Ola! Week 2 at the MTC!

Ola familia e amigos!

Week two at the MTC has been a success! It's gone by much much faster, and life is an adventure everyday! My days are spent learning Portuguese and how to be an awesome missionary and soaking up all the awesome devotionals and spiritual thoughts and everything! 

Here's something exciting: I've been able to play the piano a lot! I got to play in sacrament meeting this Sunday! But even better is this: Elder Walker, an Elder from my district, and I arranged a vocal solo for him (he's incredible!) with me as the accompanist of A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief. We worked on it together so it's very unique with some awesome key changes and a minor verse. BUT the best part is the very last verse (the 7th verse) he sings to the tune of I Know That My Redeemer Lives. It's pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. :) We were able to audition for a musical number, and Sister Nally (the wife of the MTC President) told us that she LOVED it and wanted to work with us to brush up a few things and we'll most likely be able to perform it for some event! AND she asked us to prepare another musical number for Thanksgiving!!!! It's been such a fun experience!

Another (less awesome) event is that my sweet companion Sister Valentine received her visa to Brazil! She left this morning for the Sao Paulo MTC and although I will miss her, I am SO happy for her! What a neat opportunity! I am now in a trio with Sister Bow and Sister Gutke (who have been in my room and I love them to death) until this weekend, because they're leaving for Mozambique on Monday. Soooo.... I get another companion(s) on Friday. We're going to talk to President Brough (the branch president) and figure everything out. Two Elders in my district (Elder Lunt and Elder Thomson) got their visas as well and left this morning for the Sao Paulo MTC too. Visas! Ahh! I'll keep y'all updated if I find out anything about mine. :) 

I hope you all had a lovely Halloween! Nothing too exciting happened here, the sisters in my room and I matched in black skirts and orange (or as close to orange as we had) tops, that was rather fun. 

Investigator story! Our investigator that we've been teaching, Lucas, agreed to be baptized! Legal! (Cool in Portuguese and one of my favorite words :) ) But then surprise surprise (actually, I'd heard that this would happen so...) Lucas our investigator turned out to be Irmao Machado, our new teacher! haha Fun times at the MTC. So now we have two teachers, Irmao Rodrigues and Irmao Machado, who are both from Brazil and are super super funny. Class time is great!

I feel like the topic for my life this week has been on Being a disciple of Christ and what it means to be a true disciple. It seems that all of my scripture study, devotionals, lessons, everything have something about the importance of being obedient and being a true and loyal disciple of Christ. The question was asked in a devotional (I can't remember right now exactly who it was, I think Sister Wendy Nelson) of "How would a true disciple of Christ act?" We were asked to apply this question in just one situation a day, for example "How would a true disciple of Christ dress?" or "How would a true disciple of Christ read the scriptures?" I've been trying to apply this and its been helpful in motivating me to do little things to become better and better each day.

One more thing that I absolutely loved: last Tuesday Sister Rosemary Wixom (Primary General President) came and spoke to us. She told of a time when she was serving as a missionary and a guy at the store looked at her name tag and told her "The man on your chest is my best friend." What a privilege it is to be a missionary, to be a representative of my Savior and best friend, Jesus Christ. I am so thankful for His gospel and for the opportunity I have these next 18 months to share it with everyone I meet!

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers! 

My new companions

Muito amor,

Sister Knapp