May 9th letter

AJ responds to a number of questions we sent him the previous week...

We went to the temple today. Instead of doing endowments like usual, my companion and I did confirmations.  They have a beautiful baptistery. There were ten or so Elders doing baptisms. It was all in Portuguese! A pretty cool experience!

[What have been your highlights and biggest challenges so far? So do you feel ready to go teach?] The highlights at the MTC have been definitely feeling the Spirit. It is very easy to feel it here, if you try. At quite a few devotionals the Spirit has hit me hard. We also have an hour long film every Sunday and the Spirit is super strong there too.  This last Sunday, we watched the Testaments - a sort of drama about Christ coming to the Americas.  I feel ready to teach, but I would rely heavily, very heavily on my companion! I can teach lessons but I am struggling with understanding the responses of the investigators.

[Do you feel acclimated? Do you have any "down time" where you can just play the piano?] I feel mostly acclimated - sometimes the food makes me gag a little but it's overall pretty good. You reminded me - I never told you guys I was able to play piano for the missionary choir a few weeks ago. Every devotional (we have 2 a week), we have a few musical performances. There are a lot of opportunities to do music here, for sure.  We have a few hours of study time a day, in which we may go to a classroom with a piano and practice a little. And then there's occasional down time and a convenient piano nearby. I've found that I am good at making jazz arrangements of hymns!

[What are your responsibilities as assistant to the Branch President?]  The branch consists of four districts, around 30 missionaries or so.  The district leader communicates to me any issues or concerns they have and I help resolve them.  So far there have been problems few and far between.  My biggest responsibility is managing sacrament and priesthood meetings.  I delegate all of the things needing to be done for these meetings except for the talks -- in sacrament meeting, the president just randomly picks four missionaries to give talks - yay!  There is also a meeting with the district leaders that I conduct.

[So, are you still on the 9-week training plan...any chance of it changing to 6 weeks like the other recent missionaries?]  Haha, no we are 'stuck' with the 9-week plan.  Many missionaries feel bad for us upon hearing we are a 9-week district, but I'm fine with it.  Also, we received two roommates a week ago.  Elder Ferreira is from Argentina and Elder Maciel is from southern Brazil.  Elder Ferreira speaks a little English and Elder Maciel speaks none, so it's a little more of a challenge to communicate with them.  I'm going to try and practice teaching a lesson to one of them this coming week and see how that goes.

[Dad is giving a talk on the Holy Ghost in a couple of weeks...have you had any recent experiences he could share?]  We have talked quite a bit about the Holy Ghost, because it is absolutely critical for conversion!   And because of this, it is important when teaching someone to help them understand when they receive promptings from the Spirit.  You have to pinpoint situations in which they feel the Spirit so that they can do a comparison -- or you ask them what are they expecting the Spirit to feel like.  Irmao Vilas Bons said something very interesting -- you cannot read a book written by revelation and believe it without revelation.  So, the Holy Spirit is something someone must feel and understand for any change of heart to occur, and for the Livro De Mormon to affect their life.  This also means that we must teach with the Spirit, because he will carry what we say past their ears and to the heart.  That is what I'm learning to do.  It is all about preparing sufficiently beforehand, but still teaching in a flexible manner, relying on the Lord and not preaching your "own understanding".

I just want to say that I have been sooo grateful these last few weeks for the example you and dad have set for us with your strong testimony of the Church and of Jesus Christ.  Thank you for your prayers and love -- I look forward to sharing experiences with you next week!

LOVE YOU! Amo voce!! Tem mais!!!

May 2nd letter

Ola todos! [Hello all]

Thank you for the article! [we sent AJ a recent article regarding the growth of the church in Brazil] It was a very interesting read. One prominent example of Brasil's growth is Sao Paulo itself. Have I told you how huge it is? Words cannot describe it. You know how big cities in USA, like New York, have one center colossal pile of skyscrapers? Well, in Sao Paulo, there are several of these. It's not like you enter downtown one way and come out the other end in half an hour. Here, you are always surrounded by skyscrapers! One of my teachers said that Sao Paulo, including the metro areas, houses 22 million people!!

Ha, so I think I know why John Brady's son never sent pics home. It's actually against MTC rules here. Of course, the MTC rulebook says nothing about it. I had to go up and ask the secretary to the president in order to know. So unfortunately, I can't send any more pictures via email from the MTC.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TAYLOR!!  FELIZ ANIVERSARIO!!

We watched a very... ótimo [superb] devotional given by Elder Bednar at the Provo MTC. The gist of the talk was that any question about the church can be answered with doctrine - doctrine meaning gospel truths fundamental to salvation. Sometimes we answer questions with applications, which are actions taken which are more or less loosely based on doctrine.

An example he gave is the question - How do we improve home teaching? You can try gimmicky applications (he gave the example of having each family bake a cake on the first of each month, and the sooner the home teachers do their home teaching, the fresher the cake...makes sense, right??), but unless the elders understand the doctrine behind home teaching (Moroni 6), it's not really going to go anywhere. He said, "True doctrine understood changes attitude and behavior."  What I felt during that was that I need to make sure I teach core doctrine, and get out of the way of the Spirit, the real teacher.

I liked your comments on stress! It's all just a mental thing. When we don't have the Lord to help us, it can seem like we have muito [many] burdens on our backs. But with the Lord, and when we're busy doing His work, everything appears clearer and we are able to handle our responsibilities much easier. I like Mosiah 24:13-15 (Another scripture brought up in Elder Bednar's talk).

Unfortunately, I can't call home on Mother's Day - there are over 200 missionaries here, it'd be hard to coordinate. Since I'm out of time, I will give my thoughts in my missionties letter.

Boa semana! Eu amo voces! [Good week - I love you guys]

Elder Bradford

April 25th letters

Hi guys!

Elder Cook came by on Monday and gave a great devotional. Did you know him and Elder Holland were missionary companions? He talked a little about being a clean instrument of God (Alma 17:11), and the blessings we receive by doing missionary work (D&C 31). He also gave some awesome insights into Preach My Gospel.

Bro Mills, the international MTC director, came on Sunday and also gave a spiritual devotional. I actually felt the Spirit very strongly during his talk. Matthew 16:25 - "Whoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it"! That one hit me hard. The secret to success and happiness will be, for me at least, to stop thinking about myself.

Did you know there are 15 MTCs around the world? I don't know if Dad knows this but there's an MTC in South Africa. It usually has only 20-35 missionaries at a time.

Haha, so now I'm actually no longer the district leader, I'm the assistant to the president (The branch president to be specific). There might actually be less responsibiilty in this calling, but I'm still figuring out the ropes. Basically I'm in charge of the three districts in our branch (we don't have zones here). And I'm in charge of all the Sunday meeting assignments. It's a good way to get to know more Elders.

FYI...the missionties letter got put in our mailbox the same day you sent it, so that's working out well.

About Campinas:  Usually, when I tell someone I'm going to Campinas, they immediately click their tongue and talk about how gorgeous the temple is. So I'm pretty excited to visit the temple there!!  Also people have said that Campinas is pretty hot, but not as bad as some of the other missions.

Okay, I have 20 seconds left. Real quick, I am still doing the 9 week program.  There are very few 9 weekers here but our district is one of them [note: some missionaries that entered the MTC during March learning a foreign language were placed into a 'pilot' program -- this was to see if a new (compressed) schedule of 6 weeks (rather than 9) would work.  AJ's group arrived at the beginning of April, so they were not part of the pilot program].

Alright, have a great week! Eu amo voces!!

Elder Bradford

Click on the image below to view a follow-up letter from AJ that same day...

April 18th letter

The following letter was received from AJ on April 18th - click on a page to view.  At the beginning of his letter, he's responding to a question about him having four different missionary companions within the first day of his arrival at the MTC/CTM in Brazil.

Page 1

Page 2

More Pics at the Brazil MTC

Missionaries in AJ's dorm room - four are Brazilian.  He mentioned the only Brazilian Elder that speaks English fairly well is on the far right - he apparently learned from playing video games (Call of Duty being his favorite) 

AJ's cozy classroom

Atrium in the MTC

AJ and Elder Norman pointing out their missions
(not sure what's up with AJ's expression)

AJ greets Blake Russell on his arrival to the MTC