Merry Christmas!!

Hey everyone!

Merry Christmas! Feliz Natal!

okay I gotta answer dads questions since I forgot last time. my bad. shoot. I forgot them so ill try to do them from memory. so we learn from ourselves. like for real. Once a day we have language instruction for an hour and its basically a joke. We practice conjicating one word and using it in a sentence. we are going sooo slow. so basically you have to teach your self. we use the computer for a program called TALL( technology assisted language learning) or something like taht. It teaches us everything we want to know. It has all the lessons on there and everything. I mostly use it for vocab. but the thing that is good about it is that it has native speakers on it so the pronounciation and the accent is perfect. well ,actually it stinks because people in portugal slur everything together. It literally sounds like they’re drunk! shoot sorry dad that’s all the questions I remember. Mom as for you question no elder dredge didn’t freak out about in n out. Technically its not breaking any rules so I had a pretty good case if he tried to fight me on it. haha jk but sometimes I think I should be a lawyer. but actually everyone we pretty excited that I convinced the driver to take us to in n out. Oh and yes I basically was the leader when we went to New york because they’re all like oh no what do we do. its kinda funny. its like common sense to me.... Yeah I see Megan skousen at gym time a lot. and yeah i saw matt! haha it was awesome I found him in the choir and we like had a telepathic conversation. it was sweet. Matt if you didnt understand i said i love you man! Oh Austin we had our first district come into our zone that is going to Curitiba! haha theyre cool i guess. so now i have a total of 68 missionaries in my zone. Its pretty tiring. But im proud to say i know every single one of their names! yeah its true, miracles happen when you’re on a mission. K oh my gosh the basketball games at home sound amazing! Dad thanks for doing my yelling for me. Oh man I miss that. Such FUN!

Hey mike, remember when you said that the seats at the mtc were hard? well yeah they were. Until yesterday! we got brand new desks and chairs and theyre all padded :) I’m happy with them.

Mom and dad it sounds like you had quite the interesting time the other night at a party ;) Fun fun hahaha.

Well I hope everyones last day of school went well! hopefully not too stressful.

Oh will you PLEASE send me a picture of the House all light up as well as the tree?? i want to see them really bad. Also thank you for the Christmas package! i didnt open any of the presents,i promise. And thank you also to the Turleys, sharps, Stokers and Burtons for the packages and letters! I loved them thank you so much. Austin I cant believe you’re coming in soon! I’m sad I’ll miss you.

Megan. I’m so sorry about your wisdom teeth! ouch!! that stinks so bad. Get better okay?! cause you gotta open your mission call and tell me where you’re going!

Darin when you get your call i REALLY want you to learn portuguese. then we can talk to each other and no one will know what we are saying ahahah! ps. dad i can understand spanish pretty darn good now. but the spanish people cant really understand me ahah! its sooo fun. and im probably the 2nd best white guy with the language in my class. actually im the best out of anyone who didnt already speak spanish before. people who spoke spanish before and pick it up so quickly its frustrating. same with italian. aha i can understand that too.

So everyone, President Brown called a meeting last night... and well. Today's the day. Im so grateful  to be on a mission right now. as for the rest of you. Well, i hope your living right! See ya in the Celestial Kingdom! ......................................................................................................

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Haha jk the world didnt end today..yet.

But now i wanted to share with everyone an awesome experiece i had this week teaching an investigator. So she hasnt believed in christ or anything and we just started teaching her trying to find a way we could apply the gospel to her life. anyway this last time we asked her if she had been reading the book of mormon and she said ya a little bit. and we asked her if she had prayed about it. and she feels really awkward with praying and shes embarassed. anyway she said no. and I just got this feeling and so I just bore my testimony that if she prayed with faith and real intent, wanting to really know, then God would tell her it was true. she said okay. and then i had another feeling and so i was like you know what lets do it right now. lets put what i just said to the test. ( i was praying to myself like Heavenly father this better work!) so we all got down on our knees and she offered one of the most beautiful portuguese prayers ever. and after she was done, holy cow the spirit was sooo strong. i almost started to get emotional. So i asked her how she felt and she could feel the spirit and she told us what it was like. and we let her work it out her self and realize that it was the spirit. anyway she ended up commiting to baptism and coming to church. Wow though it was just so awesome. i mean the spirit was sooo soo strong i felt like i could touch it or something!

Guys its really true. God is really there and He hears us. and Will answer us. We just have to have faith and real intent. None of this halfway stuff. all in.

anyway i hope you all have a Wonderful and Merry Christmas. Remember the Savior and His atonement. Yes it is his birth, But his atonement is truly amazing.

I love you all soo soo much and miss you like crazy but im not gonna lie, its pretty wonderful to be a missionary. Its only fun when you really get down to work and realize what your actually doing. In the book of mormon its says that the sons of mosiah  trembled at the very thought of even one soul not being saved into the kingdom of heaven. Find it. its good stuff. Its an amazing feeling to love someone so much that all you care about is their salvation. But its even more amazing to love mutiple people like that. Charity. Have it and your life will be AMAZING!

Love you all,

Elder Tingey