Week One!

Hello family,

It's my first p-day today. And I have only gotten one letter and no emails from you guys. I'm slightly disappointed. Oh well, worse things have happened.

So far, two of the elders in my district have gotten their visas, so they'll be leaving next Tuesday morning. One of them is our district leader, Elder Hannah, and the other is Elder Lovell who I know from Summerfest two years ago. There are 6 more elders in my district and one sister. I don't remember exactly what I said in my letter home... But my companion is Elder Welch from St. George, Utah. He's kind of a hick, but he's a really cool guy. Him and I think pretty close to the same way. It's so cool to be here with so many people who care about the gospel. Brother Owens is our teacher for our stay here, and he is really cool. He teaches really well and you can really tell that he genuinely cares about us as people. We had a lesson last night that just made me super excited to go out and serve the people of Brazil. We have an "investigator" that we are teaching who is actually a teacher here. They start us with teaching lessons in Portuguese on the third day. It's pretty crazy how fast we're learning the language, even if it is super frustrating that we can't fully communicate with our investigators. We're having a lot of fun here, and it's kind of sad to see a couple of people in our district leave already.

I know that I said that I would be really bad with writing letters back before, but while I'm in the MTC, I want letters! I think once I'm out in the field, I'll have my mind more preoccupied with the work, but while I'm here studying and learning, I want some. So make sure people know my address and that I want letters. Especially since it'll be a lot easier for me to get letters while I'm here in Provo. I have a feeling that I'll be here for a while because of my visa. There's a couple of districts that still have some elders here on their 8th week that haven't gotten their visas. A couple of them got reassigned to English speaking state-side missions. I think it'd be really frustrating to spend the whole 9 weeks here in the MTC learning how to teach the gospel in Portuguese, then go out and have to teach it in English. I hope that doesn't happen to me.

Anyways, that's all I have for now. Send me more letters! I hope all is going well with you guys.

Love you all,

Elder Hopper

Our First Letter! December 29th, 2011

Mother and Father,
Jut got done with my second day.  It was quite long and I'm really ready to get to sleep.  My companion is Elder Welch. He's from St. George, UT and is 20 already.  The food has been pretty bad except for dinner tonight where I had chicken fried steak.
My foot now has a pretty gnarly look and smell to it. (He just discovered a pretty big plantar's wart a couple of days before he left!).  I tried to pull some of the warts out, but the tweezers I have are garbage.  Could you send some good tweezers along with some fingernail and toenail clippers?
The Portugese is coming along nicely already.  Our teacher, Brother Owens, is really cool and I enjoy the way he teaches.  It reminds me a lot of the way Mrs. Mumford taught at Century.
I need to know a couple of things.  Did you ever get my electronic visa and send it in?  The card that shows my yellow fever vaccine date that you photocopied and sent with me, I need that.  Is it at home? 
Well, I think that's everything.  I'll write some more when I have more to write about. 
Love you guys,
Elder Hopper

The Beginning

Well, as  he wished, Adam left for his mission without too much fanfare.  Mom and Dad took him to the airport and watched him make it though security and he was gone. 
Aunt Terry (Keith's sister) picked him up from the airport and made sure he got safely to the MTC in Provo.  He will be there until he gets his Visa to enter Brazil. 
We should hear from him next Wednesday, the day they can write home, but until then, no news is good news! 
We wish him well and hope he has great adventures serving the Lord.