Email: July 30, 2016

Re: Last Saturday at MTC

EH

Emma Rose Hulsey

 

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Today 12:03 AM

You

Ola!

Muito obrigada for the package momma! I am excited to be able to call you guys at the airport. Also tell caleb that I love him so so much and pray for him! Man anyone I show pictures of him to just tell me how cute he is! I CANNOT believe my time here at the MTC is over! I have loved it. I love the people, my teachers, learning the language, the food, the spirit, the exercise time, the devotionals, the laundry room, but most of all my experiences that have brought me closer to Christ and strengthened my relationship with God. I'm soups nervous to be headed out to a foreign country doing something I have never done before, but I do feel that I'm doing the right thing and i also feel a peace. And for how nervous I am i am equally if not more excited. This week we skyped with a member from Lisboa. She was the cutest happiest thing. She has only been a member for a year and none of her family are members. But she had the sweetest testimony. She told me and sister Morey that we were the sun! She made me SO excited to be able to go to Portugal. She was so easy to love and I can't wait to get to go love the people of Portugal. Also, today we had our last lesson with Rodnei (aka Irmao Curtis). We decided to just focus on Christ because that is our whole purpose as missionaries. We showed him Gracas a ele (because of him) and it was incredible. I needed to see that video, perhaps more than Rodnei. I could feel the spirit So strongly. I felt the immense power of our Savior Jesus Christ. I know that through Christ I am able to accomplish anything. Anyway, the waterworks were a comin after that video and so me and sis Morey just bore testimony of Christ and invited Rodnei to continue to follow his example. I love that the spirit always prompts us to the things we need to do and then bears testimony of the truthfulness of all things. After our lesson we walked into the classroom and I still hadn't gotten ahold of myself so then my district just asked "you watched a mormon message huh?" because i swear those mormon messages always make me cry and I always feel the spirit. haha mas tudo bem! Anyways, i'm feeling mais o menos sobre a lingua. I understand pretty much everything that is said to me (at least by none native speakers, probs about 65% from skype trc with natives..:) however it is more difficult for me to actually formulate sentences. I'm trying though and the Lord is blessing my efforts. My conjugations aren't the best but at least I understand how they work! This week we had an infield orientation for like 9 hours. It was acutally really useful and we learned a lot about the importance of members in Missionary work. Also how we can share the gospel during our travels. Our teacher told us to buy a book of mormon to give away so I did and I have faith the Lord can help me find someone to give it to. But i've never done that before so #prayforme Sometimes i get so nervous about sharing the gospel but then i just remember alls i'm doing is inviting people to partake of the sweetest fruit there is. I love you all so very much. Thanks for all of your support, prayers, and generosity. I love my savior Jesus Christ and know that through the Atonement of him, I can do all things. Well i guess i must now go and start packing so wish me luck with that!! 

Sister Hulsey

Email: Jul 25, 2016

BOM DIA!!!!

Alrighty so this is my last (normal) pday in the MTC whaaaaat??? I can't believe it! This time has moved so quickly and I have learned oh so much! Momma thanks for the AMAZING package you sent!! oh man everyone loved it. It's almost all gone now and the soda has made so many people's days. I have made friends from it so thanks. And everyone was obsessed with the cookies so nice work!! thanks so much!! And thanks to maren and megan and others who sent dear elders! love getting them. ok so i got my flight plans!!!

I leave aug 1! We have to be at the travel office at 3:50 AM monday morning! (i don't know how we got so blessed with that awesome time...:) anyways we fly to chicago (shoutout to jeff) , then germany, then to Porto! We should arrive to Porto at about 11;45 tuesday morning! WE are flying on the Lufthansa (i'm sure dad has ridden this before) So i can call anytime between 350 am to 822 from salt lake and then in chicago we have a layover from 1230 to 4 so i may call between then! I will be having one last pday on saturday afternoon by the way. I am so so so so excited to go meet and love the people of Portugal!! i'm also so so nervous and feel inadequate but the Lord has blessed me with so much peace that I know that with the Lord I can do whatever is required. I definitely do not feel ready with the language but I don't feel afraid to try. I am a little nervous to travel but not bad, just don't want to get sick or anything! I will be traveling with like 8 other girls going to Porto so i will be safe! I can't believe how fast the time has gone here at the MTC. I am so blessed to be here right now. I feel the spirit SO strongly. I have met some of the coolest people and been blessed with some of the greatest teachers. I don't know if i exactly feel like i'm "ready" to be in the campo yet but I'm excited. 

Some reasons why i'm so excited are because some of our lessons were so awesome this week and I can't wait to share the gospel with those who are prepared! So we taught one of our investigators, Campeau if he would keep the word of wisdom!! and he has so we set the baptismal date for aug 2!! He is working towards that and we have just had awesome lessons lead by the spirit. In one of our lessons with him we planned to teach about keeping the sabbath day holy but we ended up teaching about the Atonement and we found the Because Of Him video in Portuguese and The spirit was so strong! Also we did a skype TRC this week with a brother from Lisbon! It was exciting and nerve racking. I could understand some of what he said but really he was just so nice and i'm so excited to serve the Lord's children in Portugal. We have had some awesome devotionals this week as well. Yesterday was probably one of my favorites ever because the Nashville Tribute Band came!! oh my goodness I cannot even explain how awesome it was. The choir got to sing 3 songs with them and the director just told us to sing as loud as we could so I was belting it but the spirit was incredible. then the last song they put the lyrics up on the screen and everyone sang "the hardest thing i've every done" or something and the lead singer told us the story of his mission and there was hardly any dry eyes in the mtc. There is a line that says the hardest thing i ever loved to do is open up my mouth and testify and the spirit carries it to the heart and they believed (ok something along those lines, look it up haha) but It is SO true. it is scary but the Lord fills our mouths when we do all we can. Also one of our teachers this week read the story of the stripling warriors with us. We talked about how the odds were truly against them. There was no reason for them to be successful, other than they were doing the work of the Lord. They were able to do it because of their faith and obeying with exactness. I loved it and it brought much comfort. I also often times think of the pioneers. My testimony of joseph smith has really been strengthened. The great faith, and positive attitude of the pioneers is really an example to me. 

So far being and STL has been a great blessing. I have gotten to know the girls in my zone a ton better. They are incredible and i have grown to love them and will miss them! It is hard and sundays are very busy. Basically we just have to interview all the district stl's and find out how everyone is doing and report to the branch council. And we have to conduct/plan relief society and we go and give hugs to each girl every night and make sure they are doing ok. There have been a few problems that we have had to take care of and I hate hate hate confrontation but the Lord is blessing me as me and sis morey have been faithful in trying to follow the Lord! The q&a was cool but i didn't ask any questions, way too intimidated! I'm excited to be able to call you but i'm going to try and not be supa sentimental so i don't get distracted or sad! so just know i'm not going to be trying to be cold hearted (but maybe a little??)  definitely jealous of the chuck e cheese trip mas tudo bem. HA i bet grandma and grandpa are confused. I hope everything works out well with her house and stuff. I"M SO EXCITED FOR STEPHANIE!!!! tell her she will just love love love it. (at least I do). Germany is perfect for her. It's so crazy that Eli will be in school all day now. I pray for him and think about him all the time! What a great example eli is to all of us! (and you mom, the way you and dad handled last summer is amazing to me) I have been thinking a lot about weaknesses as well. God has done bigger things than help me learn portuguese he had a virgin have the savior, he fed thousands with so little. The hard thing is how do we let god help? And sometimes I don't think it is a one time thing. It is a battle that we continually have to fight but day by day the Lord can bless us. I will pray for you. Eu amo voces muito muito e estou muita grata por meu opportunidade para ser uma misioneria agora. ha nunca otra coisa que eu quero fazer com minha vida. Eu espero que aprenda muito esta semana. The Lord is blessing me constantly and always reminds me that i'm doing the right things. There have been moments of discouragement but then the Lord always blesses me with the spirit and confirmations and i always go to bed feeling so so grateful.!

Love you guys so much! 

Sister Hulsey

ok as far as things i need for Portugual : nothing

Email: 18 July 2016

HELLO!!!

Holy my moly i can't believe i'm already writing you another letter. The weeks just seem to go by faster and faster!! Glad you got the card mom. everyone LOVED the muddy buddies and crack. In fact, they have requested more. I don't know if you will be able to send contacts super easily to Portugal but i only have enough til like september. So whatever you want to do for that. But other than that i am more than good! Thanks so so so much for all of the sweet packages you send and the letters. Shoutout to maren for writing me tons of dear elders. I love hearing all the little stories. Y'all can only write me dear elders for like 2 ish more weeks so i would jump on the opportunity! Also thanks to aunt linda and the reber fam for their sweet package, we loved the candy!! And shoutout to uncle tim for sending me letters and giving me awesome quotes!! 

ALRIGHTY!! lets get into what this week has been like. First of all last monday night, we had a TRC with a native brazillian. We only understood about like 10 words so sis morey and I came out just cracking up but had to pull it together real quick to go teach another lesson. HAHA even though we didn't understand much, we still could totally feel the spirit and that's what is important. Then Tuesdee night we had a devotional focused on how we come to know the lord in our extremeties, and it's a pleasure! They talked about the pioneers and Joseph smith. It was awesome and I would totally invite you all to read sections 121 and 122 in D&C to learn a little more about it! those are some of my faves. On wednesday we got to host!!! I was so excited that i boxed out, threw some elbows and ran up to the first girl I could! She was super sweet. She was an i pad missionary though and so we had to go get it all set up and she happened to have this big problem with it so it took like 2 hours!! But tudo bem because I got to know her pretty well. At that point hosting was almost over so i ran to snatch one more girl to help! I literally did run into the street and almost got hit by a car but I got another girl!! She was the sweetest thing and i'm very excited for her. Anyways, it was just a super fun opportunity! I was SO tired after it though! I slept so well that night. The MTC is SOSO crowded right now, which is probs a good problem to have. The lines for food are like the rides at disneyland. But i'm happy to see so many people wanting to serve the Lord! 

Our lessons are going pretty good with our investigators. We taught one (actually, the spirit totally taught it) about the promises of the book of mormon. It was funny because we had planned a lesson about commandments but just talked about the book of mormon, It was super spiritual. I know the Lord blesses us when we prepare. He will send the spirit to guide! We are planning on teaching this week the word of wisdom to our other investigator so ive been trying to learn the words for that. I now know drugs, beer, alcohol, etc! That should be very useful. Also sometime this week I was talking with my teacher Irmao Read. He is the bomb. Somehow i brought up 1nephi 3:7. We studied it and he cross referenced it to the scripture in john that says that Christ is the way. nephi talks about how the Lord provides a way to keep his commandments, we both had a cool aha moment of the Atonement being the way to accomplish everything the Lord wants us to. Through the spirit, the Atonement changes our hearts! ooo it was awesome. Sunday was SO awesome. Me and sister morey showed up super early to church bc we were the greeters and we wanted to be sure to greet everyone! It was going great and then the branch president walked up and was like hey so thanks for doing this but we are going to release you. I was pretty sad to get fired. But then he explained how me and sister Morey are assigned now to be the Sister Training Leaders for our zone. Im super excited for the opportunity to serve and I know the Lord will help me with it. Although i'm only slightly salty about not greeting, that was like the best calling eva. We had a GREAT devotional last night. They showed us the character of christ talk which I love. Then at the end someone started playing the organ and told everyone to stand up. THEN ELDER BEDNAR WALKS IN!!!!! he did a question and answer with his wife. I had so many questions i didn't even know I had answered. One of my favorites was that he talked about charity is something we become. I want to strive for that. HIs sweet wife bore testimony as well. I felt the spirit SO strongly! Also as he was bearing testimony and leaving an apostolic blessing (SO COOL!) i received such a strong witness that he is a man called of God. Which means that I too am called of god because it was an apostle that assigned me! OO and yesterday in choir I found out that the nashville tribute band it coming for a big 24th of july celebration. We get to sing like 3 songs with them (one of them i was born!!) It was so fun to practice them. I was sitting by Sister Li'ava'a (a hawaiin sista from my zone) and she was cracking me up. She was throwing in hallelujah's and practically jumping out of her seat she was so excited. Then we were just talking and i was asking her if she wore makeup and she just told me" Oh sister the Lord is ok with fresh faces". She also told me she was excited to lose weight in Cape Verde because there are no mcdonalds. I told her i understand the struggle. haha nuggs. 

This morning we got to go to the temple and we did initiatories. I loved it! I will def. miss the temple for the next 18 months! well i guess only like 17 now!! OH man so caleb is famous!!!! I'm not even surprised. He is so gosh darn cute. If you feel like it send some pics!! I'm glad Eli is doing well. I pray for him all the time! and for all of you! so happy to hear you're doing well. I've seen Jenna Cook, Rachel Crabb and Laramy. I love seeing so many familiar faces!! I love you guys! Eu se que Jesus Cristo e nosso salvador e nos temos um pai celestial! Deus ama nos! 

Tchau Tchau

Sister Hulsey

Email: 11 July 2016

Oi Minha Familia!!!!

TUDO BEM TUDO BEM!!! this has just become my absolute favorite saying. It means all is well. You can just say it at like any time and all is well. ANYWAYS... I am so loving this place. The days are long but the weeks just seem to fly by! I cannot believe how much i have learned already. I feel like my heart has changed. I have new perspectives on things. I have felt the spirit so much this past week that it has honestly at times taken my breath away. I have a constant peace and confirmation that I am doing the right thing! Sooo last Tuesday we were having interviews with our teachers just so they could see how we are doing. I was talking with Irmao Read. He shared the story of Peter walking on water. He asked how i think Peter would have felt. I told him I would have been absolutely scared to death, and would have had to rely on faith. He then asked me if I would leave the boat with Portuguese. He told me to use all the Portuguese i can 100% of the time. The thought scared me, but again we talked about Peter. Then we talked about how blessings are predicated upon obedience to laws. I had told him I want to be able to speak the thoughts of my heart. He told me that blessing will come by obedience to the law of SYL (Speak Your Language). He knew exactly what I needed to hear. I have been trying, and I can already tell a difference. The Lord blesses our efforts. He also helps me remember what I have learned and helps me retain it. I need to be a lot better about syl, but I am excited to try. We then as a district watched a talk or something about how learning a language doesn't take time, it takes mistakes. That just motivated me even more to use my Portuguese! Luckily, i have done many embarrassing things in my life so pretty much i'm numb to it so when I make mistakes I really don't get too embarrassed! We were able to teach some good lessons with our investigators however Me and Sister Morey both kind of got the impression that we need to do something different. We are going to try and just get to know our investigators better and listen instead of just spewing a lesson out on them. We are trying that tonight so hopefully it goes well! i'm excited. I know the Holy Ghost will tell us what we need to say in order for the investigator to feel God's love. This week we have also talked a lot about the  role of the Holy Ghost. He is the one that does the converting. He is the one that carries our messages to the hearts of others. He is the one that can change us and them! It is through the holy ghost that we apply the Atonement, and also receive confirmation that we have applied the atonement! What a wonderful gift our Heavenly Father has given us! We also had a great devotional last night about Charity. In order to better feel the Holy Ghost, we must have Charity. I'm going to try really hard this week to find ways to increase my charity. I know the Lord will help me! OH and last night we watched the Joseph Smith movie and it was just pretty much the best thing ever. I only cried and got chills like 14 times during the movie. Oh man it was just too good. I know that Joseph smith was a true Prophet of God! Favorite line of the movie "Shall we not go on in such a great cause?" me and sister morey both were just pumped after that. We also got to do a sesh at the temple this morning! I love the temple and have missed it, it was so awesome to be back.  Those are just a few of the times I have felt the spirit this week. This place is just incredible! 

Some other highlights of my week....I ate nuggs like 2 or 3 times! We had them for lunch then I found them again in the left over line. Bencaos. Also, one night this week sister leavitt decided we needed an ice cream party so we went to the vending machine and bought a bunch of ice cream. It was super fun. (ps i had a twix ice cream and i highly recommend those. it was soooo good.) Also, our district and another have been doing things like smiling attacking and boming. They put smiley faces all over our classes so then we bombed their's with book of mormon stickers and wrote BOM dia on the board. Oh man Portuguese puns. Then they put dead crickets in our classroom the next day, but they were sour cream and onion flavored so that's a plus. haha good times. 

I got to see sister Christiansen yesterday! She left at like 3 am this morning so it was a tender mercy that I just happened to run into her on our temple walk! She is going to do awesomely, i just know it. Also I was able to meet her at the map and we got a pic together. It was a tender mercy I found the map. I don't know why but I just get lost in this place. Everything looks the same. SOO hopefully when I host this week i will be at least a little helpful! I GET TO BE A HOST THIS WEEK! I'm so excited.

OK another highlight of the week, me and sister morey had some time yesterday so we decided to have a mormon message marathon. I heart mormon messages. It was so good. 

I'm glad all is well at home. Sounds like 4th of July was a party, i'm SO glad Eli got to participate in the festivities this year! Good luck to Dad and Adam on the green river this week. I hope it is a blast! And i'm glad y'all were able to tour snow college. I think that would be a really good choice for the first couple semesters so If it feels right Megan, Go for it. And boa Sorte to aunt Lisa at g camp this week( That reminds me, earlier this week we had TRC which is where we teach members to practice teaching in Portuguese. Me and sister morey were teaching this guy and he told us something but the entire time, and to this day, i still don't know if he said he was getting married or getting engaged or going hunting. Either way on our way out I told him boa sorte (good luck) and he just kind of gave me a confused look:) . I know she would be such a great camp director. HOpefully spencer can bring in the big bucks this week, that would be awesome for him! I did run into sister Hatch quite a bit before she left! She is a sweetheart and I know she will be incredible. Thanks so much for the love and support. I absolutely love getting letters and packages from everyone, you are all so thoughtful! MOm You are the coolest thanks sos os sososososo much. I really don't need anything. Love you guys sooooooo much! Thanks for all you do and keep up the good work! 

Sister Hulsey

Email: 4 July 2016

Oi Minha Familia e Minhas Amigos!

lemme just say I <3 THE MTC!!! This place has the sweetest spirit and I have learned SO much already. First of all thanks Mom and uncle Tim for the packages! They have been so fun to have and to share and I love you guys! . Ok this week went by SO fast. We taught our investigator Nelson a few more times. Our Portuguese was improving and on our (what we didn't know to be) last lesson we invited him to be baptized. I was so excited to invite him because earlier that day I had memorized the baptismal invitation in Portuguese. He didn't commit bc he was catholic and was already baptized but we said we could teach him more. Turns out that was our last time teaching him though and the next day we walked into class and he is now our new teacher! We thought we must have done a pretty good job teaching him if he was now a teacher in the MTC. Ok i am so blessed to have the BEST teachers. We have had Irmao Read from the beginning and he is so patient and so happy and so positive. And now we have Irmao Curtis aka Nelson and he just got back from his mish like 10 months ago so he is super relatable. I am really growing to just absolutely love my district. Everyone is so funny and we just laugh all the time. Everyone has something different to add to the group and together it is just awesome. I have a really fun zone too, although like 10 people left this morning to Brazil so we will miss them! I love the girls in my district but lately we have been staying up probs too late because we just talk and joke all the time. The language has been so fun! really, I am really enjoying learning it. I love being able to learn new words and phrases and then hear my teachers say them. Yes it is kicking my buns and i have to work hard but I totally know the Lord is helping me! 

I have seen Tess a few times! She is doing well and has her flight plans. And I see Nikki a lot too, I think most of our meal times are the same. She seems like she is doing awesome and picking up Japanese. I also see Devin and he seems to be doing well also! I love seeing familiar faces! 

So we have had quite a few devotionals these past few days and they have been awesome! We had one on July 2 about freedom and stuff. They brought in flags from every country represented here at the MTC and it was so cool! Then we heard a talk or 2 and something that stuck out to me was that because of Christ, we are free to change. Also they talked about the Restoration in relation to America and free religion. It was sweet. Also I watched Elder Holland's talk called A mission is forever. He is incredible. He said don't you dare waste 1 second of your mission. #noregrets It will change your life and your very soul. Don't think about "if I were in real life" he said this IS real life. Of course it is going to be hard, but was Christ's life easy? Anyway it was awesome and just made me want to work the hardest I can and the Best i can. Also, in Sacrament meeting our stake president talked about how the spirit can be present, but It needs and invitation to act because of agency. We must open our mouths! I totally know this is true. The spirit has already helped me so much with our investigators and such. Or when I am praying and I always find and answer usually immediately. 

I am so Happy you guys are all doing well! And I'm glad your tye die turned out good this year. How fun. We got to watch the stadium of fire fireworks on sat. and stay up past 10:30 :) It was so much fun!!! Also I'm so glad to hear Eli's physical therapy is going well. I pray for him. Thinking about him gives me strength! And Way to go Micayla Teschner! I'm so proud of her!! 

It was such a cool opportunity to go clean the temple. We just cleaned out lockers but i love to serve. Then we all got to go to the brides room, even the Elders and it was cute to see how excited they were to see it. It was a nice break and I could definitley feel peace. We also memorized moroni 10:4 in Portuguese while cleaning. Good times. 

Random story so at dinner i was a little too excited while eating some pizza and spilled on my (White) shirt. But we didn't have time to go change so I just wore it, whateves. But that day we met our new teacher and while introducing our selves i just said "I'm sister Hulsey, i love nuggs, and I have a stain on my shirt". LOL and then the next day at dinner, I spilled again so it was totally appropriate to introduce myself as such. I decided to invest in a tide to go.

I am so very blessed to be here! I love being a part of the Lord's work! God is oh so good! I know he blesses us and especially blesses us when we are obedient. 

I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!! TUDO BEM

Sister Hulsey