First Week in the MTC and First Letter Home

Minha familia,

    Ola! Eu fallo mais Portugues sim? (which means “Yes, I speak more Portuguese”) But not enough for the whole letter.  In fact, I’m going to substitute what I do know in the letter.  The MTC is muito bem. O’ Espirita is muito forte.  (The MTC is very good. The spirit is very strong)  Minha district e minha companheiro sao perfeito! (My district and my companion are perfect).  We can tell each other anything, and we joke around a lot.

     Are you all doing well?  What is new? Are Weston and Owen doing well in school?  Is Luxana alright?  She needs to keep dressing up like the princess she is.

Obrigado para a carta. (thank you for the letter) It helped me out the first week.

I love my district a lot.  We had an oreo party as soon as I found them, and we share everything, and tell jokes to each other all the time.  We also play a spoon game where we slip a spoon from the cafeteria  into each other’s suit pocket without the other noticing.

    News from Angola is great! One of the members in my district told me that it will become its own mission sometime in July.  I am estimated to leave March 5^th.

    As of now, I haven’t gotten the watch yet, but don’t worry there is no rush. I have around 3-6 hands pop out to tell me the time when I ask. Ha ha.

Sorry it took so long to write.  We can only write emails and letters on our P-days, which is Monday.

    The work we do here is true.  The gift of tongues is real.  They had us in class about 12 minutes after you dropped me off.  Literally.  Our teachers only speak Portugese.  (It is a beautiful language, by the way) We actually have appointments and follow-up lessons with an “investigator”, a past missionary acting as a real investigator in the mission field.  We treat it as the real thing though.  Her name is Lisa, and she is very nice.  She’s committed to read 1 Nefi 1 and 2 along with Moroni 10 and to prepare for baptism should she find it is true.

    The food is good and I love it here.  I am safe and well provided for. Oh! I almost forgot 4 of 6 in my district are going to Angola with me!  We’re pretty much the pioneers of the mission, as its only been a sub-mission for about a year. 

I love you all.  Stay happy and safe.  Here is my mailing address:

Elder Bradley Alexander Hobbs

MTC mailbox #173

MOZ-MAP 0305

2005 N 900 E

Provo, UT 84604-1793

Love, Alex

P.S. You may get some hand-written letters as well as email. I only get 30 minutes of email time on P-day. And please forward this to Aunt Jill and tell her thank you for her letter as well.

Again, I love you all so very much.