CTM Weeks 6 & 7

Sao Paulo! Brazil is really cool. Sao Paulo is huge. The city just keeps stretching off into the distance in every direction. I have been companions with Elders Francis and Welburn for the last week. They were my roommates in Provo who left a week before I did. Elder Toala just showed up today and we are companions again. On the trip over, we couldn´t land in Dallas Fort Worth because of a thunderstorm. We had to land at a maintanance hanger nearby and wait in line to be refueled. After 2.5 or 3 hours we finally were able to take off again. We took off, made a big u turn and landed 10 minutes later. We were so low that I could read the signs on the front of stores. It was so weird because we were so close to the main airport, but we weren´t near the storm. It must have been directly over Dallas Fort Worth. Anyway, all the flights were delayed, even our flight to Sao Paulo. But, we took so long refueling that we missed our flight by about 10 minutes. The church put us up in the local LaQuinta Inn. It was weird sleeping in a real bed. A soft one. My roommate was Elder Reeves. His girlfriend and Carolyn just met online the week before so we had a lot to talk about. In the morning we went down to the continental breakfast and enjoyed some pancakes shaped like Texas. I couldn´t believe it. Only in Texas... We then had the opportunity to spend from noon to 7:10 in the airport. It was a little boring. After a while I was feeling pretty unproductive, tired, and lazy and felt like I needed to do something. We had each recieved 2 pass a long cards with our travel documents from the church. So, I said a prayer and told Heavenly Father that I would like to give both of my cards away and asked for help with talking to strangers in an airport. I got up and asked if anyone wanted to join me and Elder Meredith said he would. We went to the map of the floor and looked at it. I asked Elder Meredith where he wanted to go and he said he wanted to head toward this weird musical walls thing over in the corner of the airport. I looked at the map and the gates that were nearby. D16, D17, D18. After looking at it for a few more seconds I said lets go. So we started walking. In front of the board that says the status of all the flights I noticed that someone had dropped a boarding pass. We picked it up. It was for a flight out of D18. We went to D18 and stood in line to turn it in. While we were standing there we saw a family walk over and sit down. the daughter started checking her pockets. Then her parents. We walked over and asked if they had lost their boarding pass. They said yes. We gave it to them and they were really grateful. We started talking and at the end of the conversation I gave them a pass a long card. Crazy. I was expecting to do more work than that, but sometimes are prayers are answered quickly. I was able to give my other pass a long card out later also. After that it was a reallly good day. We had an overnight flight to Brazil and the next morning I was in Sao Paulo. I sat directly in the middle of the plane so I couldnt see anything. The only windows I could barely had the wings blocking the view. So i didnt see brazil until we landed. The CTM is pretty neat. The Brazilians are super friendly. We get to go outside and buy the things we need in the nearby streets on p-day. So its been pretty fun here.

MTC 5/Brazil

I got my visa yesterday! I'm pretty stoked. I am leaving on Tuesday. I'm flying to Dallas at 2:30 and flying out at 7 something. Then overnight to Brazil. Sister Kersh, a sister an my district also received her visa at the same time. Another Elder from our newest district just got his visa today. So that district will be down to one elder and our zone will be down to 9 missionaries on tueday. Unless we get more visas on monday then it could be even smaller. When the intercom beeped, the voice asked "is Elder.................................. is in the room?" The intercom cracked so nobody heard what the name was. He repeated it, so I went down to the travel office. When we got there he asked us if Sister Kersh was coming too. Apparently he had said her name during the long pause of intercom static. So we came back to the room and said there was another visa. This one, for one of our two sisters. One of the sisters(the one who didn't get her visa) started freaking out. We might have taken a long time getting to the point of who it actually was. But you need to do something after you get your visa. Everyone always hides their visa and makes up some lie about how the consulate messed up their paperwork so they had to reapply. We went with a different approach.

So having my visa probably means I will have to talk on Sunday, along with Sister Kersh. My zone leader status won't grant me immunity anymore. Leadership positions normally don't speak in church, but we are all so small, everyone has to play a part. I was also asked to teach on Sunday in our combined district meeting, and give a short lesson about district goals on monday.

The BYU Mens Choir came to the MTC on Sunday night for our fireside. It was awesome. They sang all kinds of songs. Everyone's favorite was a Maori song from New Zealand. It was awesome and the harmony was crazy cool. They also sang a really cool Hungarian song. Everyone loved it. The fireside was a nice break from our daily routine.

We taught for completely in Portuguese for the first time yesterday. We made it through and I thought it went rather well. I guess that's what a week of prayers will do. =) Elder Toala is convinced I can speak Portuguese fluently, but he must not have been in the same room as me. I was very happy how it turned out though. Well, my next email will be coming from the MTC in Sao Paulo. I'll will be there for about three weeks, so when everyone has the desire to write me everyday, go ahead and send me a Dear Elder. I don't know if snail mail will get there on time. Well, probably for a week or so, but not after that. The mail takes 2 or 3 weeks from what I hear. Tchau!

Elder Siemers

1 Month!

Elder Siemers hit the ONE month mark today!

- but who's counting? ;)

As of last Saturday, when Carolyn (Matt's mom) checked on his visa it had gone through. We're hoping any day now he will find out that he is on his way to Brazil.

MTC Week 5

Visas have been flying in. We got three visas for our district this week and a few more from our zone. Our zone is going to be tiny next week after everyone leaves. I'm quite sure about my visa at this point.

Elder Toala is now the other Zone Leader with me. Elder Farley is now our District Leader. He has been a really good leader. This week has been really good for our district. We had two meetings that were really nice and brought us closer together. One was a lesson on virtue and we spent a whole hour discussing it. It was awesome.

Elder Toala focused on improving our teaching this week. I think we made huge improvements. We came up with analogies and questions to teach the lesson instead of having us just talk. This also made us more excited to teach because our lessons were more fun to talk about. So we improved in quite a few ways. Next week we have to teach our first lesson completely in portugues. That should be interesting.

General Conference was really nice. It was very encouraging and uplifting. There were a lot of talks on service and loving one another.

Busy week, but I don't really know what to write about. I've got two more letters to write so I'm gonna go do that.

Elder Siemers

MTC Week 4

Not much to report this week. I wrote quite a few letters today so, I don't want to repeat myself too much with this email.

Guess what? I'm a Zone Leader. Last weekend our current Zone Leaders were released and our current district leader, Elder Lott, and his companion, Elder Serafin, were moved into the positions. My companion, Elder Toala was made District Leader, and one of our sisters, Sister Wells, was made coordinating Sister. Our other two sisters, Sister Kersh and Sister Percival were made music coordinators. That's a bunch of leadership for our Zone/Branch coming out of our District. A lot of the older districts left this last week, so we are now one of the older ones even though we have only been here 3 weeks. Anyway, Elder Serafin received his visa the next day so he was a Zone Leader for less than 24 hours. I was picked to replace him. It's been pretty cool. We welcomed a new district into our zone this week. One of the new missionaries is the twin brother to Elder Larsen in our district. I felt prompted a few times by the spirit to teach the new district a couple things, so that was really neat. It built my respect and my testimony for leadership positions. They are really important, no matter who is in them. Elder Lott, the other Zone Leader, got his visa today. He leaves on Tuesday, so I don't know who is going to replace him. Who knows, at this rate I might get my visa too. President Aidukites will be really sick of appointing new Zone Leaders. When I get my visa I will get to call home the night I get my visa, and when I am at the airport. Both phone calls will be really short, like 4 minutes, but they should be fun. But, it all depends on when I actually get my visa. There is no ryme or reason to when or who they come to.

We got a new teacher today. Irmao Allred left us for a better paying job in Salt Lake. He was replaced by Irma Dickson. She is awesome. She went to Ribeirao Preto also. I'm the only missionary that I know of who is going there. Hardly anybody has even heard of it. No one knows where I am from, and no one knows where I am going. I'll have to get Irma Dickson to talk about Ribeirao Preto for a whole class period.

I think, as Zone Leaders, we get to pick the two people to say prayers at the devotional on Tuesday. That will be kinda crazy. Whoever we end up picking will be praying in front of 2000 + missionaries. It was either pick, or President Aidukites said we are doing it. =) I think he said the first thing though.

That's pretty much it for the week. It was really good. Tchau!

Elder Siemers