Nicole and her companion getting ready to head out to Sao Paulo, Brazil - 1 more week left in the MTC.

Sister Missionaries....they are the greatest!!

Can you believe that I will have been here for a whole month tomorrow? NUTS. I don't even know how time has flown so fast. Two most weeks and I'll be outta here.

Mouse(s): So one day this past week all the elders came to classes going on and on about how there was a mouse in their room. They all screamed like little girls and then threatened that they were going to throw it into our dorm window that night. Well the next day. Sister E and I were getting ready for gym and I see something scamper across the room and underneath the bed. I've never screamed so loud in my life! Who knew I was afraid of mice? So we were trying to find it underneath the bunkbed when it darted out (more screaming) and ran under our door and out into the hallway... never to be found again.

Sunday Devotional: We have devotionals every Tuesday and Sunday. And guess who came last Tuesday... ELDER RUSSELL M NELSON. I mean, no big deal, he's just AWESOME. Seriously though. He is so funny and he really pumped me up about missionary work and the lives that it can change. He truly is called of God. No doubt about it. THEN, this Sunday, A sister in my district, Sister E, played her own rendition of Called to Serve on the piano. She is the most gifted person on the piano I have ever seen. She arranged the song herself, so she had no music with her and I swear her fingers were moving at lightening speed. All 5,000+ of us missionaries LOVED it. And she was able to get me and Sister D front row seats to Devo too. SCORE! Afterwards, everyone came up to her and shook her hand like she was a celebrity!

Progressing Investigators: We are still teaching I. and B.. B. is a progressing, punk of a 16 year old, and I think our teacher, Brother M. gets a LOT of joy out of giving us troubles. I think he feels a little overwhelmed with every thing as well. Funny story, yesterday Sis D and I were talking to him about the commandments and she said something about being "trische," but Bonno thought she said "xixi" (pronounced very similarly) and started busting up laughing. So we both looked at each other so confused and he was like "xixi?? xixi??" so he grabbed one of our Portuguese dictionaries and looked it up. turns out, "xixi" means urine. awesome. haha In other news, we had a really great lesson with Iris this past week as well. We taught about families and both brought in pitures of them and told her about what they like to do and all that jazz and she LOVED it. I really felt like we related and then afterwards, she came up to us and told us that we really found our teaching style this week and that our Portuguese sounded GREAT. YAYY!!

TRC: This week we taught a woman in TRC who was actually from Brazil! It was awesome! We taught her about prayer, which was great, but that's not even the best part. TURNS OUT she's from the SPS mission! And her family still lives there and they're not members. So as she was getting emotional she quickly wrote down all the names and contact information for her family in Brazil and told us to work hard! Such a cool experiance. It finally felt real!

Reassignments: So next week is our last week in the MTC! AHH! We will be getting our reassingments on Wednesday or Thursday, so GUESS WHAT. I'll get to call you on one of those days to tell you where I've been reassigned. I'll only have five minutes, but I was thinking that I could call dad first and then he could add mom in on the second line. yes? Also, I've forgotten your phone number, dad... so yeah. I'm going to need that por favor. ALSO, I can't be reassigned to a mission that touches my home mission... sooooo I could totally get called to Seattle, or Spokane or something. So weird, right? That would be CRAY.

Sister Training Leaders: This week we welcomed in our new district. We have 12 missionaries going to the Portugal Lisbon mission. They are GREAT. We got to have a mini testimony meeting on their first day and give them a tour and all that fun stiff so it was really cool. I felt so... old. haha They come and ask us questions all the time. I feel so experianced hahah

Brazilians: Our district has met 4 Brazilians in the MTC so far. And we talk to them ALL the time. It's the greatest. Our whole district just fawns over them and their perfect portuguese. I cannot wait to go to Brazil. I am going to fall in love (in a completely sister missionary appropriate way) with every single on of those Brazialians.

Well love and miss you guys. Love all the DearElders and letters and emails. Keep em' coming!

- Sister Hargrove

PS I need grandpa's address. They sent me a pie this week! Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!

Hi everyone! It´s officially official. I´ve finished my second week at the MTC! YAY. This week was great, obvi. Didn´t get any emails from ANYONE this P-day sooooo hinthint. My email is nicole.hargrove@myldsmail.net for anyone that wants it...

I looooove getting the Dear Elders from you, mom. ALSO I found Matthew's letter and I responded to him a couple days ago. I can't remember when... oops. The MTC is like a time warp. Everyday feels like Sunday. I feel like I've been here for a year, but also like I just got here yesterday. it is WEIRD, to say the least. Also, in the world of MTC I completely forget about anything happening in the world. It's weird to think that life goes on outside the MTC grounds.

SOOO we have three investigators so far. J. Our first investigator, from Sao Paulo, brother is a druggie, works in construction (or that's his 'story' at least. He's really a MTC teacher). ANYWHO, last week we had our last visit with him and he committed to pray about being baptized. it was AWESOME. Even though he's not a 'real' investigator, I just love him. Second Investigator. B. Immigrated to Brazil from Botswana. Has a very sad family story. 16 years old. Too cool for school. and lives with a bunch of kids. We taught him for the first time. It was also AWESOME. It was the first time I had taught a whole lesson with Sister Dixon without using very many notes. SO cool. We committed him to read the introduction and Moroni 10 (which I suggest you all do too :) it's good stuff) and he said he would. We haven't met with our third investigator I. yet (tomorrow), but we are excited to see her. All of the invesitigators that our teachers are 'playing' are based off of real investigators that they actually had in the field. So it's a really neat experience.

We got a second teacher. We still have Irmao Mateer (from Scotland) and he's still the greatest person ever, but we got a second prof for the second half of the day. She is Irma Petersen and is probably the sweetest person ever. You can just see in everything she says that she has a true testimony of the church. and GET THIS. she served in Brazil and is now getting married to a Brazilian (from Sao Paulo!) Elder that she met there. He moved to the states! :)

We got a new schedule that makes our breakfast at 630, earliest in the MTC, lunch at 11, and dinner at 4. NUTSO.

I've been sick with the missionary measles all week. It's nasty. And by measles I mean the flu that's slowly making its way around our district. No fun.

Some really weird things that I look forward to at the MTC:

- Gym Time (WHAT. but seriously, that 50 min every day is my saving grace because we get to get out of the cinderblock classroom they keep us in most of the day hah)

- Bedtime at 10:30 (if I can get in bed by 10, it's a DANG good day. that means like 7 hours of sleep hoollaaahhhhhh)

- Ice Cream (every Sunday and Tuesday the MTC serves ice cream at dinner from the BYU creamery. OH MY HECK. it is celestial.)

- Classroom Instruction Time (who knew learning Portuguese would be my most favorite thing ever?!)

- Temple Walks (Every Sunday we get to walk up to the the temple and walk around and take pictures and lay in the temple grass. soooo good)

- New Miss Wednesday (On Wednesdays the new missionaries arrive, so this past Wednesday we were finally not the newest people here and we got to bombard all the dork dotted, scared, new elds and sis with "BEMVINDOS a CTM!!!" (welcome to the mtc in portuguese) its so cool!!!

My companion is still awesome. I totally lucked out in that area because we get along so great! Her name is Sister Dixon if you want to look her up on fb.

The district is doing well, we get along for the most part, but we've had some struggles with a few things. Tuedo Bem (all is well) in the MTC though.

I'll clue you in about our district issues. :) So we have this one Elder, Elder B. He's from California, He's shortish, blonde. Anyways, he's got some social and communication issues, so it makes it really difficult to talk to him ever. He argues with everyone and the way he talks, he just gets louder and louder until he's yelling. scary. On three different occassions he's gotten mad about something and slammed his desk. yesterday he slammed his desk at me, sister Cox, and sister Empey, stormed out of the classroom and then proceeded to hit the wall in the hallway. Nuts. But the zone leaders and Bishop have met with us and him, so every thing is okay, no worries. The Bishop talked to us and told us that we're not the one's who need to worry about it and try and figure out what to change about ourselves. Because imagine if he did that in a discussion? to an investigator? NO good. But everything is good other than that. We've got some conflicting personalities, as every distict does, but the Lord is one our side so it's smooth sailing from here.

My Portuguese is still coming slowly but surely. I've been studying really hard though!

Tell Sister Benjamin THANK YOU! She sent me a journal this past week for which I am SO very grateful and excited to write in it!

No word on the Visa yet. The district next to us, going to Manaus, all just got reassigned to Spokane. They're even having some missionaries stay in the MTC for more time because there's just not enough room for the missionaries anymore! It's crazy. There are close to 5000 missionaries in the MTC right now. Crazy, right?!

I hope you guys had fun at GWL and dad in San Fran! Have you got the snail mail I sent you guys? There's that check in one of them, sooo watch out for that

Well I look forward to hearing from you this week. Have a great day!

Tchau, tchau

- Sister Hargrove