... Fearlessly Extraordinary...: ola! (here, hola is a bad word...)

..or at least that is what i am told. anyway, most of the stuff that happened this week you can read in the "mission tie" letter, so i will just briefly inform you on stuff and send you TONS of pics. i leave the ctm on sept 4. i got a letter from shane yesterday, that he sent a month ago. i wrote him a letter today, so maybe you guys can mail it to him for me, it will probably be
WAY faster that way. also, can you please get me tres' mission home address. we heard about the peru earthquake, and a kid in my dist has a twin in the peru mtc right now. the first he heard of it was in the letter i got from you. he talked to some of the "higher ups" and they emailed his mom for him in the middle of the week. his brother is alright, and he said that no missionaries were hurt. it was intense. i am out of time- ill write more in the letter that i mission tie to you guys. love elder helland

Some of his "mission tie" letter:
Dear Family and Friends,

Last week, as usual, we went to the Sao Paulo Temple. It was AWESOME! I felt like I learned so much; I really enjoyed it. We also had a district picture taken in front of the temple...I look dumb in it, as usual. Another exiting point from last week - I was able to experience the Atonement in a very real and personal way. Like it says in Preach My Gospel...Given a whole new view on life, others, and on Jesus Christ.

Wed: We are practicing "Come Thou Font of Every Blessing". We are singing in church our last Sunday here in the CTM. I got to help direct/lead the bass and melody parts, play the piano during practices, AND sing bass in the "Trio" part that I wrote!! It is a lot of fun!

Thurs: Couldn't sleep real well...turns out my companion talks in his sleep - A LOT! All day it is pulling teeth to get some friendly conversation out of him but at night he won't shup up! (smile) It was actually pretty funny because although most of the stuff he was saying was gibberish, some was him practicing Portuguese!

Last night was kinda neat - our district all slept in one room together, kinda like a sleepover, except all we did was have district evening study, district prayer and then went to sleep. I got some cool pictures this morning of everyone sleeping (see one below).

Today: I showed Imao' Netto my "food storage" or "day supply kit", which consists of ALL the food we hide IN the computer. I sit next to the computer in our class and the "face" of the computer always falls off. Since there are NO disk drives, floppy drives, OR hard drives in there, there is tons of room. We hide rolls, packets of honey, and bananas in there [He drew a very cool picture of his storage place with labels and all!]. Capacity: 12 rolls or 4 bananas and 12 honey packets. Well, it is the place our district stores the food we eat during class (we call the rolls dinosaur eggs because they are SO hard!

Boy, my hair is getting long! I have a hair cut appt. tomorrow at 6:30 AM! From what I've seen happen to others who come out of that room, I would guess my hair will be PRETTY SHORT! I'll let you know...

On an unrelated note, I am getting better at the Brasil National Anthem (listen to it - it is WILD!). At first when they showed us the words on the screen, it was all I could do to keep my eyes following along with where they were, let alone try and sing something to a tune I don't know. It was like trying to drink from a fire hydrant! But now, I can comfortably sing along - singing all but the fastest parts. It is a cool song! I should write Congress and have them consider a new anthem with more spunk!

To close, I thought I would help you guys out by giving you some scripture fun:
Romans 10:13-15, 16-18 (sent-heard-believed-pray)
Alma 34:30-31 (Immediately)
Alma 11:30-31 (Power of testimony - I know these things through the Holy Ghost)
Alma 16:16-17 (What the Lord is NOW doing from me and those I will teach)
Helaman 3:3-5 (Just a cool scripture)
Helaman 14:30-31 (Free to choose)
Sorry, no real scripture chain here or anything, just some scriptures I liked this week while studying and preparing lessons (lesson 2 & 3). I restarted the Book of Mormon when I got here and I am in 3 Ne. and hope to finish before I leave. I started reading the BOM a little over a week ago in Portuguese and I am in 1 Ne. 5...it is hard to read fast! I am marking all the words I don't know and ones I see a lot. It is getting SO much easier to read! Now, I only mark one or two words every couple verses. It is fun to see how much I've improved in the last few weeks (also, I don't have tons of time to just sit and read it - so I get 10-15 min. a day to translate).
Love, Elder Helland