Lindsay, CJ

Good morning all,  Hope life is going well for all of you! This past week was a less crammed one, so this update is going to be a shorter. Thanksgiving Day I was able to eat Thanksgiving dinner with the family of Elder Eggett from my online MTC District! His dad served down in Belém, which included what is now the Teresina Mission at the time that he was serving. It was cool to be able to have a conversation about Brazil with somebody and get to know more about the area in which I will eventually be serving! On Saturday, the Portuguese-speaking Sisters, our zone leaders, Elder Sterling, and I were all able to go down to the University Place Mall in Orem and man the "Giving Machines." I hadn't heard about them before, but they are basically vending machines where you buy goats, meals, vaccines, etc. for people in need across the world rather than a bag of Doritos for yourself. It was incredible and humbling to see how many people were willing to come by to donate and help ...

Good afternoon everyone,  I decided not to put it in the subject because I wanted it to be a bigger surprise once you opened this email up, but I got an exciting phone call on Friday... my visa came in!!! No jokes! The first thing I have to say is a BIG thank you for all the prayers you offered on my behalf! The fact that my visa came in less than three weeks is nothing short of a miracle, a miracle that I'm sure would not have been possible without all of you. Even before COVID, I have never heard of a Brazillian visa being processed in any amount of time less than a month. Again, thank you all so much! This past week consisted of a lot of preparation for me leaving the area and Elder Romero leaving the country. We did our best to get everything wrapped up on the mobile side of things and to get our physical side (packing, cleaning, etc.) figured out as well. On Tuesday, our big project consisted of going down to Orem to record audio for a music video that will soon be coming out ...

Bom dia pessoal,  This is going to be a interesting one for me to write; this past week has gone by so fast, and yesterday I was told some information that had not been expected. I'll also take this opportunity to apologize for not taking any pictures of myself. I've got to start thinking about that throughout the week! Last Monday, the district went out to Thanksgiving Point again, this time to go to the driving range and seeing some golf clubs. I used my golf pants for (believe it or not) golf for the first time and naturally had to wear my sweater vest and blue collared shirt to fit the part. I am, after all, part Scottish, so golfing should practically be a religious experience for me.  To do an early celebration of Elder Romero's departure to Portugal, we visited Braza Grill, a Brazilian steakhouse just like Rodizio or Tucanos. There are a lot of Brazilians that work there, and it was really cool to talk to the wait staff in Portuguese about where they're from and ...

Olá todos, Como vocês estão?  Take a look down at the pictures and take a guess where I am! If you guessed Orem, you'd be right on! Congrats! Funny enough, this week was my first time visiting Orem since being in the Utah Orem Mission. We had to go down for an oil change at a specific shop down there and ended waiting over two hours for that to get done. We took the opportunity to go to Pho Plus, a Vietnamese restaurant that I highly recommend if you're ever in Provo or Orem, and a little Brazilian shop named Via Brazil. It was a cool opportunity to see some of the foods, drinks, and other goodies I might come across when I get down to Brazil right here in Utah! The woman who owns the store has a few shelves set apart for copies of the Book of Mormon, pamphlets about the restoration of the gospel, and the phone number of the Portuguese missionaries in the area there for anyone who is interested. She told us we needed to bring her more to give away, as people had regularly been ...

Oi pessoal, Feliz novembro! This past week was a full, quick, one. A lot different than last week. In starting this update, and in sharing one of this week's highlights, I'd like to testify of the power and reality of personal revelation.  This past Tuesday, I was doing my personal study in the working when I got the impression to reach out to my MTC companion, Elder Lucas, and ask him a quick question about the visa process for Brazil. After doing all on my initial paperwork in June and notifying them of its completion, the travel office in Salt Lake City had told me to not ask for updates and wait to be contacted by them for the actual visa application.  On Tuesday I had a prompting to contact Elder Lucas, who had recently submitted his application and paperwork, to see if there's anything he had done to get to that point. He said he was glad I reached out and told me I ought to contact the travel office anyway, as that is how he was able to get his go-ahead. I sent a qui...