Letter #3: Fast and Crazy

This week went so fast it was crazy!!!!! Halfway done with the MTC I don’t know where time is going. First of all.... KATIE that's awesome that you're mia maids president!! Dad told me about that and I’m super duper proud of you. Way to be. Atta girl. Go get em. Remember your standards. ect. Mom I’m glad Emily emailed you!! I got a letter from her this week and it made my life. Isn’t that adorable that she gets to work in the navy base??? She’s going to have a pearl harbor love story and fall in love and I cant wait it’ll be beautiful! ummm tell sister lambert that I used the flashcards she gave me this week to study and they’re wonderful and thank you :) Rachel and Tanner I got your dearelder today thank you thank you I will write you a letter in response today! Oh my goodness this morning was so stressful cause the internet has been down here and super glitchy and we couldn’t get on to our emails and that would’ve been terrible! Okay here goes my week.
Tuesday
This is old news but Elder Horton got his visa!!! So exciting! I’ll talk more about that later. We had devotional that night and I saw Mr. Elder Bradykins Johnston!!!!!!!! It was so hard not to hug that boy but we were seriously bouncing off the walls with excitement of seeing each other. And then we took a super classy shaking hands missionary picture. After the devotional I had an interview with brother Jackson and he had me teach him a gospel principle in 30 seconds in English. It was the first time I had taught in English here and it felt awesome to be able to actually articulate my testimony. he was so nice to me and told me I had a "sweet spirit and will be a wonderful missionary." so that was an awesome experience.
Wednesday
For service they had the four of us (me, Sister Davis, Sister Kimbrell, Sister Sargent) vacuum the carpets with those rolling vacuum things that leave behind more dirt than they pick up. But it was fun and we walked around the building vacuuming and sharing college prank stories with each other. Later that day Sister Davis got a blessing from the elders cause she had been getting this really terrible headache everyday at the same time. And she hasn’t gotten it again since! Church is true. Love them elders. Priesthood power. :) Also today Elder Byron and I had a Harry Potter face off where our district quoted HP and we competed to see who could guess which movie/book it was from first. Needless to say I won.
Thursday
TRC!! Aka training resource center. People come volunteer and we teach them lessons for 20 minutes each. It’s kinda like a home teaching atmosphere type thing. We taught this one lady who is from Sao Paulo but living here in Provo now and she was so sweet and sang us a primary song in Portuguese. Also on this day I found out that "bobo" in port means "dumb" so that’s rude family I need a new nickname right now
Friday
Elder Nixon got called to the travel office and we FREAKED OUT. Like NO YOU CAN’T LEAVE US!!!! Just kidding it would’ve been excited if he got his visa but he just had to sign some papers. Another Elder Nixon story from that day though was that he accidentally called our teacher "foxy" while he was trying to say something in Portuguese. During class we practiced doing street contacts by teaching a principle in 1-3 minutes with each other. At lunchtime I saw elder Bradykins again and had to say goodbye to him and I was sad and started crying and I think Sister Davis was uncomfortable and didn’t know what to do. That night our district went and welcomed the new district in our branch and sang them the "hello!" song in Portuguese. It was easy to learn because it says the same word five million times over
Saturday
We practiced street contacting again but this time with a "younger" district (meaning they have been at the MTC shorter than us). And we felt super smart and advanced because we could say maybe five more words than them. We watched some Mormon messages today and I cried through all of them which felt awesome cause crying is the best. Seriously go watch all of them. During class Sister Kimbrell asked Brother Bitner how to say, "just kidding" in Portuguese but he told her how to say "I am ugly" instead and so for five minutes she believed him. Oh btw we have two teachers. Brother Bitner and Brother Hickman. One teaches us in the morning and the other at night. And then they are each an "investigator" for us too. They pretend to be someone that they taught on their own missions and we prepare lessons for them and practice teaching. Right now Sister Davis and I are teaching Paulo (an 18 year old boy) and Dalmiro (a 43 year old man with a family that are all members). And its soooooooo cool to teach those lessons.
Sunday
Sister Sargent and Elder Nixon got called on to speak in sacrament. Sister Sargent is practically fluent cause she new port already because she took classes at college. So she blew everyone’s mind during her talk and people were confused like how did she learn this language so quick?!? Sunday is wonderful! We walked to the temple as a district and went and sat in the grass together. And Brother Jackson from our branch presidency came with us and told us stories about Piracicaba cause he served there. That night I said goodbye to my dear cousin Elder Garrett cause he left super early the next morning. We tried to get a picture for our mom’s cause we know you would want that but none of them really turned out super great. Sorry bout that.
Monday
Started with gym time aka naptime on the yoga Matts in the corner. jk :) our district made a goal to start speaking in only Portuguese in the mornings for a certain period of time ranging from 3-6 hours. So we started that! Later that afternoon I brought the package you sent me into class and my district went absolutely NUTS!!! Elder Nixon and Sister Whittney were having sour competitions and seeing who could last the longest with the most sour stuff in their mouth. Giving Elder Nixon sugar was a mistake. He was literally bouncing off the walls and then I look over five minutes later and he's crashed in the corner of the classroom dead asleep. Then we planned a super mature prank for Brother Bitner with the pop rocks to put them in our mouths when he walked in so the room would be crackling. We took it seriously too and had lookouts for every hallway leading tot eh classroom. He was impressed I’m sure. This morning we went to the temple and I sat by the sweetest lady who reminded me so much of Sister Gee! We chatted and it was great to talk to someone from the real world. Also today I taught my roommates how to French braid hair. Its been raining here off and on this week and I love it! Me and Elder Byron who is also from Seattle get so excited about it and our district thinks we're weird.

Okay spiritual thought of the week!! John chapter 15 says "greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. ye are my friends..." Christ loves us so much! He is our friend and we can turn to him for ANYTHING.

 I LOVE YOU ALL!!

 Sister Tantillo

The District

Sour Competition Elder Nixion vs. Sister Whittney

Sometimes our district draws harry potter and that is why i love them. Appreciate the hp movie 3 theme going on

 District!
back row left to right
brother Bitner, e nixon. e barrus. sister sargent. sis forsyth. sis whittney. e. lott. e byron. e hamilton
front row left to right
sis davis. sis birch. me. sis kimbrell. sis pedilla

The Sisters

Sister Davis and I next to the Brazil flag