Week One- Provo MTC

GGGGGGGGGGGGGGOOOOOOOOODDDDDDDDDDDD MORNING EVERYBODY!

Elder Teela and Elder Gale-- best buddies since 6th grade.  Both families
feel so blessed to see them serving together.

Elder Teela with his first companion at the Provo temple

It's been an awesome week here in Elder Teela-ville and I'm gonna try to summarize it all.

Let's talk companions and such. My companion is named Elder Francom. He's from South Dakota but don't let that fool you. He's an awesome guy who is wwwwaaaayyyy better than me at pretty much anything physical. He's won a football state championship, the Jr. Olymipics in pole vault and he's a 4 time nation champ wrestler. Yeah it's kind of intense. He's a cool guy though and has remained humble despite his amazing resume. We're seriously brothers separated at birth. 

Next is our district, with Elders Hammond, Collett, Harberson and Weight.  And the sisters are Sister Lewis, Jaramello, Gamez, and Jamason.

Ladies first. Sister Lewis is a sweet soul who reminds me a lot of Bee, kind of spacey sometimes. 

Sister Jaramello is a thoughtful quite sister with a wild side and wavy hair

Sister Gamez is a short latina girl who is now learning her third language. Her others are English and Spanish. 

Sister Jamason is a runner in heart and spirit. She could pass me on the track easily during gym and is so eager to progress the work.

Happiest district on earth! Love these boys!!

Elder Hammond went to a year at SVU and played baseball there. He's a great singer and has a lot of heart, but we tend to clash a bit because he is all about the rules and I tend to take a more relaxed stance on them. 

Elder Collett is the ZL. He is a great man who went to BYU for a year and ran the 400 hurdles for them. He's a lot taller than me and has a powerful spirit about him, he's really the perfect man to keep us crazy kids in line. 

Elder Harberson is yet another tall man in my district who played basketball in high school and has some pretty good moves. He's a lot like me and we tend to get a long swimmingly.

Elder Weight is from New Jersey and is a very cool guy but does wear glasses. He was an EMT there and has some indescribable stories. He also did Jiu-Jitsu but I'm pretty sure I could whip his butt.

So on to some stories, right? Believe it or not I'm already kind of a legend here at the MTC. On the Sunday night devotional Elder Allen asked someone to get up and read some scriptures and I volunteered. I ended up having a conversation with him in Portuguese and inadvertently stated that I wouldn't be learning it anymore, ha ha. But I ended up getting back at him a bit and everyone in the MTC had a good laugh.

I stood there for about 50 mins of the hour and now whenever someone sees my name tag they go "You're Elder Teela?! You were awesome there other night" or something along those lines. No joke, about 100 people have come up to me and shook my hand. After that we had an amazing experience after that. We watched a talk by Elder David A. Bednar called "The Character of Christ" and it was one of those talks that want to make you get up and change your life forever. I really hope I can live up to the teachings in that talk.

My Portuguese is coming along well too. I would write a bit in it but ain't nobody got time fo' dat. My teacher, Irmao Whitiker, is flipping awesome! He only speaks in 100% Portuguese and he's hilarious. He's also amazingly passionate about the gospel and only got off his mission about 6 months ago. He is always telling us "Espenol, aqui" Indicating about at his knees, "Portugues, aqui" indicating about at his shoulder "E Espireto, aqui" Indicating about his head, haha.

I'm in the choir too! What an amazing group! It has well over 600 people in it and we sing like angles I swear. We're singing my favorite hymn too "Lead Thou Me On". The director is funny and amazingly talented. He's got an ear that picks out the slightest imperfections and a heart made of pure gold.

I'll send some pictures in another message, but for now this is farewell. God Be with you all

-One of God's army, Elder Teela 

Elder Jeremy Teela left for the Provo MTC bright and early this morning.  We are all so excited to support him in his efforts to serve The Lord with all of his might, mind and strength.  He will be a welcome addition to his Brazil Porto Alegre North mission.  The adventure has just begun and we can't wait to see all of the wonderful things he will accomplish.