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!