Dear Family and Friends,
I begin this letter on Sunday, the afternoon of the 27th. I will likely complete it only before I send it on Tuesday.
Dad, thank you so much for the talks you sent me. I spent a few hours of my study time here analyzing them, searching the scriptures, etc. I love you so much and I’m very grateful you are my father. You’re the best! I love the part of the talk concerning the difference between spiritual and secular learning. Spiritual is so difficult, for me, someone so schooled in typical, common applications of reason and logic. I hope to learn out here how to learn spiritual truths as well as I do for other things. Being immersed in the gospel of Jesus Christ will certainly help.
In Priesthood meeting today in our branch (Each hallway is assigned to a branch that meets in a part of the CTM for Sunday services) one of the presidency members, President Wilson, who is a doctor and served a mission in Samoa, said that if we learn by reason alone we will never understand the spirit. The Scriptures show that most times, the Spirit must be felt. It delivers distilled truth straight to your heart, and you can’t apply logic to it, you’ve got to remember the answer you received, the feeling of it, and exercise faith and search the scriptures to get more out of it. Nothing cool or calculated about it. Every time we are touched by the Spirit, we must begin a sort of journey of awakening, and episode of heightened emotion and spiritual revelation in order to fully realize the truth we’ve received. We can’t treat the spirit like a grocery delivery boy.. we’ve got to treat the spirit with extreme respect that’s due for one of the Godhead, and when it shows up we must act as though it is a call to action and transformation, rather than a momentary experience.
I testify that I know that the Holy Spirit is a true entity, a deity, whose power guides the efforts of the servants of Jesus Christ and the lives of the participants of the kingdom of God on this Earth. When we feel the spirit, we are touched by a physical force. These aren’t mortal, human thoughts or impressions we feel, as some of my friends would argue. When the spirit reaches down and wraps us up, we briefly become one with the divine economy of God, we become a gear in the great machine of Salvation, which is the purpose of everything on this world, seen and unseen. We must honor this wonderful phenomenon whenever we are given the opportunity.
Make sure and send this letter (or a copy) back to Connor and I, I would like to keep it in my spiritual journal.
Elder Connor, Elder Dos Santos, Elder Brendon
Hmmm.. What has happened recently here? Oh man, action packed week. So, last Tuesday was the last day I was companions with Elder Foust. E-gads! Yes, our district received our first Brazilian roommates! Because of that they had to turn two rooms of six Americans elders into three rooms with four American Elders each. Elder Clay and Elder Cusick were split up and paired off respectively with me and Elder Foust. Elder Foust and Elder Cusick were moved to a new room, dormant because of departures the morning of. Elder Ingersoll and Elder Questereit, companions, were moved from our room to the new room, and Elder Clay took Elder Foust’s bed. You must be asking yourselfÖ. Why not just move Elders Clay, Cusick , Ingersoll and Questereit to the new room, rather than splitting up two companionships? I have no idea why they would do that. My companionship was great. But there must have been a reason higher up, among the administration. Elder Clay is a great guy, he’s been on a football team, in choir for years, and he enjoys fantasy books. He’s from Salt Lake City. I like him a lot. I get along with him well. But I’ll miss Elder Foust. The CTM is still awesome, just different now.
Anyway, our Brasileiros are sweet! Elder Souza and Elder Dos Santos I forgot which was which though. Need to look at their name tags again. The older one, is 23 and is a very outgoing, funny, humble guy. Get this: he has been in the Brazilian Special Forces for a year. He isn’t weight-lifter huge with muscles but he’s really built. He has cool stories of being on the Force, such as disabling a robber who he was chasing, by shooting him in the foot. Very interesting person. He enjoys playing Counter Strike! Hah, I look foreword to becoming his friend.
We saw a giant rat at breakfast three days ago. Not in the cafeteria.. we saw it outside the window scampering around a planter near the gym entrance. So crazy! About a foot long. Well, of course Elder Anderson, an elder in my brother’s district, books it outside. He grabbed a plastic glove and went after it, as if he could actually catch it and not get bitten. There were about five of us trying to corner the rat, but it was too fast, it leaped a couple of feet out of the planter and made for the hallway. My brother was able to stop the rat with his foot, but not for long. It shot into a laundry room full of shelves.. Lots of hiding places for the beast. By this time, there were about twenty excited elders crammed into this small room, we were looking for it.. nothing .. nothing.. Then BOOM! The rat jumped out from beneath a shelf straight into a group of ten elders! They went everywhere like bowling pins! Hah! So funny. We lost it at that point. That was exciting. I wonder if there’ll be rats in Fortaleza?
What is the population of Brazil? I keep on hearing 150 million and 180 million. I don’t have the resources here to find out specifically. Anybody?
This last Saturday we had TRC. I don’t know what it stands for, but it is the neatest thing here at the CTM. Our district separates into companionships and we sit outside of these rooms. Inside each is a Brazilian companionship. A bell rings and everyone knocks on the door. We then role-play both getting in the house, and teaching a lesson totally impromptu, in Portuguese, of course. The cool part is that there are cameras and microphones in the room, and everything we do is being watched by instructors on TV’s in another room. After fifteen minutes we have to wrap up and the instructors come in and tell us everything we need to do better. We got to teach twice, Elder Clay and I, and I thought we did well. Messed up on the First Vision in Portuguese a little, but I was very excited with what we were able to teach. You see, usually we role-play lessons with other American Elders and no supervision. In TRC it’s as close to the real deal without being the real deal. Our Brazilian counterparts understood us though.
Today, Tuesday, we were able to go to the Sao Paulo Temple for the first time. It’s only half an hour away from the CTM. Beautiful temple with some beautiful South American vegetation in the landscaping. The interior was unlike any temple I’ve seen; a lot of dark wood and gold trimming. We called it the Temple of Moths because there were these HUGE moths just hanging everywhere on the plants and exterior wall. Beautiful, furry things as big as my outstretched hand, some of them. Lots of birds in the trees there too. Did I mention that all the birds here that aren’t pigeons have this parroty, cockatiel-like look to them? Usually lime green or yellow in color. Very cool when you can see them.
Connor and I fasted for Dad on Wednesday. Just wanted you to know that.
Really nothing too exciting other than the events I mentioned for this week. Learning a lot of Portuguese every day, reading a lot of scriptures and Talmage’s "Jesus the Christ", spending as much time as I can talking to Brazilians, as usual. I’m more than half-way done though, with the CTM. I’m starting to get antsy. But we have proselyting this Friday and that’s going to be very exciting. It’ll get me through the rest of my time here, I bet. I’m doing great, its just that I want to start doing real work on the streets, you know? Ah well, soon enough!
I love you guys so much, everyone who is following my experiences, but especially my family. Connor expresses his love too. Have a great week and have a fantastic General Conference!
Love,
Elder B. Carpenter
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