And begins the most stressful 30 minutes each week... Greetings!

It has been another fabulous week here at the CTM! I can't believe we leave the CTM in 13 days!! THIRTEEN! AND this Monday, we go proselyting. In the real world! They take us out on a bus and let us make contacts twice before we leave the CTM. It should be really awesome, and completely overwhelming im sure. Today while we were waiting for our Elders outside the CTM we talked to a man on the sidewalk for a few minutes. He was really nice and fun to talk to, but we only caught about a third of what he was saying. But the people are always so nice and understanding. I love Brazilians!

So last week the missionaries that will leave with me to go to Londrina arrived. I've meet all four of the Elders and 2 Sisters, that are all Brazilians, they only stay in the CTM for 3 weeks. When we leave, I think there is one American Elder for Londrina. They are all so nice, and so much fun to talk to. They seem to find our Portuguese highly amusing half the time and its really good to practice with them over our meals, etc. For example they helped us learn the difference between avó and avô which are grandpa and grandma, but we~re not actually sure which is which, just how to say the difference.

So one of the highlights from this week was our fireside last night. S. Bradley, S. Matiaco, & our room mate, S. Gee & I all sang `Every Breath´ by Jenny Phillips. It is a beautiful song and if you can, you should look up the lyrics. It was beautiful, and half the fun was practicing it, which was really nice to do. We sang it in English, because they only had it in English and it is soo beautiul. There is one line that I absolutely love that says `He knows your heart and he knows your name.´ It is so beautiful to me, because I know it´s true. Our Heavenly Father, knows who we are individually and he knows us by name. I feel a part of that love that He has for us when I teach people the gospel. The song also says ´´There´s No where you can go that he hasn´t been below´ which I find so comforting and I know to be true. As part of the atonement, our Savior, Jesus Christ, suffered for us in the garden of gethsemane. He has felt the pains, the heart aches, and he knows the trials we have been through. The greatest comfort I have received is through the Gospel and knowing that I have a loving Heavenly Father who wants the best for me.

Another fun fact - We learned the alphabet yesterday. We have been learning Portuguese like crazy, but somehow never really learned the alphabet. Except for reviewing it with a Hispanic substitute, which was really just kind of confusing. But anyways, it was lots of fun learning it. So I can relate to my 3 year old niece, Sariah now, because Im learning my A, B, Cs too! Or maybe she knows them all by now?

This week I also said my first big group prayer in Portuguese! They always ask someone to give the opening and closing prayers for firesides. So I said the closing prayer for our Sunday night devotional. Which I was more nervous- they give you a day or two notice- before hand, considering that half the audience is Brazilian and you don´t want to slaughter the language. But it went well, and it was a good experience. Learning a language really helps us to relate to investigators when we teach them how to pray. Because we´ve had to learn how to pray all over again, and saying it infront of native speakers is intimidating. But you realize that everyone is here for the same reason, and the CTM has such an amazing atmosphere.

Love you all!

Sister Bullen