I might have to start all my emails like that. That's pretty fun.
Hope everyone is enjoying the Christmas season. Thanks for all of the love, support, prayers and for joining me in the fast. We're still here, but we have had news on the visas. They are going to keep us here for two weeks after our departing date, and if the visas don't come, they'll send us to the States. So no matter what, on January 5th, something will happen. We have some Elders who have been here for 13 weeks but they also told us that Elder Ballard and Elder Scott are hands on for this and that the First Presidency knows about this, so they told us we might be out of here before those two weeks. We'll see, but it's about 90% chance that I'll be here for Christmas.
For Christmas:
1. I want a pony I can ride to Brasil
2. "American Prophet" by Del Parsons for my room or the painting of the Second Coming, about the Prince of Peace
3. Anything really cool. Don't send it here (except the pony), and I'll get it when I get home, because I really don't need anything to be honest. Except maybe razors. I am going through them about once a week, so I have 12 left. But it does help to keep track of weeks. This is the week of the 8th razor. And washer/dryer sheets. That's about it.
This week was really normal, nothing really amazing. It was nice to have a normal week and not have some of the problems that we had last week with the Zone. They should release us any Sunday, but we'll see what happens.
Elder Costa from the Seventy came and he was really enjoyable. He's from Brasil and shared his conversion story and the importance of planning. Really good. In the TRC-Teaching Resource Center-we teach a lesson a week to BYU students who speak Portuguese and it's really cool, but some of them are really hard. When Elder Fuller and I knocked on the door, one of the teachers/tutors opened it. My heart hit the ground because he's really good, but he is also really, really hard at the TRCs. Like fighting Darth Vader with a toothbrush. And not a real toothbrush, one of those fold-in-half travel ones.
We sat and tried to get to know him, but he told us (in Portuguese, which I understand a lot of, but I'm having problems speaking, but it'll come) that we weren't the other Elders who had been teaching and asked how we could teach him anything, because we were so young. He then told us he was a doctor and that we didn't know anything. It was a really intense moment. But the Spirit took care of us and with some very ugly Portuguese I managed to explain we were representatives of Jesus Christ and that a prophet had called us to teach him.
That's about it this week. It really has been slower and more studying and waiting for news about leaving. I'll try to get some pictures for Christmas, but the picture printers don't work here and BYU doesn't really take care of the bookstore here, so I might not get anything until after Christmas. Sorry.
Love, Elder Barton
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