A new Elder

August 25th

Another week has already gone by. The days still feel long but the weeks feel really short. We got a new member added to our district on Tuesday. He was waiting on his visa so when he arrived our trio got split up. He is really big on working out so that is what most of his comments have been about so far. He told Elder White that he wants to lose some of his upper body muscle because he wants to run faster. I thought that was really funny-especially cause he's just above average in body size. He seems like a cool guy but its weird having a new elder here. All of us are real close now so I feel kinda bad for him. But we still have almost 3 weeks to get to know him so I'm not too worried.

The language is starting to come along. I can finally understand most of what my teachers are saying and I have started to teach without planning every word I want to say. I think by the time I leave ill be good enough to understand everything the instructors are saying. Just in time to go out in the field and not understand anything all over again.

Last pday I got my hands on a pretty sweet Brasil futbol jersey. I guess there's a player with the last name of Jesus so now I get to represent Jesus in more than one way. I also finally met someone who is younger than me. He is part of the new group of elders and he's a month younger. I'm pretty sure that I was the youngest in the CTM before he came. Most people are a year older than me so you could say that I hang with the older kids. It is also really hard to stay awake during some parts of the day. Personal language study has become tough because I have to try really hard to not fall asleep. Studying language isn't exactly entertaining.

We got to go proselyting last Saturday and it was awesome. My companions were both pretty scared to talk to people at first so they said I had to go first. The first guy I talked to was super interested so we were able to get his information. Even through our broken Portuguese you could still feel the spirit. It was awesome. The rest of the time wasn't nearly as successful- most people would just avoid eye contact and ignore us and the people who did talk to us were homeless people who just wanted money but it was still really fun. Can't wait until I can do that every day.

I'm really loving the CTM. Every day is just so much fun. I think a lot of that is because of my district so I'm definitely not looking forward to the bad companions I know ill eventually have. But for now I'm just enjoying it. So glad I decided to serve!

Love,
Elder Odom