Hello everyone,
So I've completed my first week at the MTC officially now and to say the least, it's been pretty crazy. First off let me describe my district/roomates considering my district is so small that is just basically the 4 of us in the room.
Elder Preston Swasey (companion) - From Boulder City, Nevada, going to the Boston Massachusetts Spanish speaking mission, pretty crazy that that even exists. He's pretty cool, big muscular dude that flexes a lot of the time. He's a little taller than me and he is very sociable; goes and talks to almost every missionary that walks by saying "Como le va?" which just means like How's it going?
Elder Matthew Goodson - From San Bernadino, CA going to the Panama City, Panama Mission also. He's our district leader over the 6 of us (4 elders and 2 hermanas). Shorter, about the same height as Max, actually kinda looks like him too. Nice guy, funny sense of humor, good leader and clearly a "good son" hahaha
Elder Caleb Clark (companion of Elder Goodson) - From South Jordan, UT He is one of the funniest guys I've ever met. He's also going to the Panama Panama City mission with me and Goodson. He doesn't think he's funny which makes it all the more reason he's funny. I'll share a story later about him and I in the email.
Hermana Laura Johnson - From Poway actually, I can't believe I never met her before because we're both in the same stake. She's older obviously, 21, but I thought I would at least recognize her. Blonde girl. She's going to the Barcelona, Spain mission, which sounds awesome.
Hermana Melissa Marshall - From Logan, Utah. She's going to the Madrid, Spain mission. Both of the sister missionaries are really nice and really fun to hang out with, we usually eat lunch and dinner with them. They make the district a lot more fun.
So that's basically the sum up of the district, they're all really cool, nice people. Some more than others, but that's to be expected. What's sad though is that Goodson is probably leaving in about 2 weeks if all works out for him, getting transferred to the Guatemala MTC. And then both of the hermanas are probably getting transferred to the Spain MTC at the same time, so it may end up being just the 3 of us guys in the district which would be really weird and small, don't know if we would get more elders or hermanas later on.
Let's talk about the food shall we? For the first couple days obviously I was adjusting to the schedule and this new life style, so I really had 0 appetite for any of the meals, and I felt kinda sick. But now that I'm much more used to it, I'm eating more. The food's ok, ton's of variety thats for just and you can eat as much as you want which is nice. Everyone says it's so easy to gain like 15 pounds in the MTC. Our teacher actually said he gain like 25 pounds while he was here for 9 weeks, then lost like 15 towards the end of the MTC time. Class is really fun, I'm learning alot really quickly which is so surprising. We have 2 teachers, Hermano Litzenberger and Hermana Christiansen. Litzenberger we met on the 1st day and he got to see how good we spoke conversationally in Spanish which was a nice little bit of a shock since I wasn't used to speaking so much in Spanish. And turned out the 1st "investigator" we taught named Esmerelda was in reality our other maestra Hermana Christiansen. She's really nice too, we're having our first real lesson with her instead of teacher to her tonight after dinner. Funny story about Hno Litzenberger is that he actually was dating Hermana Johnson before he went on his mission! haha of all the places to run into someone again is being taught by a former boyfriend. He's only like a year older than he, he just got back from his mission to spaniosh speaking New Jersey which sounds really weird.
So teaching was really hard the first time because we wanted to learn all about her and her beliefs so we knew what to teach, and it was a learning curve because we were just learning how to pray in spanish and bear our testimonies. But as me and Elder Swasey worked more diligently, we're getting better at teaching lessons and having the Spirit as we teach.
Gym is pretty nice too, either indoor or outdoor for now, but when it gets too cold soon then it will only be indoors. Weight machines and lots of sports, like bball and volleyball and stuff, I've played both of those and they're fun but people are way too serious.
Shower situation is pretty weird as well, getting up really early and having to wait for other people to finish showering because there are only like 10 showers per floor of a bunch of guys that all get up at the same time needing to shower.
Class is really fun some days, Hermano Litzenberger is a really good teacher, speaks pretty normally, not too fast, so we understand almost all of what he says already most of the time. It's crazy that even though we've only been here a little over a week how much spanish words and phrases I've learned, because you have to utilize them in the lessons or you'll be screwed in describing stuff like La Expiacion (Atonement). We've taught 5 leccions(lessons) so far, some pretty good, some really terrible.
I've taken a few pictures so far, more and more everyday, I take alot of really funny pictures of Elder Clark's funny faces.
Thank you all very much for the letters that you've sent. People always envy me because I have alot of letters. I'm sorry if I can't respond right away, but seriously, I mean it when I say that I am busy from sun up to sun down. 6am to 1030pm.
On Tuesday this week we were incredibly blessed to have an apostle speak to us, apparently the 4th one in like 2 months, thats crazy. Elder Richard G Scott spoke and it literally was incredible, that day was amazing. He did kinda like a Q&A sort of thing with 2 microphones set up on either side of the gym and people came up and he asked what they thought of certain scriptures. People had alot of guts going up there, but I was not one of them haha.
Today we got to go to the temple and that was really fun, but the Provo temple is like a maze down in the basement, so hard to find your way around. Really cool going in with my district and listening as a missionary to apply it to my life more..
I also got to join the MTC choir which anyone can be in, haha but it's really amazing, the Spirit is so strong when we all sing together. We sung "This is the Christ" at the devotional with Elder Scott. It sounded so good. We're all in tenor, which is my wheelhouse because singing higher is easier.
Laundry is weird, no choice on temp of water, has to be hot so my clothes will probably all shrink quickly.
Sacrament is nice, we all meet together as a zone (bigger than district) which has like 50 or so people in it. Same sort of sacrament as home.
Love you all, running out of time, wish I could write more. I can't wait for Grant to get here soon. Please tell max that I'm thinking about him and praying for him as well as all of you at home. I love you all very much and I am so grateful for your support and kind thoughts and prayers.
Love, Gregg
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