Email from Aric

We received this email from Aric and he said to pass it along. Enjoy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Querido familia,

I'm doing well, I love you all. The MTC is really awesome. Its right across from the Provo temple on BYU campus. and the temple is part of the MTC campus.  This morning my district went to the temple. It was great to go and be reminded of the blessings the Lord has given to me. It was very crazy. We got up at 5:45 and left at 6:30 for the temple. My campanion, Elder Stradley, and I didn't get to do iniatory work until after 8:30.   I love being here, it is so very hard.
From day 1 we were fully immersed into Portugues in our class. Our teacher, sister Ririe, is only allowed to speak Portugues, except with special circumstances.

The second day we had our first investigator to teach in Portugues. Not a reall investigator btw. Tacio, our investigator, technically is a real person down in Brasil, but the person pretending to be him, taught Tacio for real and is being Tacio to help teach us to teach by the spirit.  It is so hard here, you are literally forced to rely on the spirit or else sink.  Its "do or die", but I love it! 

The food here is AMAZING.... it all is delicious.  

I think the best part about being here besides how incredibly strong the spirit is here, is how beautiful the mountains are and how quickly we're learning the language.  I barely could pray (in Portugues) before i got here. By day 3 i was able to pray and bear my testimony. Now i can say pretty normal prayers, bear a full testimony, and teach simple lessons.

I LOVE my companheiro, sua nome e Elder Matthew Stradley. He's from West Jordan UT and he is going to Boston Portuguese speaking with me. There is one other elder going to the same but he has been here for a few weeks longer, but i haven't met him. There are 8 other elders in our district and Elder Stradley e eu share a room with 4 of them. They all are such great guys but they all are going to Brasil. In fact they're waiting on their visas in order to go to the MTC in Brasil. One already has his and leaves wednesday so Elder Stradley and I will be in a threesome with Elder Cain.  The elders in my district are (by companionships) Me, Elders Stradley, McClellan, Winkel, Landwehr, Cain, Dattilo, Jones, Peterson and Mangum. Elder Peterson is the District Leader. These guys are such awesome young men.

Our district is part of a branch made up of Portuguese and Italian elders and sisters. It blows my mind how much portugues and italiano is similar, sunday i could actually understand the italian speakers.

So about Emails, i can recieve email from everyone in the world, but i am only allowed to email to my family. However, if you want, and many families do, you can forward my email to people, which i'm totally fine with if its not really personal. However, Eu se AMO CARTAS!  I love letters keep them coming, we all get soo excited about mail and our DL checks every day except sunday. So send them and tell everyone my PO Box number... I did get the scriptures and loved the pack.  btw i cant have gum at the mtc but candy is perfecto por favor send candy and idk if you can send IBC but i would love rootbeer they dont have any thats caffeine free here.  Anyways i have to go, nearly outta time and have to get laundry from dry(er). 

I love you all and go ahead and pass this on.

Vaya com Deus,

Elder Aric Mullins