Week 6 & 7 - The Longest Week

Ben is out of the MTC and in the field at last! I got a chance to speak with his mission president last Tuesday. He calls all the moms to make sure they know their child is well. What a considerate thing to do!! He is in a small city called Itajuba. His mission companion is from a small, Portuguese speaking island off the coast of Africa. It sounds like the first week out is rough. Here's his letter:

"As for me, this last week was probably the hardest week of my life, but the spirit of the Gospel and of adventure was strong enough to carry me through. Things have finally settled down now, and the work is starting to pick up. Since we last spoke, I got a haircut on that Friday at the MTC barber, and it was really cool. He was a super Brazilian guy and he did a pretty solid job overall. It was a test of my Portuguese ability, but it went really well. Then, that night, I started to feel sinus problems coming on. The next day, I felt pretty awful. I had a headache, I was running a low fever, and my nose was running hard. That was our last normal day at the CTM too, so we said goodbye to our instructors, which was really sad, and I cried profusely when Irmao Facinetto and Irma Correa bore their testimonies. But, both of them are trying to get into BYU, so I hopefully will see them again. Then, that Sunday was normal, but really long, seeing as I was super sick, and that day I had really bad nausea too, so I couldn´t eat hardly at all. Monday sucked hard, because they lock you in the auditorium all day for a really long training/orientation session that doesn´t really help you a lot, all spoken in fast, true Brazilian Portuguese. It sucked. We also got to take our last pictures with our district, some of which I will be including here. Then we said goodbye. Tuesday we left that morning, and headed for the field. The CTM really is cruel. You are stuck there with the same people, 12 hours a day, for 6 weeks, that you will bond with a ton and never see again. You learn just enough Portuguese to get by, then they launch you out the door with the worst ending ever. The guy who led the orientation was super doom and gloom too. Just like the first couple weeks of school each year. It was rough, but enough of that. I´m putting it behind me.

Tuesday I took a van for an hour and a half to Campinas, to the mission home there, where we met the President and his family and took pictures, that you´ve probably seen. Check out the Brazil Campinas Mission 2015-2018 Facebook page, it´s cool. Then we had lunch, had some interviews, then we went to the mission office and parted our separate ways. As you´ve learned, I´m now stationed in Itajubá, the furthest point of the mission, a 6 hour bus ride away. It´s so far, in fact, it´s not part of the state of Campinas. It´s part of the state of Minhas Gerais (spelling). My companion is named Elder Gomes, he´s from Capo Verde, Africa, and he speaks no English. Our first two nights we stayed in our old house, which was a complete dump. It sucked. Holes in the walls, piles of broken appliances, it was bad. It was also a 30 minute walk from the center of town, and anything useful. Now though, we have a swanky new apartment much closer to the center. We did the move on Thursday, but the real estate company lied to us, and we didn´t have any power until Saturday. This stressed out Elder Gomes a lot, but we´re doing better now. Our shower head is still broken too, but I´m learning to enjoy the cold showers. I´m slowly buying food too, as we usually only eat once a day, and I do need a bit more than that to keep going. It´s getting better though. Today we´re going to get more organized and get some more needed supplies, and even without power, this house is way, way better than the last one. We walk an absolute ton here. I´m getting used to walking about 4 hours a day, minimum, usually up and down hills.. I´ve absolutely destroyed my feet, with giant blisters and I bruised one of the toes super bad. I´m also still recovering from the illness. But things are only going to get better from here. As far as Portuguese goes, I´ve already improved a load since I got here. My thoughts are getting more complex, I´m losing my accent slowly, and I can communicate with the members and investigators way more.

Now for the good stuff. The members here are absolutely fantastic. Everyone is super friendly, and we have a couple of them that are really, really engaged in the work. We´ve had a member at every single appointment with an investigator so far, even though we only have ~50 active members here in this branch. We´ve had a couple of great meals with them as well, and two of the local young men, Rodrigo and Gabriel helped us a ton with the move. The food here is basically rice and beans with some sort of random topping, be it chicken, or spaghetti, or anything of the sort. I wish we ate more often, but when we do eat, it always tastes great. We´ve also been teaching a family of investigators, and the mother is named Tereznha. They baptized one of the daughters and her family last week, so now we´re teaching the extended family, and the mother is an elect. She keeps commitments, she´s been to church twice, and she talked with her daughter and decided to stop drinking coffee of her own volition, even though we haven´t taught her the Word of Wisdom, or even mentioned it. Elder Gomes is great at teaching investigators, and I´m learning a lot from his teaching techniques. Tereznha also had a dream last week after praying to know if the Church is true. It had a lot of similarities to Lehi´s vision. We´ll have baptisms here soon. We´re also teaching a woman named Karene, who´s 28 and a professor of Portuguese. She sought us out, and went to church last week. Overall, I´m really excited.

As for my spiritual experience, it´s been a hard week. I´ve looked to the scriptures a lot for comfort. A particular verse that really helped me is 2 Timothy, 1:7. It basically says the Lord has not given us fear. It´s spooky, being here, so far away from assistance, speaking a different language, but I know that the Lord will give me strength if I am obedient and I know that I will help do some mighty things here. Also enjoy D & C 122:7-8. It´s really good to hear that you guys back home are doing missionary work, because the help of the members really helps us. I love you all, and I know that whatever challenges come my way, I will succeed!!

Elder Murray"

Week 5 - The Gift of Tongues

Another letter from Ben and one of the last we'll receive while he's in the MTC:

"Querida Familia,

Good to hear from you again! I also got a card from Grandma Gentry, but I haven´t had time to open it up yet. It´s been super busy lately. Glad that Jacob is still winning and Gabe has a shot to get to the playoffs. I believe in Gibby! I like the Halloween costume idea too, although we´ll see if I can actually do it. They don´t celebrate Halloween a whole lot here. They have a bunch of other random holidays though, like Dia das Crianças (Children´s Day) on October 12. They dressed up our whole cafeteria with balloons and stuff, and all the lunch ladies wore colored afros(??). We also had really good food that day. It´s too bad to hear that your eye is acting up. I´ve also got a weird eye problem, where my eyelid twitches really hard at random times. It´s super annoying to me, but nobody else notices it unless they are looking super closely at me, so it´s not really that bad of a problem. Just weird. I´m also glad that you rennovated my room. Change is good sometimes, and I´m sure all the brothers are enjoying the space. Also, what are you doing with my computer? I worry about it.

This week was kinda bland compared to some of the others, but it still had it´s sweet moments. Some guy named Elder Farnbach on our floor bought a travel Chess set from one of the stores around here, so I´ve been putting my >1 hour of free time a week to good use. This same guy also had a huge chunk of the granite counter top in our floor´s bathroom fall on his foot completely out of the blue one night while I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom. It was super random and strange. They´ve fixed it up now though. We got one last new Elder last week added to our district, named Elder Flores. He´s a 23 year old Mexican guy who´s also going to Campinas. He´s really cool. Some come and some go every week, and this week we said goodbye to our two Brasileiro roomates, Elder Rocha and Elder Correa. They were kinda weird, oddly inconsiderate, and they liked to stay up super late, so I´m not super sad to see them go, but that means less people to practice my Portuguese on, so that´s a bummer. We had a party with cake to celebrate our 1 month here in Brazil earlier this week. Other than that, it´s really just been the grind. My Portuguese is getting better and better, and I´m ready to head out to the field next week. It´s hard to keep from plateauing here, so I´m hype to get out and speak with actual Brazilians all of the time. I leave next Tuesday, and I have no idea when my P Day will be in the field, so IDK when you´ll get my next message. 

I´ll end with some more spiritual stuff again. First, we had a great story a week ago that I forgot to share. This speaker at our devotional, Irmão Braga, who works at the CTM now, was telling us how they called him the freezer missionary. One of the companionships in his zone when he was a zone leader was struggling to find people to teach, when they recieved a new freezer that week, during his exchange with them. He had a spiritual prompting to keep the box, so he did. He then got a crazy idea. They´d show up at people´s homes with the freezer box, and tell them they had a gift for them, if they´d listen to their message. Then, when they agreed, they´d open the freezer box and give them a Book of Mormon! The next week, that companionship baptized 10 people. 

The other story is from my own life. I have been here for 5 weeks now, and that´s not a lot of time, but I have learned so much Portuguese it´s insane. At last night´s devotional, normally we use headphones with an english translator, and I was sitting there listening to the translator, and I have a thought. The Spirit told me to take off my headphones, and try and understand in Portuguese. I had no idea if I could, but I followed it. I understood more with the headphones off than with them on. I could understand his whole message, in a language I have spoken for 5 weeks, and it was the best discurso I have heard here so far. The Gift of Tongues is real. I know it is. I´m so grateful for the opportunity to be here and to serve a mission. Eu sei que esta Igreja é verdadiera. Eu sei que Jesus Cristo vive. I know this coming week will be one of the hardest of my life once I hit the field, but with the Lord, I can do anything. I will succeed!

Elder Murray"

I am so glad he is being blessed with the language! That can be a huge difficulty for lots of elders or so I hear. I am looking forward to hearing from him once he's in Campinas!

Week 4 - Conference Time!

I almost named this one "Drunk Guys and Witch Hunts" but we are focusing on the positive! Here's the news from Brazil this week:

"As far as stuff I´ve been doing here, life is pretty good. This week was pretty cool, so I´ll break it down day by day. Quarta-feira, a week ago, we bought some random stuff in Brazil, then enjoyed pizza night. Not too exciting.

Quinta-feira not a whole ton happened. We mostly just refocused on our goals to speak more Portuguese. Kinda boring.

Sexta-feira was awesome. To prepare for the epic occurence later, we did a jejum de ingles, or an English fast, where we didn´t speak any English all day. That day was our first time going out into the world and proselyting! We were each given three Livro´s de Mormon, so six per companionship. We went out to this market on top of this massive bridge that people walked over. We gave out all of ours in like 35 minutes even though we had a whole hour. We mostly talked with older men who weren´t moving too quickly, as they were the majority of the population up there and the most likely to talk to us. Our first Book of Mormon we gave out to a super drunk guy who was leaning on a wall so we didn´t notice it at first, but then he moved and he nearly ate it on the side walk. He gave us both hugs as thanks for the gift, and I checked all my pockets to be sure he didn´t steal my crap. It was a really cool experience overall. The buses in this city are absolutely crazy too, they just yolo all over the place, right next to people, cars, anything, and all the roads are super bumpy, so it´s like surfing if you try to stand up at all. It felt really great to go out and do actual missionary work, even when some guy faked a phone call so we wouldn´t talk to him. We also got our first member referral, as some guy was just walking along with his friend, and he turned around and came up to us and said that he was a member and his friend wasn´t. We got to give him a LDM and share our testimonies in Portuguese. It was really cool.

Sabado was mostly General Conference. We watched both Saturday sessions that day, and I really enjoyed a lot of the talks. Holland´s talk about Moms was fantastic. You should really check it out. We also nearly got in a fight with the Hispanics on our floor because they have no idea how to follow the laundry schedule. They took all of our clothes out of the drier and combined them on the washer so that they could dry the clothes that they should have been done with 3 hours before. We posted a guard by the drier and then later, when I had lost three g-tops and we had found a bunch of random clothes in our pile, we went on a witch hunt for the guy who left his shirt in our pile. He never fessed up, which was good for him and for us because it´s not very Christ-like to beat up another Elder in the MTC. We made up with the hispanic guys in the end, and hugged it out but I still have no idea who stole my clothes cause they´re all like 5 5. 

Domingo was even more Conference. We watched Priesthood that morning, and both other sessions. Nelson´s and Bednar´s talks both nearly made me cry, and I think Bednar´s talk is maybe the most powerfully I have ever felt during a talk. Really really really good. I also enjoyed Schwitzer´s talk, you should check that one out again, cause he´s just one of the seventy, but it was a great talk. Overall, Conference here at the MTC was a really really cool experience. It´s rare that you can focus that hard on Conference, and I feel like I got a ton out of it, spiritually and knowledge wise. That night one of the toilet´s in our bathroom flooded and there was poop water all over the floor, you couldn´t get to the sinks, the showers, or the bathroom proper without stepping through it. Some guy mopped it up, but guess what, some random Braziliero flushed the same toilet again the next morning. It was rough, but good news was yet to come.

Segunda-feira we were told that we were getting a room change! There are so many Sisters now that they moved us up to the 5th floor to make more room for them next week. We had to pack all of our stuff and move in yesterday. Crazy stuff, but that means we didn´t have to be in the bathroom with the flood toilet anymore!!! Sweet deals! Other than that, we spoke a lot of Portuguese and taught a lot of lessons. 

Terca-feira was yesterday, and it was really pretty uneventful. We´ve been doing 150 pushups a night, so that was pretty good. In fact, if Dad wants to send me that 100 pushup challenge pamphlet it would be cool. We also spent about an hour while we swept the patio for service trying to figure out the opening to Love Comes Quickly by the Pet Shop Boys, and eventually Elder Westenhaver remembered it. 

Today we went to the Campinas Temple this morning, and it was absolutely jaw-dropping. It´s on this huge hill that overlooks the city of Campinas, and seeing my mission area was really cool. The inside was really beautiful too, with one stain glass wall that was like 45 feet high. It was super awesome. I´m getting tons of really good pictures that I´ll send as soon as I get to a computer where I can send them. I plan to see if I can find a hair trimmer for cheap somewhere around here, maybe I´ll learn to cut my own hair. I am now completely out of time."

Wow, love this email! Ben keeps it real, no doubt. I am glad he got to experience General Conference in the MTC. I think that's a unique experience. 

Week 3 - Big bugs and Brazilian soda

While we are waiting for autumn to arrive, we got another email from Ben. Another week into the MTC experience and he is still doing well.

" It´s also rough that the weather is so hot, but it´ll probably cool down soon there, while I get to look forward to another ~6 months of summer. Wooo."

Did we ever mention that Ben really hates the heat? Lol.

"Too bad your letter didn´t get here, but it´s a little
funny because I have to check the mail box twice a day here, and we´ve
literally only had one letter. I joke that I keep checking just to
make sure we don´t get any mail. With the
district this week we got three new elders, Elder Ponder from Boulder
with the worst hair of all time, Elder Ellis from Kansas who looks
like a 40 year old man, and Elder Herbert from Jersey who is a black
dude that is totally ripped. They are all pretty cool, and they fit
right in. We also get to go proselyting this week on Friday
(Sexta-feira here), so we get to go give out Livros de Mormon in a
square somewhere in Sao Paolo. I´m looking forward to it, but it´ll be
a little freaky because my Portuguese is still kinda of weak. Still
going to be a cool experience. It´s super crazy living here in Brazil.
We see all kinds of giant bugs, from cochroaches to mosquitoes, to
this one bug that was flying around that was, I kid you not, the size
of a baseball. It was huge. The food here at the MTC is also pretty
awesome. It´s incredibly hit or miss though. Sometimes it´s the best
meal I´ve ever had, like this taco thing with mustard or this
schnitzel style chicken, and sometimes you bite into an apple and find
a giant brown ball of rot that sprays all over your shirt. Overall
though, it´s really really good, and I´m almost coming to like the
rice and beans with every meal. The drinks are great too. There are
all kinds of weird natural juices, from basically any fruit other than
a banana. The pineapple (abacaxi) is one of my favorites. As far as
weird soda goes, we have Sukita here, which is basically orange Fanta,
and we also have Guarana, which some of the guys have taken to calling
battery acid. It´s really good, but it gives me acid reflux like 70%
of the time I drink it. That can actually help me stay awake in class
though, so it´s a mixed blessing. I also watched the Guarana instantly
kill a bug, so IDK what´s up with that. We also had a fast Sunday this
week, which was super weird, because here in the MTC they fast for
dinner the night before, then only breakfast the next day, because
lunch is the big meal here. It´s also taking some time to get used to
the 24 hour clock and metric scales. Portuguese itself is coming along
really well. I´m nowhere near fluent, but I can hold a conversation
with a lot of the Brazileiros in Portuguese, at least if they don´t
have that bad of an accent. They say it´ll take about a month and a
half for you to become fluent once you´re out of the CTM, at least if
you´re pretty good at picking up languages. The gift of tongues is
really real though. Every so often, I´ll just understand everything
that someone says, and it feels crazy. As far as sleeping goes, it´s
cooled down a bit this week, no more mid 90´s with humidity too, so
I´ve been sleeping a lot better. A lot less waking up in a pool of
sweat at least. We´ve been doing a ton of pushups lately, and we´ve
also been solving a bunch of riddles that this one guy, Elder
Farnbach, gave us. Try this one, you have 12 balls and a balance
scale. One of the balls is heavy, but you can´t tell by touch. You
have three measures to get it 100% accurately. If that sounds too
easy, what about if it is either heavier or lighter, and you don´t
know which one. It can be done. This Monday we got to watch the
funeral of Elder Richard G Scott, which had some great talks, even if
the auditorium we stay in is like ~85 degrees farenheit. D Todd
Christofferson spoke about him, and he actually served under him as a
missionary while Richard G Scott was a mission president in Argentina.
It was really cool. We also got to watch Richard G Scott´s last ever
MTC devotional, in Provo last year. That one was pretty hard to stay
awake in, because it is Richard G Scott after all, but I gave it a
good fight. I´m really excited for Conference this week, and I know
it´ll be a super awesome experience. It´s pretty easy to feel the
Spirit here. We´ve been teaching anywhere from 1-4 lessons a day to
"investigators", and Elder McGladrie and I are really getting good at
teaching in Portuguese. We´ve got a great flow, and we´ve already got
our 2 that we teach every day on date for baptism. We also had a great
devotional on Sunday night by President Farnes, the president of the
Sao Paolo Norte mission. He was a great speaker, and his motto was
LiVE. It´s Little Victories Every day, with a little i because the
emphasis is on giving to others. It was a great talk, and I got a cool
bookmark to go with it. I´m nearly out of time, but if you could post
Galatians 5 22 with this on the blog that would be great."

Galatians 5:22 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

"I´m really feeling the fruits of the spirit here, and I´ve been able to love
those that I would have hated, and I´ve been able to resolve
conflicts, where before I would have snapped. Every day I strive to
become more and more like Christ, and it´s really paying off. I love
the people I am with, and I feel like I have a family here too. I can
hardly wait to get out and start teaching in the campo! Eu sei que a
Igreja e verdadeiro, e eu sei que Jesus Cristo e meu salvador."

I am glad that Ben gave a riddle to solve, how funny! It's so fun to see his progress.

Week 2 - New shoes, hot room

It sounds like Ben is super happy at the MTC. Here are parts of his email this week:

"As for me, I am loving it here. I´ve been here only 2 weeks, but it feels like so much longer, and I can carry on full conversations in Portuguese. I´m really learning the language and culture fast, and we´ve been teaching lessons in Portuguese since day 2. I´m nowhere near fluent yet, but I´m getting better and better. I bought a pair of the sweetest shoes of all time last week too. They are made for indoor soccer, and they fit perfectly. They are blue with pink and white highlights. I´ll send a pic once I can. Shoe shopping in Brazil was a crazy experience. I barely knew enough Portuguese, but it all worked out. They cost 100 reals, like 30 bucks, so a pretty sweet deal. I also saw the coolest snakeskin shoes of all time. Maybe the coolest thing I have ever seen.

 

Luckily, I got a sweet district, and everyone here is super friendly. We said goodbye to the set of Brazileiros (Brazilians) that entered the MTC at the same time as we did, and it was bittersweet. Among them were Elder Arujo, our roomate, Elder Tobias, the most competent man ever, Elder L Silva, our English translator for a lot of conversations, and Elder Leite, the absolute worst volleyball player that the world has ever seen. I´ve still got my whole district of English speakers, 36A, though, and we get a new trio of elders from Provo this week whose visas finally got in. Additionally, I got a really good companion in Elder McGladrie. He´s from Cincinatti, Ohio and he´s a great guy. Really on top of everything. This week, Elder Westenhaver made himself a splint out of part of his binder and and ace bandage. It worked, but eventually he just went and got a real one from medical. We also sing all the time, Dave would be proud. Just about any song you can think of.

 

In other news, it´s been really, really hot in our room, and we´ve taken to calling it the oven. I´ve been sleeping in just shorts and my g´s, with no covers on and no blankets even on the bed. I basically wake up sticky from sweat every morning, but I´ve been drinking a lot of water and I´m slowly but surely adapting. We´ve also had to fight the sisters in our district for control of the AC unit in our classroom, as all the elders want it to be way colder, but all the sisters want it hotter. Slowly but surely we are figuring it out. . .  At least the food is really good here. It seems that each time I eat, it´s the best meal I´ve ever had. Sometimes it´s sketchy, but the good food is so good, it´s hard to beat.

As far as the gospel goes, it´s been super enriching here. All of the instructors are awesome, especially our two main instructors/teachers, Irmao Facinetto and Irma Correa. They´re mercy and justice, respectively. Facinetto is more laid-back and funny, and I beat him in a push up contest the other day, and Correa is extremely focused and almost violent in her teaching, which is funny, because she´s like 5 foot 1. We also have a whole other host of teachers, from our branch presidency to just the general instructors, like Mario Dias, the manager of training for the whole MTC, or classic Alan, the general manager of something. When we asked him how to conjugate a verb one time, he just looked at us, spread his hands, and said "Magico". One of the best of all is President Swensen, the President of the whole MTC. He´s a really firey speaker, and gospel doctrine with him on Sundays is awesome. Also, did you hear that Richard G Scott died? Looks like we get three new apostles at conference in 2 weeks. I´ve really had some chances to dive into the scriptures, especially the doctrine of Jesus Christ, and the Spirit. I´ve gained a newfound love for Ether 12 while I´ve been here. It´s truly an epic chapter. Read it some time this week. I´ve also got some choice quotes. "Don´t accept things as they are. The grass is always greener on the other side, because you are the gardener. You can change the world." That one was just from Elder Westenhaver. I don´t have my notebook with me or I´d send more. Also, read the missionary purpose together as a family. All of that stuff that we invite investigators to do, I invite you guys to do too. Learn more about the gospel, come unto Christ, have faith in him, think about the covenants that you have made, repent, and use the spirit a little more. It will be worth it. I´ve already seen it in my own life."

His emails are really getting spiritual! But that's to be expected from where he is, and we love it. Ben would love to hear from all of you, including his friends, so be sure to stay in touch!

 

 

Week 1 - I'm in the MTC now!

Move over Friday, Wednesday has become my new favorite day! I love looking forward to hearing from Ben via email. He doesn't get much time on the computer, so after reading all his emails there isn't a lot of time left over to write. Ben asked me to go ahead with the blog so everyone that writes could hear the news.

It sounds like he is doing really well! He writes:

"I am having a great time. The food here is awesome! Lots of randommeats and beans and rice with every meal, and also great fruit juice. I got super lucky and got a really great, funny district of 3 other elders and 4 other sisters. Last Sunday I was called to be the district leader, so I get to plan some meetings and help set some goals. It is pretty cool...My companion, Elder McGladrie is from Ohio. We get a little bit of physical activity each day, but mostly we learn Portuguese. So far, the immersion technique has really worked some wonders. It is still hard to learn the language and to understand the natives, but we`re getting a ton of practice, especially with our two Brazilian roommates, Elder Arujo and Elder Rocha. They leave in just a week, which is sad, but we´ll get some new roommates then."

Ben shared a cool story about his companion:

"We've  already had one major crisis this week, when Elder McGladrie had a stone in his salivary gland. It was like a kidney stone, but it made his neck swell up a lot, and it got a little infected. His mouth hurtso much he couldn't eat or talk. We saw the medic and got him on some antibiotics, but that did not work well, so Saturday night we gave him a blessing and they took him to the hospital while I became part of a trio. An hour or so later, he came back, and they had poked at it a bit and gave him some more antibiotics and told him if he had to, he could come back in two weeks. The very next day, his stone popped out while he was brushing his teeth, and it was huge. I would send a picture but we can`t while we`re in the MTC. It was pretty awesome to see the healing power of the Priesthood less than 4 days in. I was able to help give him the blessing, and it was a pretty scary, but overall, a really spiritual experience."

I was worried he would be really badly homesick, since this is his first time away from home, so I was happy to hear the following:

"I get a little homesick sometimes, but it´s hard to have
time to, and I've tried to just focus on what I´m doing. Each time I
look out the window of my room at Brazil, it gets a little better. . . I

miss you guys, but it´s okay. I was called here to bring souls to the
gospel and to the Lord, and I will succeed!

Love, Elder Benjamin Murray"

I love hearing from Ben! It really makes my week. We are so happy he is doing well, and want to thank you all for your prayers and good wishes.

I hope they call me on a mission . . .

In April of 2015, my son got his mission call to Campinas, Brazil. The smile on his face when he read out where he was going was priceless! You can watch it here on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PPgZmjMAzs

I felt a true feeling of peace. Brazil seemed like a perfect place for Ben. Or maybe, it was just that the Lord had called him there, so it was perfect.

Going through the visa process was not for the faint of heart! Luckily we already had a passport for him from when we went on vacation over spring break. That made it easier. Somehow we got all items he needed signed and sealed. The church travel office was great and he got his visa two weeks before his mission.

We sent him off yesterday. We all did well at the airport. We watched as he went through security and he stopped and gave us the most awesome "Captain America" style salute and smile. Jacob caught him right before he did it. Great pic!

I didn't realize how tough it was going to be when I got home. There are reminders of Ben everywhere! No one could bear to go in the basement that first night (Ben's domain, lol). Every time I went in his room, I started crying. Man, we love this kid!

Today we received our first email. He arrived safely! I was so glad to hear from him! Here's an except: 

"I nearly missed my second plane because the first one ended up being delayed by so much, but I managed to get on it just in time. I ended up coming with a pretty large group of elders and sisters, who were all on the same flight as me. Some of them have already spent 2 weeks in the Provo MTC before their visa arrived, but most of them are completely new like me. I`m looking forward to getting to know them, as it seems like we have a pretty cool group of guys. I haven`t taken many pictures, but I´m not even sure that these strange computers we are on have an SD card reader, so I can`t really send you any anyways. They call Sao Paulo the endless city, because it just keeps going and going, with tons and tons of apartment buildings. It`s like a concrete forest. Apparently this is the third most populous city in the world, at 17 million people, just below New York City and Tokyo. It`s going to be awesome! I love you guys, and I hope you are all safe and well at home."

Hooray for email! Later today we got more excitement, an email from the mission president from the Brazil MTC, that they send out for the parents of the new groups that come in. What a great idea!

It's really tough to think about two whole years and how much we will miss him! But we know he is doing a wonderful thing, for himself, and for all those he teaches. He has a powerful testimony, and I think he will be a fine tool in the hands of the Lord. I like to remember the scripture "I can do all things through Christ, who strengtheneth me." We will both need it!