THIS WEEK IN THE MTC (in a movie announcer voice)

Hello friends and family! I made it through another week believe it or not! haha just kidding. I totally destroyed this week! The time here is going by insanely fast. This week felt like a couple of days... It honestly makes absolutely no sense, but whatever I will take it. 

So I have some really exciting news. As many of you know Brazil Visa's take forever to get. So I got an email that said Visa status... I FREAKED OUT... Then I opened it, I had no clue I was going to get this. I opened and it said this... 

"By now you are aware that your visa to Brazil has not yet been approved. While this is undoubtedly a disappointment, please know that we are doing everything possible to secure your visa. We will notify you immediately when it is received. We ask that you and your family members not do anything, such as call or e-mail the consulate, to try to secure your visa more quickly. Such actions may actually slow down the visa process already in place.
While you are waiting, your mission experience in the United States will prove to be a great blessing in your preparation to serve in Brazil. We encourage you to work hard, remain focused, and be involved in all aspects of missionary work. As you serve the people in the Washington Vancouver Mission, your testimony and ability to teach will increase, you will set the pattern of study and hard work for the rest of your mission, and you will come to love the people.
May the Lord continue to bless you and your family as you dedicate yourself to preaching the gospel to hose who are seeking and ready to accept your invitation to come unto Christ.

Sincerely,

Eduardo Gavarret

Assistant Executive Director"

So I got my reassignment to go to the Vancouver Washington Mission! I have no clue when I leave, but I am extremely excited and pumped to get there. I looked at it on google maps my area is absolutely beautiful! So much green and so much beauty basically everywhere. My mission includes Portland Oregon, The coast, and Vancouver, Washington. I cannot wait to see what the mission is actually like down there. It is such a blessing that I get to go somewhere where I can actually speak english and know what I am saying to my investigators. I knew I was going to get reassigned, and it just so happens to be the same mission as Ky Pace. So if someone could forward my emails to the Paces. So that was last night. I was so pumped I couldn't even believe it.

Everyone in the zone are going to different missions. The only person that is supposed to go to my mission is my companion. Although there has been other people in other zones that I found are supposed to be going to my mission also. But I really don't know them that well. No one really got their visas. My whole District got reassignments. Elder Hofstetter got assigned to Houston East Texas Mission. Elder Niver got assigned to Chesepeake Virginia, and my companion got assigned to go to the Charlotte North Carolina. It is so weird that we have such a small zone now. This week the only sisters in our zone and three other elders left. Our zone was literally 8 people for at least 3 days. Luckily we got a new district. I still cant tell if I like them yet though. They are all still nervous and uptight. It is so weird how you can get so close to people in a short 4 weeks. I was actually really sad to see people go. It was so weird. I got really close with some of the sisters, but I will get to email them and stuff.  It is so weird being the oldest district here in our zone. Everyone looks to us for advice, and we are the ones to give it to them. So much has changed since I first got here. I have become a better person, and just how I feel around this situation has changed so much. At first it felt like the weirdest thing ever. Now It really isnt to bad at all. It feels almost normal.

Let me tell you what my basic schedule is for a day. 

6:30- Wake up for the day and get all ready.

7:30- Go to breakfast.

8:00- Go to class (depends on the day I will actually have a teacher who teaches us how to teach, how to speak the language, and we get to teach them as an investigator. It is such a cool thing to do)

9:30- It depends on the day but we usually have gym sometime in the morning

12:30- We go to eat lunch

1:15- This is basically more class time. either with a teacher or free time

5:30- Dinner

6:15- MORE CLASS TIME! haha we have so much class here at the MTC

9:30- Go back to the Residence, and unwind and relax for a bit.

10:30- Lights out time to go to bed. ( you all know me I dont fall asleep for about an hour at least)

That is a basic day at the MTC. 

On sundays we have devotionals and a lot of other stuff but I don't feel like writing this all out right now. There is my schedule No time to go and see any CES things. We are all always soooo busy.

I had a pretty cool opportunity on Tuesday. We have devotionals on Tuesday nights. I got to say the opening prayer for ALL OF THE MTC. At least 1,000 elders and sisters that I said the prayer in front of. Guess what. The speaker was from BRAZIL. His name was Brother Aidukaidis. He was one of the best speakers we have had the whole time. He was the mission president for Brazilia, and he is now a 70. It was totally meant to be. He was so funny. The only speaker I have ever heard laugh at his own jokes during his talk. It was the best.

I don't have any time to write any music basically. The MTC is so much more busy than people thing. I don't know what I would even write about. Theres too much to say. I miss soooo much music. hahah It doesnt really get easier. PENTATONIX. Oh I miss them so much haha. As SOON as I get to Washington I think that I will buy a ukulele :). I need music.

Portuguese so difficult for me. But one day this week it like all of the sudden just clicked. I don't know what it was. One of our teachers Brother James made us a promise. If we did these worksheets in this book we had, and did all of them we would be fluent in the language. There is no way that I am going to be able to do all of the worksheets before I leave. But we did it, and we all had faith that it would happen. We believed him. That day we all spoke portuguese at least 2 times as well as before. It was absolutely amazing. We can all speak it so much better than we thought we were going to. I love learning it, it is just so much fun, and interesting to get better at it. So for the lessons that we taught that day, we all taught amazingly, and we all spoke really really well. I talked about 60% of the time during the lesson. It was so amazing. The spirit just makes everything so much better. Inspired questions and everything. I just love it.

I got the chance to host some more people on Wednesday. It is a really good feeling helping people out who really don't know anything. So me, Elder Hofstetter, and Elder Folkman have started doing the coolest thing ever. Every night we go down to the vending machines and meet new people from different countries and learn from them in their language. There is this kid that is fro the Marshall Islands. He is such an awesome little guy he is probably like 4'11" and he does not speak much english at all. It is probably one of the coolest things I have done. I love learning more about languages and cultures. They come from nothing, and They get here. They don't usually talk to anyone, so you have to talk to them I absolutely love it. I swear I was meant to be born Somoan or Tongan. I absolutely love them. I am going to go for now, but I will most likely be writing later in the day. 

Eu Amo Voce,

Elder Parker Hamrick