dearelder.com

A great way to send a letter to Cameron is to log onto dearelder.com and write a message and they will deliver it to him quickly - within a day or two.  It is free to write a message.  If you want to donate you can but you are not obligated.

Click on Provo MTC, fill in his name, his MTC Box 352, his mission code BRA-SPS

Thanks,
his Mom

Week # 2 at the Provo MTC

On Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 10:27 AM, Cameron Bruce wrote:

I'm sorry I can't get rid of the grey Mom. It's just something that they do here. I'm not sure why. This second week is flying by. They say the days go by slow but the weeks fly by and it is sooooo true. To up the ante of the soccer story I scored a hat trick the second day, they started calling me Mr. futebol (foo chi ball) but then I played terrible the next couple of days. But it's really laid back and everyone is just having fun out there. Everyone has the best spirit about them here. I'm learning how to say hello and thank you in just about every language they are teaching here. It's kind of fun.

 

Oh I finally got my electronic visa, yay. Don't get to excited it doesn't mean I'm leaving yet, lots of people have filled theirs out and they're still waiting for there real visas to come. But it's another step in the right direction. Two missionaries in our zone have gotten theirs already which is ridiculous. No district has had that many that fast get theirs. I'm sad to see the two of them go because we've already become such good friends. But I'm excited that they get to go to Brasil. It's a little bittersweet. And it gives me hope that maybe mine will show up sometime soon.

 

Funny story. So in class we were learning how to use possesives in Portugues, and Elder Larsen raises his hand to read a sentence he had written and it said "Onde e o nosso almoço?" which means where is our lunch, but Elder Hill just started singing "Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more." He thought he said what is love? It was hilarious. We've given him a pretty hard time about it. But he's a great guy, he laughs it of like it's nothing. I love my district we get along super well.

 

Elder Kerr is from New Mexico, but he lived in Washington for most of his life, in the Tri-cities area. So not the Washington that I know. I think I told you Elder Egan was from Oregon in my letter but if not, he's from Oregon. Corvallis. I think I spelled that wrong. Oh well. He's super nice. And has an amazing voice. I convinced him to audition to sing at a devotional or something. So he's been practicing. I love just listening to him practice. Partly because we can't listen to our music in our residence halls because a while back a few Elders apparently let things get out of hand and were a little too loud with their music, so everyone lost the privaledge. It's a bummer but we're all striving to be exactly obedient so we put the speakers away.

 

That's awesome that North Thurston is doing so well. And great to hear about Landon. I hope everything is going well for him. Sounds like Thurston has a chance to actually do well in state this year if they can play with Tumwater.

 

I hope everything works out well with the retirement. You'll have to keep me updated on that. And grandma is going to be staying for a while right? I pray that she feels well.

 

And 100 pounds?!?! Wow Billy. That's exciting that he was able to go over with his talk. I wish we would have been able to see each other before I took off. But that's great news. I hope I'm like that when I get back (the talking thing, not the 100 pounds)

 

Tell Caleb congratulations for me. Do you know when he reports? I actually have a friend in that mission now. His name is Elder Manwaring if you want to tell Caleb to look out for him.

 

There are soooo many brasilian missionaries. They had to double their teaching staff of the entire MTC just for us. So I don't think I've seen him around. I'll keep an eye out though.

 

At last week's devotional Elder Nelson came and spoke. It was great. He spoke about the special issue Ensign and the Book of Mormon. The spirit was very strong in the room and it was a great testimony builder to listen to the words of an Apostle of the Lord.

 

It's funny that there are actually at least two Petersons teaching Portugues here, so I don't know which one they are talking about. Plus the teachers aren't really supposed to tell us about their life outside of the MTC. Irmao (brother) Peterson is great, he team teaches with Irmao Congelosi and they're both new so Irmao Williams helps out some times.

 

I forgot to bring the cable with me to the lab to send some pictures so I guess you'll have to wait.

 

Oh and I want to let everyone who reads the blog to know about DearElder.com. Use it and send me some messages. It's the best way to talk to me. It's so nice to have something to read from people at home. And it really only works while at the MTC. So take advantage of it please.

 

The Portugues is coming along. So is the knowledge of the Gospel. Everything is good. Eu voces amo. (I love all of you)

 

Elder Cameron Bruce

Cameron's address at the Provo MTC:

Elder Cameron Wayne Bruce
MTC Box 352
BRA-SPS 1114
2005 North 900 East
Provo, UT  84604

He'd love to hear from you!

Ola meus Pais e amigos

 

Wow, everything is flying by. I've already done so much. They really just make you jump right in, no real orientations or anything.

 

My District is awesome. There are 10 of us. 7 Elders and 3 Sisters. My companions name is Elder Garrett Egan. He went to BYU also and so did one other Elder in my district. They're all awesome and we get along super well. Our class is crazy though. It's just then ten of us but our teachers, Irmao (Brother) Peterson, Irmao Williams, and one other to be named are awesome. But the thing is they only speak to us in Portugues. My two years of Espanol are actually helping and hurting a lot. I can understand what they are saying because of it, and it helps with conjugation, but I'm always saying things in the wrong accent. Like de is pronounced chi, well kinda like that. It's crazy. It's coming along well though. They already has us teach a couple of lessons to an "investigator" (a couple of other missionaries blew it and told us he was going to be our teacher in a couple of weeks) but even though we know he is actually an RM it still feels like we're teaching someone who is completely clueless about the evangelho (gospel). He's a great actor. We teach him another lesson today, this time I didn't write a word for word script in Portugues, I'm going to try and actually come up with the phrases while we are teaching him. I hope it goes well.

 

So apparently the teaching program that they are using for us is brand new. We're like the second group to use it. I think it works super well. We really are learning so much about o evangelho and Portugues. A lot of missionaries that were going to Brasil didn't get their visas, so there is a total overflow of missionaries here. We were put in a Branch that has a bunch of people going to Eastern Block countries, instead of being in an all Portugues one. It means that we get to speak in English which is nice now since I don't know enough Portugues, but was also excited to be imersed more completely in the language. Oh well. So the two Zone leaders that are in charge of our group, Elder Redpath and Elder Olson, are awesome. Elder Redpath is from Northern England and its such a nice guy. He loves to just talk to you about anything. It's great. And Elder Olson is incredible nice. He's a little more reserved but is still awesome. They are like the perfect companionship.

 

Elder Egan and I get along just fine, but at the same time we don't seem to be the closest friends. Like we tend to want to talk to others in our district, but there is still a mutual respect and love there. We work well together and haven't started to annoy each other yet. (I have my fingers crossed that we won't ever) But we are going to be companions for 9 weeks, and I guess you get tired of constantly being with someone all day. We'll see how it goes.

 

Everyone here that is going to Brasil, jokes about getting temporarliy reassigned because no one is getting visas. The District that we replaced had 14 people and only one made it to Brasil, the rest are in like Idaho, Texas, and Salt Lake City. I really hope visas start coming through.

 

So gym time is the best. I look forward to it so much. We get to be outside and play soccer. I scored a goal the first day (which is ridiculously lucky since there are like 50 people on the field) but everybody like freaked out and stuff. It was kinda nice. There was an Elder from Africa playing soccer and he was hilarious. He didn't speak much English and had a heavy accent, but he was super good and was always yelling funny things like "Give me some love" if he wanted you to pass the ball. He made the whole experience better. Everyone is so incredibly nice here. It's like a competition to hold the most doors open for people, or to say to hello and smile to people. Everyone greets each other in their language though. It's kind of awesome.

 

 

I have pictures to send but they're on an SD card. I need a USB cable to upload them. I don't think my phone came with one, but if you could check around the house for one that would be great.

 

The Sisters add a completely different dimension to our District. I really feel like they calm us down and make us work harder. None of them took Spanish or anything, and they don't seem to be picking up the language as quickly, but it gives us an oppurtunity to teach them which really helps me learn a lot in the end. Basically half of our days are all Personal Study Time or Language Study, which neither of them have a teacher so you have to self teach. It's hard to stay motivated for that long when you've already done so much in one day. But I'm trying. So I can only write letters on P-Day which is today and I can only email family. So I'm working hard to get that all done today. Sorry to some people if I don't have time to get a letter to you this week. I just have so much to do. They have every second of your day planned out here. Even P-Day ends at 5 25 and we have to go back to class.

 

Well that's all I can think of to say. Tell me what's going on with everyone. It's easiet for me to read letters because I can get them all through the week, and I can only check email once a week. And even then I only get thirty minutes so I would just print the emails and read them later anyway.

 

Tchau. Me amas. ( I love you all)

 

Elder Cameron Bruce.