July 27, 2011

Dear family and friends,

I would really like to answer all of your questions but unfortunately they only give us thirty minutes to write our e-mails. When I get out of the CTM, I will make sure to answer all of the questions about this place that gives me cabin fever.

The pen grew a leak because it must have fallen and broken or something, causing all the ink to run out; so the pen is gone. So, I kind of gave up on pens for now. I wrote you guys a letter with it but midway through it ran out of ink. So, I have a laser pointer that might be useful if I have to speak at Zone Meetings or something later on; but for now, I found some gel pens which are probably the best type of pens ever at the store. They are not my favorite type of pens, but they will suffice for now. I won´t use pencils because I don´t believe in them.

It´s good to hear that the trek went well, and I am very sad to hear that Bishop Wilson died. [Note from Shelly - Bishop Wilson did NOT really die, he just pretended to die for the sake of the trek experience. Oh, and Kevin knows that too :).] He was a great man. I will certainly miss him. At least he came back to help the family so they all know he is doing well in the next life. The funeral must have been very emotional. I would have thought, though, that if somebody died on the trek, they would have stopped it; but I guess not.

The branch President here is pretty cool and he knows what he is talking about. Every now and then, he comes into our district meeting on Sunday and listens to the lesson. All of the speakers here are from Brazil, but they are usually stake presidents or something. Once, though, President Clark (who is the CTM president) had his son give a talk here at the CTM. Every now and then we watch a Devotional where an Apostle speaks at the MTC in Provo, and last night we watched Elder Holland. He gave an extraordinary talk about why we need to follow rules and how we need to tune ourselves to perfection every second of the mission, and how we need to perform our mission so that we do not regret a single day of it and wish to do it over again. This is what I needed to help me know how to be a successful missionary.

I finished all the books in the Missionary reference guide that I brought from home. It includes Jesus the Christ, Our Search for Happiness, and Our Heritage. All of them increased my testimony of the Gospel and the Atonement. They were great books.

I think that it is sweet that Henry remembers me in his prayers. I want to know, though, what Charlotte does to pick on Henry.

The elders in my district are all pretty chill, and we all like to have fun. Some are a little more serious than others and some are bi-polar and I have no idea when they are in a serious mood or a funny mood. Almost all of them are from farms or something close to that, so they all have similar stories and senses of humor. I think the only city people here are me and Elder Wible. He is from some city in Utah, but I don´t know exactly where.

My teachers are Brazilian and they are pretty awesome.

I can´t wait to leave the CTM and get into the field. I leave on the 9th of August and I am so excited. Oh yeah: I have to remind you now that you have to get ready to send letters to my mission home in the field. I don´t know the address so I will find out and tell you next week.

It is always great to hear from all of you. I got the wedding invitation for Tessa and Dan; it was good to see it. Good luck with everything. I love you all.

(My district thinks I´m weird because I prefer chips over dessert.)

Love you,
Elder Kevin Brady