Life at the CTM

So the CTM [Portuguese for MTC] experience is going great right now we are all having to teach entire lessons in Portuguese and stuff like that so its been pretty exciting to see how bad I am at teaching hahaha. It's getting harder and harder because we have to teach a complete lesson to fake investigators now, and we cannot look at any notes. And it's also ALL in Portuguese so that's great. Haha.

The food here is still not good and all my friends who were here before me left for their missions so this place is so flippin empty! There's just a bunch of Brazilians around me and the only thing I can really say to them is hi, how long have you been here, where is your mission, and maybe a couple of other things haha but the language is coming! it's coming much faster than if I was learning in high school or something because I have dom de linguas which is the gift of tongues!!!!

My teachers are so awesome here and they are super funny. the CTM is super decorated with lights and Christmas trees to celebrate Christmas so it's been pretty cool! I've also used the tinsel you sent me and decorated our room with it. I had my first p-day last week and it was sooooo fun. here at the CTM in Brazil we are allowed to go out on the streets which no other CTM allowes. so Me and my district went to a hamburger place and ate some super raw burgers that were really good and then I bought some ties from a guy who sells them out of his trunk of his car. not suspicious at all haha.

I had a pretty good sized cockroach in my suitcase the other day. Don't worry, I exterminated it swiftly, but it was pretty fast. I haven't seen any in there since.

Kollin comes home tomorrow so that frickin awesome!!!! He's been an amazing missionary and I Look up to him and Braeden!! oh!! so I packed my shock pen and that's been sooooo much fun to trick brazilians and other people with. So thats been a good pastime when I'm not studying or teaching.

I'm calling home on Christmas day from 18:30-19:00 and the time difference is six hours so mi familia better be ready haha. I'm running out of time to write but everything is going great here. There's a missionary in our district who is a good kid but he's been struggling pretty hard for a while. I've tried a lot to serve him and make him feel better. Me and Elder Julia gave him a blessing of comfort last nice so he's definitely going to be feeling better after that.

I love you and and can't wait to serve my Heavenly Father and the people of Brazil!! the CTM is already kind driving me crazy so ya. I Can't wait to get out into the field!!!!

LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!

Elder Whelan

PS: I sent some stuff to you about the cookie shop, I don't know if you got it or not.

[Editor’s note: if you’d like to purchase a Care Package for Elder Whelan, especially for Christmas, you can purchase things at Mr. Cheney’s Cookies, and he can pick them up on his P-days, Wednesdays. https://www.missionties.com/product-category/care-package/cheney/ ]