Sleepwalking and Singing

 

Oi,

Another week has passed and the two week transition is over.  My roots are down and things are much more smooth than even a few days ago.  You might say that I am back in my groove. 

News: the MTC is sending a choir to sing in the Priesthood Session...and....I applied and didn't make the cut.  I have been Super Super disappointed about it.  To make matters worse, Elder Anderson got in and he sings and hums the music all the time because he has to memorize it.  I had my worst day on Monday, and that was also the day we found out who was in the choir.  It made things that much worse.  I have been playing accompaniment for Elder A and the two other Elders in our district that got into the choir when they practice singing their parts.  I just pretend I am going to be going as well.  I still get sad if I think about it too much.  It would be nice just to have a day away from Provo too.  But, that it the only really negative thing that has happened since I got here, and it's not really negative, just a missed positive.  Sigh...

So...Elder Anderson and I still get along very well.  I think that of all the Elders I have met he is still my favorite.  I would not choose to have anyone else as my companion.  How often do you find someone who is hilarious, smart, un-socially awkward, and who still can crack down and work and be a spiritual inspiration?  We sometimes have been accused of sounding like a married couple however after having conversations like the following at the dinner table:

Elder A (to Elder Rose): "Yeah, we (Bodily+Anderson) go running every day."

Me:  "Yes, but we don't always run the same distance."

Elder A: "You do like running every morning, Elder Bodily, don't you?"

Me:  "Yes, I enjoy it.  Don't you?"

Elder A:  "Yes of course, but we don't have to run if you don't want to."

Me:  "Are you saying that because YOU don't want to run every day or because you want to run and you don't want to make me feel like I have to?"

Elder A: "Because I want to run.  Thank goodness you want to run."

Me:  "Agreed."

We have both begun to find out a lot more about each other however.  For instance, he sleepwalks and sleeptalks like NONE OTHER.  Last night was the worst.  He has conversations with people in his dreams.  First around 2 am he was trying to translate a phrase into Portuguese for one of the Elders in our district.  "Que...que...umm...por, no para...no wait, por...no no no, para.  Yes, para.  ... ... TEU AMOR! Yes, that makes sense... that's it.... <snoring>"

Then at 3:30 in the morning:  "Hey.  Hey...   Elder Florman (an elder that does NOT room with us, but down the hall).  Elder Florman...?  What time do you have?  Oh.  6:37 am?  Oh no, we are going to be late for choir rehearsal.  Wait...what time do you have?  What time?  I don't have my watch on.  I'm naked without my watch on!  Ugh." 

*At which point he jumps out of bed from the top bunk, wanders over to our desk, picks up my alarm clock, opens the door to the hallway to let light in to see the clock, then sets in down, vaults back up into his bunk (narrowly missing my face with his foot before I dodged), and promptly begins snoring. *

I lay awake a while after that trying not to be freaked out. 

The sword has two sides however.  We both quote movies quite often.  One day after quoting Medusa off of Rescuers, he said "Elder Bodily.  It seems that most of the movie characters you quote are old women."  Good heavens.  I have scarcely ever laughed that hard in my life.  He has a knack for getting to know me. 

Portuguese is no problem.  It takes time, but it comes quickly and easily and I am still easily the most proficient in the class.  Teaching language is hard and tiring.  Especially after studying linguistics and having experience learning both Spanish and French, it is hard to explain to others who don't have the same background.  Portuguese object pronouns, subjunctive tense, and past participle just aren't easily explained to people who scarcely (if at all) grasp what those things are in English.  I found out by talking with him that the Portuguese is stressing Elder A a lot lot lot more than he has been letting on.  I am starting to pick up his personality and the signals for his emotions.  But as we talked I assured him that since I feel ZERO stress about learning the language, I will help in any way I can.  He specializes in the social aspect still.  Making teaching un-awkward and smoothly connecting thoughts (once we move from Portuguese introductions into English teaching).  I am so excited for week six when teaching will go 100% Portuguese.  It is no wonder people here feel overwhelmed with the language because it's basically a breakneck pace crash course.

No visas.  Though two Elders in the branch just got theirs.  They come few and far between.  It's a BIG problem for Mexico, Bolivia, and Brazil right now and missionaries bound for those countries are piling up here.  We are past capacity.  Fun fun. 

Times up

Tchau,

(Elder) JOSHUA BODILY

1.5 Weeks!!

We have to send e-mails from the laundry room where there are only about 30 computers.  It is hot down here and noisy.  There are people bustling around and I am trying to remember that I have colors in machine L9 and whites in K15 and a shared load with Elder Anderson in K5.  Madness. 

 

Anyway.  Things continue to go quite well.  I don't have all the letters I received with me, so I am going to try to answer everyones' questions by memory and some notes that I hashed down.  So wish me luck.  I already have only 20 minutes left on the timer.

 

Elder Anderson and I continue to have excellent success.  He is impatient to learn Portuguese, but this is good because he works super hard and really dedicates himself.  He is determined to obey and really get the most out of this experience, so that makes things easy for me to do the same.  He is awesome.  Yet we are so extremely different.  We find pleasure in exchanging movie quotes several times per hour.  Still hard to make the adjustment of living with someone 24-7, but I am changing to cope.  We are tolerant of each other and respect each others' schedules.

 

This darn computer keeps  messing up my typing and adding extra letters when I only press a key once so I am not responsible for sppeelling errors.  Such as that.  That was not on purpose. I'm not going to be correcting it anymore.

 

Anway, the Portuguese for me goes...well.  Class can be SO BORING.  Because I just know it already or I understand the concept of preterite and imperfect, so I don't need to experience the question-answer session that occurs for two hours over it.  So on and so forth.  I am trying to view thhiiss as an opportunity to help others and answer questions.  We did our first TRC (teaching resource ccenter) visit yesterday.  We taught a volunteer investtigator.  We had to contact her in Portuguese at her door and then come in and teach the first lessson (on the restoration) to her in English.  Elder A had a funny moment where he froze and loooked to me in the Portuguese.  That ended up going well.  She was a native Brazilian and she said sshhee  understood us both, so that is a plus.  The English went very well.  Elder A is a great speaker and he did a majority of the English teaching.  However, as a team we taught a fairly decentt  lesson.  Success! After much nerves.

 

I get approached by elders heading to Spanish speaking areas all the time.  They practice on us.  Sometimes I tell them I speak spanish and sometimes I don't.  Last night I had two elders who willl  bbee leaving on Monday teach me.  I let them know that they could go 100% spanish.  I understoodd  100% and it made me miss spanish.  They had me reading the Spanish scriptures for part and I started doing Portuguese pronunciation! My brain wanted to explode!  But it was an awesome eexperience.  They taught really well and I was able to point out some mistakes and give them constrructive criticism.  They were excited.  They will be in Chile (Santiago) next week.  Amazing. 

 

No visas for anyone in our district yet.  Rumors fly, but nothing mateerriial yet.

 

One guy in our district (the Minnesotan) sings like opera-good.  Since he and I are the only piano players in the district, he recruited me to accompany him in saaccraament meeting on some future Sunday.  The song is do-able but will take practice.  I do my best, but practice time is SO LIMITED.  I will keep you updated on how thhaat goes.  On some parts there are eight notes at once, and six are flat.  Shoot me.  I amm  not going to be playing every note on the page. 

 

Uh...one of the main challenges of Portuguese  iis that we only really have each other to practice with because our teachers aren't around that much.  Most of thhis language learning is just by the Spirit and HARD WORK.  I am literally limited to sayinngg to fellow district members what they understand, even when I know more.  It's interesting, but enough about that.  Can you telll  I spend an average of 7 hours a day studying portugues?

 

A typical day here consists of waking up at 6:20, then going to gym time (which consists of runnniing for Elder A and I) sometimes we play frisbee or ladder golf after running.  The record is 1-1 for ladder golf.  Then shower, dress, and go to class.  Class is all day  until 9PM.  If our teacher is there, we do spiritual thoughts and portugues half aanndd half.  If they aren't, we choose what to study.  Typically, punctuating the class aree  llunch (30 mins), dinner (45 mins), and a meeting of some kind like a devotional or large group mmeeeting where we get a lesson from a special speaker or teacher.  Then we have planning session at 9, residence halls by 10, quiet time 10:15, and in bed lightss  out by 10:30 PM.  Repeat as needed.  Today is the first p-daayy  or free day.  At least till 6PM.  We have studied, bought supplies from the booksttoore, practiced piano, eaten, gone to the temple (the Provo Temple is incredibly beauttiful!) Etc.  Time running low.

 

Letters are great!  However, I cannot write you back unless you send me your address!!!!  Things are relatively awesome here.  I brush and floss every day.  I appreciate the spiritual thoughts.  Wish I couulld sit and write more.  Blast this stinking keyboard!

 

Tchau for now,

 

ELDER JOSHHUUA BODILY  I hate this keyboard!!!!!!!!!!

Greetings from the MTC

Oi,
So much has happened in the last few days, so expect no order to this letter. I have a little less than 30 mins so I'm going to just type like mad.
First off, my companheiro is a pretty awesome guy named Elder Anderson from St. George, Utah. He moved from Soda Springs six years ago, so he knows Idaho pretty well. He and I have gotten along very well. We have yet to have any contention or real big issues. He is easy going, but smart at the same time. He is serious about being here. This is a good combination. Especially for someone who you are with 24-7. He sweats a lot like I do. He did the Nauvoo Pageant with his family this summer. His dad was Charles Maypeace this summer. Sound familiar? He likes running, so we have been running each day at gym time. He helps me be outgoing (because he is a natural socialite) and I help him at the language (my specialty). He is also going to Vitoria. That's awesome. We are rooming with a good pair of guys, one from Aberdeen, Idaho (the only other going to Vitoria that I know, besides a random sister in our branch) and the other is our district leader. In addition, the district I am in (six companionships) is pretty amazing. We have a really good mix. A Canadian, little Arizona, couple Colorados, two Idahos (including me), Minnesota, Washington, and of course a chunk of Utahs. We get along just great thus far. Good diversity in the group. Most of us in the district are going to Brazil, most to Cuiaba and then a Salvador South and then three Lisbon Portugals. All of us Brazil people were supposed to report two weeks ago. Our branch absorbed all those visa floaters from Sao Paulo, so instead of being the normal size (approximately 30) we have 88.
Language goes so well. I am constantly ravenous to learn more and can't wait for language time. I just can't get enough. However, I have developed quite the reputation of being good at languages. The real trick is, Spanish is much much much closer to Portuguese than I thought. There will of course be some confusion. For instance the pronunciation is death. Death I tell you. The word for resurrection is resurrecao (can't type accents here) but it is pronounced (hey-sue-hey-sowng). Crazy. However, the word are so similar that most phrases are easy. The first day, our teacher gave a prayer in Portuguese, and everyone was like oh my. And to be honest, I was a little to. But I am pretty sure I know what each sentence was saying. Which is a huge advantage. One elder in the district speaks Spanish at home and another studied through high school and into college like me so we all kind of charge ahead. I don't want to be a know it all, but I want to help people. It's kind of a rough spot. Elder Anderson is really good at practicing. He has made tons of flashcards and even though some of them are easy, it is doing wonders to help me review.
The food here is insane. We sit in class ALLLL day besides meals, where food is in abundance and forty-five minutes of gym. I just can't eat at some meals because I am not hungry. I am already getting over my chocolate milk craving. Food food food all the time. It is better than starving to be sure, but hey, I don't want to eat myself silly. Good food though.
It is super weird to be in Provo. My classroom is on the fifth floor, so there are views of BYU from the lobby where we often study. We exercise on the field by the Provo temple. Occasionally, when I time things well and get lucky, I am outside when the bell tower on campus rings. It is like I am in a mini-secret-world inside Provo that I have never been to before.

I feel loved. I got the most letters out of anyone when mail came. Took a while to read everything.

Overall, I feel okay. However, because I am so new and we have had so much information barraging us for the last 77 hours (so hard to believe that that it has only been that long), and so much of that information coming from rather disorganized and hard to find Zone Leaders (over several districts). We aren't really sure what's going on. And by we I mean all twelve of us in the district who spend most of our time together all day. Anyway, I have run into several BYU friends from my ward including the one who Nathan's roommate Elder Ward (who happened to be companions with my host- the elder who showed me around when I first arrived), and Alex's roommate Elder (IDK his last name) Ben from Glenns Ferry. Fun Fun. They all say that time makes things better. So...I hope so.
Wish me luck,

ELDER JOSHUA BODILY (PS. My email day from now on is scheduled on Friday.)

Last Weekend in Boise

It has been a great summer, but now it is finally over.  Before I know it I will be off to training, and as soon as I have my visa, I will be in Brazil.  I am so excited.  I appreciate all of the people who have wished me well and helped me out.  I will miss everyone!  I will see you soon.