Thursday, October 30, 2014

Provo MTC Week 4


  It's going pretty good, I'll just give you a quick summary: I am now zone leader and yesterday I welcomed in all the new missionaries into the MTC WITH A SCOTTISH ACCENT! They all believe 100% that their zone leader is from a small town in Scotland named Eberland, all of our districts are in on it and the poor saps have no idea. We also convinced them to eat their new missionary stickers (it's ok, we did the same thing), and we gave them Captain America stickers to put on the back of their name tags. There are 4 hermanas in our zone now, the only ones! Little worried about that. Also Elder McLeod left to Guatemala a few days ago, which was pretty sad. We are no longer the biggest district, just a normal district :(
  
  Thanks so much for the past couple of packages!!!! We have been having duels with the nerf guns and we put up all the halloween decorations. They made us take the ones down from our door though and that was disappointing. They said they looked cute but couldn't have them on the door!!! Lame!!! So everything is good here, Tell Brandee that her packages are the highlights of my life!!!

  We mostly play basketball and volleyball for workout. I got all of annie's packages!! They were AWESOME!!!! It's a little weird being zone leader because I have to look over so many more people, I honestly just check in with the zone leaders every once in a while and make sure it's quiet at lights out. We dont even know if it's weird or not since this is only our second day with us. We only met the newbies in the classroom, only hosts pick up from the curb (which I really want to do) and it doesnt even make me homesick a little. I feel great here.
1)me being elder wright
2)us benching elder gurr
3) we got our zone leader phone
4)note the inspectors left us










Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Provo MTC Week 3

Here!!!!!! Sorry, I tried sending a letter but I guess it didnt get there in time! Anyways here at main campus it is pretty cool, there are 6 beds to a room, but we only got 4 people in ours so we have so much room for activities!!!! I like the room arrangements but the bad news is that every single time we walk out of our room, the door always locks when you shut it. so this morning when me and elder brewster were showering, we left the door open (also, we can make eye contact over the shower stalls, don't like that) so we could just go back in. Elder Schow and Sellards came back, closed the door while we were in the shower!! Like what?! so me and Elder Brewster get back to the room and since we were showering we dont have a key!! Elder brewster just chilled out in his old pajamas while I tried to look cool in as everyone passed by. We got Elder McLeod and Gurr to go get the key for us from the other Elders so waited for 20 minutes in the hallway outside our room. That was the highlight of our day, and now we are just sitting here emailing you guys. Nothing much is happening, my favorite teacher is Hermano Turner. I think i like Hermano Turner more because he's the missionary I want to turn into. He gave it his all, and his biggest regret on his mission is that he didn't work as hard as he could've for ONE WEEK! And that's it! I want to give my all so when I start going lazy on myself, I know and I'll want to change right away.
           As for the food, My favorite meal so far was when they brought in papa johns for us since there was almost no one at west campus. Yesterday my mashed potatoes tasted like soap and all our meat is overcooked. Mom, you spoiled me. This isn't food. But it's bearable! My companion is doing great, he's a pretty chill guy and we get along the best in our district. yesterday he broke his suitcase, so he called his mom real quick to check if it was under warranty. They put us in a room and he dialed her. When she answered, and he said it was him, then I heard her scream across the room. I started laughing pretty hard! They only got to talk for 10 minutes but he loved it. This week is my last as DL since you can only serve for 3 weeks at the MTC. I'm relieved and also a bit sad. It's fun but very challenging. I'll miss it. Anyways that's all I got, investigators are hard, we met one that asked us what the difference between the light of christ and the holy ghost. Uh huh, "investigator". The entire time she was talking, i was just thinking, "you little member of La Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Ultimos Dias." It was pretty fun this week. Elder Murphy (the one who got sent home for surgery) is doing well, just got his surgery and is waiting his 6 months for recovery. We pray for him every night and write him every p day. Nothing much more to report, other than I love you guys, miss you, what is the status on the SEAHWAWKS and nothing else :) Love you!











Provo MTC Week 2


 



Whats up?! in case you didnt know from cole's letter, I became district Leader!! Our old District Leader tore his meniscus and ACL, so he has to go back home for surgery and six months of rehab. Our last night with him, he got released, I got assigned DL, and we stayed up till 11:30, just talking about the reasons we all served missions. It was really sad but it was good. The next day he left and we got one last picture together and now he's gone. I just cant even imagine going through what he is right now. In other news, I got my first real meal in 2 weeks!! Woot Woot!! I went to the mexican consulate and am expecting my visa soon. the building is where we have class. We also had an arm wrestling competition in our district, and it's ok, you can be disappointed in your son foronly making it to the 2nd round. Just ask away!!!

Provo MTC Week 1


Hey MOM!!! WHATS UP?! The MTC is pretty dang great!! My companion is Elder Brewster, a Mormon boy from Utah; I will be attaching many photos to this email. My P-Day is, as you will soon find out, WEDNESDAY! Which sucks because we got here Wednesday, so ugh. We had to wait a whole week for this beautiful, amazing, glorious, and absolutely divine day of loafing around. The cafeteria is, while not bad, definitely just straight up mediocre. Nothing like your cooking at all ;) I'm loving it here and hope to be able to speak the language even better. I'll start this off with my first day. After you guys dropped me off, I went through about a billion people, yet strangely enough, I never had to turn in my immunization sheet, since I turned it in online. Before you stress out, I made sure that I was ok and ready to go. I went to the classroom next and sat down in my seat. Our teacher, Hermano Turner, started speaking nothin but Spanish all day! And you know what the best part was ? I understood!! WOOT WOOT!! So it's true that when you arrive it's a little overwhelming but it was still fantastic. I met my Companion Elder Brewster after I was placed in my class, so no I was not detained for  not having my companion with me. He's a pretty chilll guy and a fantastic companion. I got really lucky with him because we get along really well.
 We share our apartment with two other pairs of Elders: Elder Mcleod (McLoud) and Elder Gurr, Elder Schow and Elder Sellards. Anyway, that first day was pretty easy, although a bit confusing. Hermano Turner was kind of blown away with our Spanish, and it turns out he thought he would be teaching an beginner class, not us experienced intermediates. He bore his testimony to us in english at the last class period of the day by saying he believed in us and even though there would be times we want to quit, that we feel unable to do this, that we could do it. I thought a lot about this and while I have already felt this feeling, i must keep on moving onward in faith, trusting continually in our lord that he will be there with me every step of the way. The first night I woke up literally every hour, while Elder Brewster slept like a baby of course. The 2nd day was pretty busy and now we are in a schedule that goes step by step literally every half hour. It took awhile but i'm used to it now and enjoy how well planned my day is. The food tasted terrible the first day but now we now when it is REALLY gross and when it is just normal. We had zone conference and Elder Murphy and Elder Wright were assigned as our district leaders. I am the senior companion to Elder Brewster and so I can bring up my authority if there is a disagreement.
 Unfortunately, we've never had one. 3rd day was much of the same, lots and lots of teaching time, but that Friday we had to teach a pretend investigator all in Spanish!!! Elder Brewster and I didn’t connect at all, didn’t lock ideas together, forgot tons of words, and just didn’t do well. We felt pretty discouraged that night, but Monday we made up for it. We taught Carlos (our fake investigator) and we ROCKED IT!!!! We taught with the spirit, constantly testified, and invited him to be baptized. Although we knew it was fake, I could barely contain myself when he said He'd love to!! There was many fist pumps and that night, since we all had great lessons, we toasted to each other with IBC root beer. It was a great night. Next 2 days was conference. The first day was amazing and we got a lot out of it
Elder Bednar's talk,  it was so awesome, I literally want to jump out of my seat and clap to him! I felt awake, alert, and pumped! another cool thing was the fact they spoke in their own language! Elder Brewster and I fist bumped every time one of the speakers spoke in Spanish. Monday we were back on track with our schedule, learned from hermano turner and taught Carlos. Tuesday was fun but while we were playing volleyball during gym time, Elder Murphy Hyper extended his knee and pulled his ACL.  This was actually better it happened earlier because it takes a couple weeks to heal. He's up and walking, albeit with a slight limp. Today is P-DAY and we just back from the temple. I desperately needed this break and am loving it!! I have learned so much Spanish over the past week that I don’t have to try nearly as hard and it comes more naturally. Our temple time was at 9:30, so when we got out, it was around 12. 
We saw all the future missionaries gathered around the temple taking pics with their families. It feels so strange, because in the moment time is going so slow, but then suddenly it's been a week. It definitely doesn’t feel like it though. One elder in my zone told me something that only made sense today "The days are weeks and the weeks are days". That is what describes my experience perfectly. So Elder Brewster and me have been lying back all day and enjoying life. The temple was a different experience today and definitely for the better. Also, I'm known as the guy in our apartment with food, our entire district comes over to hang out at our place since they know we have food. Thank you so much for your packages and thank everyone else too please, I enjoy being the loved one! Something I do want is actually my scripture case. I have been carrying around my scriptures in my hand like an idiot! HAHAHAHA jk, but for reals, I want that. Other than that, I want to continue being that guy with food, keep loving me! What I want to know is what is the status of the Seahawks!! I want their season stats and a brief summary of how they did in the previous game! How's everybody doing, how's Cole's games doing in football, etc. I love you guys and miss you tons! I think of all of you everyday and that's what keeps me going and motivated on trying harder to serve La Iglesia de Jesucristo de Los Santos de Los Ultimos Dias. Adios and talk to ya soon!