Week #8

Tue at 6:07pm Oct. 13, 2009

Hello family!

Things are getting pretty insane out here. We have started hearing rumors that we will be leaving the CTM even earlier than we thought. An entire week might get cut of our stay here at the CTM. There is a mission president conference of some sort going on and we were originally going to leave about 4 days early so that our mission president would be around to greet us and what not. Now the rumors are that we are leaving six days earlier. Elder Scott is going to be speaking at the CTM and we will either just barely be here to hear it or just barely not be here. Either way, I would love to hear him or I would love to get out into the field. I´ll be happy either way. If you want to send anything to me you should start sending it to the mission home from this point on otherwise I wont get it. I remember you mentioning something about other people saying that they sent me stuff. I haven´t gotten anything. haha. This Friday I get to go proselyting again! This time it will be out of our boundaries at some big park! I am so thrilled!

Duties as the Assistant to the president are interesting. I feel that it is less work than being district leader, but I do have to enforce going to bed on time and make sure that all of the districts are doing fine. At night I walk down the hallways and knock on doors and give a ten minute warning and then I walk down and tell everyone lights out. Being in these leadership positions had made me realize the kind of missionary I want to be and how most missionaries should try to be. I think I have said this before but I find that it is very important - There are missionaries who have to try and fix everyone´s problems. Dont be this missionary. Setting an example is the best way to help others, by telling on someone or trying to correct them, you just cause more problems. Trust me. I have had elders come to me and complain about small things. Unless someone is doing something that puts them in physical or spirtual danger than you should tell someone. If someone is not using their time wisely, don´t tell them. Its not your responsibility to do that. The district leaders should do that. The other missionary is the one who is not obedient dont be this missionary. Be obedient. If you do what you are supposed to and set an example, life is great. For you and for others.

So the other day, Elder Barker and I went to T.E. (Teaching Experience) where we can practice anything we want with an instructor. We taught the 3rd lesson in portuguese. The instructor asked us at the beginning if we wanted him to be an easy, medium or hard instructor. We said medium. As we finished teaching about repentence, he stopped us and told us that we are speaking great portuguese and that so far we have understood everything he said. He then changed to be a hard investigator. We struggled with finding out what his concern was and when we did find it out we were out of time to address it.

I have tried sending you some e-mails with pictures attached. I plan on eventually sending you my memory card and then you can empty it and send it back.

I sent you a picture of all of us at the airport, me and my roomates (including our two brazilian roomates), a sunset from our window, one of our instructors Irma Amato and Irmao Ramon, and maybe some random other ones.

I do not know anything about a fire. So I am very safe where I am now. (Cheri had read about a fire in Sao Paulo)

Dad thanks for the help with my bank account please keep an eye on that for me. If you feel that I am spending to much, let me know. I am trying to be conservative, but the card really helps me save paper money.

I love you all!
Elder Bullough