Saturday, September 14, 2013

Out of Here

Hello Family, Friends and fellow countrymen.

This was my last full week here at the Missionary Training Center.
If you are reading this, you were just asked to give a referal to your local missionaries!  You should feel like your life is lacking drive and meaning until you do so, then you will feel better.
This last week was nice.  I got me some travel plans a week ago on Friday.  I leave Tuesday morning at 4:30 in the morning.  I get into Boston at about 2:20 our time, and have a 7 hour layover in which I will call.  I will probably just call our house and Brad.  I have a decent chunk of calling capabilities and so I will call home and after I talk to people, I will try to call Dad and Brad so if you can find out their schedule if they aren't at our house.  i get to Cape Verde at like 9:00 Wednesday morning in Cape Verde time.
So on Saturday I was coming back from gymn and stopped and I heard the snares playing shots during something at the BYU game.  I assume that that was Brad.
I also ran into Justin Liu on sunday which was awesome since we overlapped like 3 weeks at home but I never saw him.
Sunday I had my musical number in sacrament meeting and in one of the departing devotionals.  In the morning I talked to my accompanist, Brother Wilson of my Branch Presidency, and the person who said they were going to call him and tell him when the musical number was didn't and so he had no idea and couldn't make it because of a previous commitment, so I went and talked to my MTC-long friend, sister Nally who is the MTC Relief Society President, and Wife of the MTC president.  On my way there was when I ran into Justin Liu.  Also while I was in there, I talked to Sister Mack who is in the 3rd ward I think who was there showing something to Sister Nally.
I ate at the temple this week which was not even that good of food, but compared to MTC food it was incredible.  It was the best worst cheese cake I have ever had. 
Classes and such are pretty much normal.
We had infield orientation all day yesterday which was good.  We were in meetings from 8-5:30 with like 2 small breaks.  They talked about a bunch of missionary stuff.  Imagine that.
Most of my friends got their re-assignments yesterday because they are waiting on visas.  Only a few of us are actually going to the mission we were called to next week.  They are going to the following places: New York South, California Redlands, California Something Else, Atlanta Georgia, St George Utah, Tallahassee Florida, Something else, and something else.  They are all excited, and we are all excited to leave.
I got the 16 packages which by far broke the MTC package record.  They put my picture up and I went back today to take a picture of it and it was gone, and they don't know what happened to it.  :(  I am going to go ask again once the people working there change.
Also, the subject last week was Zarabatana.  That was on purpose.  It does mean blowgun.  This weeks fun word in Portuguese is fofo (foh-foh or foh-foo depending on where you are in the world).  It means fluffy, of soft (referring to fabric), or sweet (referring to a person)

Well, that is pretty much it I think.

Summer: No, I am not excited to leave the MTC.  This has become my home and I want to stay here the whole mission.  Just kidding.  I am super excited.  This place isn't designed to keep people happy here any longer than they are supposed to.  It is kind of like if you had school 2 times every day every day of the week with 5 times as many rules.  

Ryan: I am doing great.  It's cool that Mrs Billings is using computers for points and stuff.  I am fluent enough to be able to understand my companion most of the time. There are lots of fun things to say.  Estam muitos coisas divertido para dizer. I am excited to go to a remote island.  Someone was saying they just got hit by a hurricane.  Maybe you can look it up and tell me what you learned if it did happen.  Did you sing at the fireside?

Kelsey: I would love to share with my companion all of your embarrassing stories!  Thanks for writing me and telling me to.  If you hadn't written, I wouldn't have known that I was supposed to do that.  I know some good ones like the time you stowed away without shoes.

Lindsey: Sounds like fun in French.  We also have 2 are verbs in Portuguese whereas in English we only have one. Ser and Estar.  The people that speak portuguese don't even think of the two verbs as connected or related at all, and so we have to be super careful to use the right verb because it can change completely what we are saying.  For example, "Eu estou com soúde" means I am sick, while "Eu sou com soúde" Means I am mentally ill.  Good luck with your SBC. (At least I think that is what it was called. Sponge bath certification right?). Three weeks is a long time to do one thing.  Haha. Yes I know Megan Mitchell.  We talked about that before I left remember!  That's sweet that Ethan and Davin are in your math class.  I love them.  My companion and I are investigators for other missionaries in our district, and I am using Davin's name because it is so sweet.  What are you doing to be a missionary?

Dad: My companion and I think it's fantastic that you are taking classes.  I'm glad to hear that people are coming over.  Have we had any missionary discussions at our house or at anyone else's house in our ward?  That could be a great option to help investigators.  Also, My companion's ward had missionary sunday every so often when everyone would bring a non-member to church and all the talks would be about the missionary discussion, or be the missionary discussions.  Maybe our ward can try that.

Mom: Pay tithing on whatever comes.  There should be probably 4 more work checks coming.  They will probably get here in like November or something.  They will probably have conference ensigns when I get there.  It sounds like Mr Taylor is doing a fantastic job.  Tell him I'm proud of him next time you see him.  It's good to hear that I can be ensure for the foreseeable future!  Good work on reporting.  You and Summer and I guess indirectly Dad were the only ones I think that reported on being missionaries.

I have heard from the following friends: Jill Hughes, Jeff Rawlins, Clay Adair.  If that isn't your name, feel free to send me an email or paper letter.  I'm sure anyone older than 5 can show you how!

Love,
Elder Sampson

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