June 28th, 2013

First Day:

Hello everyone! Today marks my first PDay of the MTC, because they give don't give you a PDay your first week for some reason. This means I wasn't able to email until today, and it also means that we couldn't do laundry until today also...muito mal. Anyway, my first day at the MTC was interesting. We started off by missing the flight to Salt Lake, which delayed the goodbye a couple hours. I also had to empty out some essentials from the suitcase because it was too heavy. But when my roommate Spencer picked me up from the airport, we took a pit stop at Wal Mart so I was pretty much set by the time I set foot in the MTC. I got there three hours later than most new missionaries, but it wasn't a big deal.

My District:

My companion's name is Elder C. We have similar tendencies, eating habits, and senses of humor. He also wants to be a dentist when he grows up...The rest of my district is great too. We have people from Washington, Oregon, Texas, Arizona, Colorado, Ohio, Montana, Oklahoma, Utah (of course), and Michigan. The gospel really brings people together, because we'll all be in Brazil pretty soon together. Actually half the district is going to Recife Brazil, and the rest are going to Manaus. Our teacher's name is Irmao James. He's one of the best teachers there, but he served in Portugal, so his accent is a little different than ours will be. Elder C and  I also taught our first investigator this week, all in Portuguese! The first lessons went very badly, with a lot of awkward pauses, and words that made no sense, but by the end of the discussions we were able to keep the Spirit and actually teach our fake investigator instead of just reading a script. We learn really fast, and although it seems like we know very little at the moment, our district has made great strides in the last week. The gift of tongues, or dom das linguas, is real, and there is no way that any of us or any other missionary for that matter would be able to learn the language as fast as they do without the help of the Lord.

More updates to come soon! Tchau-

Elder Hirschi

Welcome to Elder Hirschi's new blog! Although this picture was taken at the Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita Kansas, Jake will be leaving early tomorrow morning for his mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to Manaus, Brazil.  He will spend six weeks in the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah, learning the Portuguese language.  He will then head out to Brazil to begin his mission, provided he will receive his visa by that time.  If not, he will begin serving in another stateside location as he waits for it.  As his mom, I have promised to do my best to keep up with his blog (which is my first!).  The plan is to keep everyone updated on his adventures in Brazil. Look forward to his emails and hopefully pictures which we will post as we get them!  We love you Jake, and we are excited to share this journey with you!