Our first email from Elder Howard!!

Our first email finally arrived today. It is so good to finally hear from him!

From: Landon Howard
Date: Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 12:53 PM
Subject: Re: Hello

FAMILY!!!!!!!

I`m just sending out one mass email to you all because I don't have a lot of time! They only give you 30 minutes for email which is definitely not enough.  So I'll do my best to share all that I can.  Mom make sure you forward this to everyone and forward it to Morgan too.

I can't believe I'm in BRASIL!!!!  It is insane here and is super cool! The MTC feels like a prison sometimes!! haha cuz we only get to go out of it on p-days.  Today is our first p-day, so my p-days will always be on Tuesdays while i'm at the MTC or CTM in Portugues.  I have met a lot of cool kids here.  A couple of weird ones too.  The food here is so crappy!! haha but It is getting better.  I think the only reason it is getting better is because we are getting used to it.  It is always mystery meat here.  But I just eat it because I am always super hungry.  My companheiro (companion) is Elder Nougle.  Dad met him at the airport.  He is a super cool kid!  He is a little quiet, but he is super cool about everything and goes with the flow.  I like him a lot tho.

We have 6 elders total in our room.  2 are Brasilians!! they are hilarious! haha they keep me sane when it gets crazy here.  They like to sing American songs so the other night we sang some Miley Cyrus and Simple Plan together!  They are super funny!  I've been practicing my Portugues a lot with them.  Portugues is pretty tough, but I know through Heavenly Father and the Gift of Toungues I will be able to learn it!

It's been a rough adjustment!  I miss you all like crazy.  It is super weird just not talking to you guys everyday, but I know that you are doing great and that you are in the Lord's hands, as am I.  I was having a rough night the other night so I turned to my patriarchal blessing.  It is crazy how more of it relates to me right now in my life that I have always just read over.  It brought me so much comfort and I could feel Heavenly Father's love for me and I knew I was doing the right thing by coming on a mission.

Today we went to the Sao Paulo temple.  It is about an hour away.  The drive was crazy!! It is such a big city!! the drivers are crazy and there are tons of bikers swerving through everyone.  There are huge buildings and so many people walking around.  We did a session and it was in English.  It was a cool experience to do it in another country.  We just got back from walking around the streets of Sao Paulo by the MTC.  It is so cool out there!! Brazil is awesome!  You guys definitely need to come over here and pick me up when my two years is up.  And bring Morgan with you.  The boys would love it here.  It is all about soccer!

Well I don't have much time here which is pretty crappy.  But I love you all!  You will be getting a letter from me.  In it it talks about this thing called missionties.com, you guys can just disregard that.  I went over to the place and it is super  comlicated and not as cool as I thought it would be.  So just disregard that and tell Morgan too as well.  I loved all the personal letters you guys wrote me.  It brought me a lot of strength and encouragement.  I also got a letter from Morgan today and that made me so happy.  All your emails and letters have been so helpful!  Sorry I don't have much time to reply.  I love you guys a lot!  Tell the boys I love them and to kick some butt in soccer this week!  Let me know how their games and stuff go and I will email you next Tuesday.  Alos, stoked that USU beat Utah!!  Wish I could have seen it.  Tell dad SCISSORS.

Love you!

Elder Landon Howard

P.s.  I forgot to mention, I was made the district leader on sunday over my district.  Ask Cody, He will tell you what that means.  Tell Morgan too!  Love you all!!!!!