that there is going to be a new temple in Brazilia, Brazil and Saratoga Springs in Utah.  The Lord has been blessing me greatly. I love obeying his commandments.

Oh, I haven´t told you yet. Me and my companion had a baptism this last Saturday, in-between the second session and priesthood session. His name is Igor. He will be confirmed probably this coming Saturday or Sunday.  My companion baptized him and I will be confirming him.  We have a new family that we are teaching. They like the gospel and we will be visiting them this week. I can't quite remember their names yet.

My Portuguese is improving better and better each day. The gift of tongues is helping a lot.   I am glad I asked for it before I came here.  My companion has a very thick Eastern Brazilian accent. At times I can´t understand a word that he says. Accent is very important in this language and I still need to work on listening to native speakers and imitating what I hear.  I understand him for the most part, but when he uses either slang or new words I understand little.  His Father is from Africa and knows French and some English. My companion knows some French and English as well. He tries to speak in English and when he does I can understand him for the most part. He wants to learn more English and often during our weekly planning he ends it by trying to pray in English. When he speaks French I don´t get a word.