Travel Plans for next week

We got out travel plans, I'm sooooo excited!

We leave on the 17th!!!

Another great week at the MTC.  We switched buildings, they are moving all the Portuguese speakers into 18 M, the biggest building.  They have almost completely gotten rid of Spanish speakers at the regular MTC, they are all sending them over to the West Campus.  I think Elder Sanders is moving over to the West Campus Tuesday.  There are so many people here going to Brazil, its unreal.  We always make fun of them because they are learning the ugly Portuguese, and we are learning the actual Portuguese!  Its a lot of fun tho.  It was really sad because a lot of my really good friends left for their reassigned areas this week.  Elder Huxford went to Jacksonville, Milsap went to Ohio, Starr went to Boston.  These are all guys that I saw everyday in my building, and played ball with almost everyday.

I leave for Africa in 12 days, and were suppose to get our travel plans Monday if everything goes according to plan.  We also have a new teacher, Brother Casia.  He served in Brazil.  Irma Pike, our other teacher also served in  Brazil.  Irmo Workman who was our teacher served in Mozambique.  So none of our teachers served in Cape Verde.  We did have a guy, who served in Cape Verde come and talk to us.  I think we will have 11 missionary's going to Cape Verde, but don't hold me to that number because I'm really not sure.  Oh also this week I said goodbye to Elder Hulet and Elder Bosco.  That was sad but fun.  I went over to their residence and hung out with them from like 9-11 ish, and it was really nice to say goodbye to those guys, hopefully I will hear from them soon.

From speaking with Ryan and Dallin I was really surprised at how similar a lot of English words are to Dutch words.  I think their flight went to Detroit and then straight to his mission, but you guys probably know more about that then I do.  We continued to teach our "investigators" this week.  And we have TRC tonight, which is where we talk to real people, who are acting as themselves, that know Portuguese.  That's always fun and interesting.

As far as the language goes, I think I have a pretty good grasp on a lot of the spiritual stuff.  I can pray, share my testimony, do the first vision, the purpose, and a couple of scriptures in Portuguese.  We can teach a pretty effective lesson too, but that's just all the church stuff.  I'm really kind of blind about all the world stuff, and what not.  But I understand things when we talk about religion and churches and such.

Tuesday night we heard from David F Evans of the 70.  He mainly  talked about mission stats and stuff, but it was really good.  There are 75k missionary's right now, and its suppose to just to almost 100k in a year.  And we talked about the crowded MTC and what not.  My favorite quote he said was "The key to missionary work is work" And he was quoting someone else, but I really loved that. Dad will like this, but it made me think of John Wooden’s quote that said "Nothing will work unless you do"  I love that.

Another thing that hit me really hard was when I was reading back on my journal and I wrote this the night Elder Riley Gates left.  We talked about how only .4% of the world is LDS, and .002% of the world has the opportunity to serve missions.  And just how blessed I was to grow up in Utah, surrounded by people that believed and lived the gospel.  Like statistically, I shouldn't be here with this opportunity to share the gospel with people.  And I especially shouldn't get the chance to serve with my best friend, in a district that I absolutely love.  But I guess its just testament to how much we are blessed on this Earth at this time.  Idk, I kind of feel like I don't deserve all these blessings that I've received on my mission, but I also know that it will all catch up to me pretty soon when Im in a country where I don't understand the language, or don't get to eat these MTC donuts every morning haha.  Not that God won't bless me and be with me in Africa, I just know it'll be tougher.  But I really am looking forward to it.

 BYU plays Texas here tomorrow, so were all planning our escape haha.  I'm so jealous you get to hear from Christofferson.  Of course right when I leave you get my favorite general Authority!  Its cool tho cause President Monson is coming to talk to us Tuesday!  We are leaving like 4 hours early to get there, it will be insane!! I've gotta go, Love you guys (and tell people to write me!;)

Love Elder Jarvis