Hola familia!
This week has also flown by, which is quite funny. There's a saying here at the MTC that everyone told us when I first got here which is: "The days are like weeks and the weeks are like days" which when you think about it really doesn't make sense, but it totally does when you experience it. It's like if you try to count each hour throughout the day and you just move slowly through each thing in the day, the days go by so slow its nuts. But when you look back after a while you go, WOW it's already been another week and it's p-day again! nuts. The day before p-day I try to take some bullet points on what I want to write in my email home, but this week has been good but pretty uneventful. But time is certainly going by faster, it's fun seeing all the noobs come in each week and I always wave and say "Bienvenidos al CCM" I don't remember if I said what CCM means but thats MTC in Spanish, stands for (El Centro de la Capicitacion de los Misioneros).
Let's talk about the language shall we. Some days you feel like an absolute genius, the language comes to you like you're already fluent, you understand what your teachers are saying completely, you understand what the natives say to you, and it's just incredible. Other days, it's seriously like a completely foreign language and you just stare with a blank face, thinking of how you can possibly respond back in such a weird language. Let me say why this language is weird; There are 4 ways of saying "through"! Seriously? Por, por medio de, a traves de, and mediante. Pretty crazy, so I just throw around whatever one I feel like using for the day. Later in this email I'm gonna write a bit of my testimony in Spanish, with no prep I promise, I just want to show you that I've learned a bit here. It's funny about the MTC, they teach you all the essential words you need to talk about the gospel right off the bat, like the 5 big ones (Fe en Jesucristo, el arrepentimiento, el bautismo, la recepcion del don del Espiritu Santo, y perseverar hasta el fin) for example, but that's really what you learn 1st because that's what you need to learn for the people you teach. It's kinda up to you to learn all the necessary verbs to complete the sentences, luckily we have good teachers, one better than the other :) Hermano Litzenberger is awesome, really cool guy and we just talk alot about outside life because it's like we have no idea about the world around us. Our lesson yesterday and today were pretty cool, we used analogies totally in Spanish. I compared our sins as a big red stain on our favorite shirt, and we don't want to continue wearing it with that big stain. Repentance is how we are able to get rid of our stains in life and become clean. It was pretty funny and she seemed to understand.
So, it totally snowed on Tuesday! First snow since I've been here. It wasn't cold enough where we are for it to stay on the ground, but I definitely saw it falling when I looked out the window during class, pretty sweet. The mountains just got covered because of it, all of it melted off when I first got here, not some of it's back.
Investigators we teach, right now it's Maria (Hma Christensen) and Carlos (Hmo Litzenberger) and they are both actually kinda similar. We teach lessons, give them commitments like (Leera un capitulo en las escrituras cada noche?) And they say "Oh yeah sure I'll read" and then we go back to teach the next day and of course they didn't do what we asked them to, so frustrating haha but it's good prep for the field because I know that investigators are often not going to follow through on what we ask them to do. Elder Swasey and I just have to go back and re-teach them the importance of prayer and receiving revelation through prayer and make sure they follow through, because we can't prove anything to them, it's up to the Holy Ghost through their prayers to tell them that what we're teaching them is true.
So, temple, we've gone twice so far, and last weeks was so amazing and relaxing. I fully believe that it is the one place when you can pray in complete silence and just pour your heart out, and just relax and not stress out about teaching lessons or anything. We get to do a thing every Monday called "temple walk", which is just as it sounds, we all walk out to the temple grounds and take a bunch of pictures, most of the time with people who are leaving the next day.
I wish I could've been there for Grant's farewell, I'm sure it was really good. I'm so excited to see him soon, only 2 weeks to go till he gets to be branded with the orange "dork dot" haha :) It's funny, I've actually seen alot of guys that look like him here, red heads with glasses.
One cool thing that happened this week was I traded 2 of my least favorite ties that I brought for 2 awesome new ones. That's a really big thing here is trading ties, it's like a big game. 1) I call my bumblebee tie, black and yellow stripes, and the other is my red power tie, I wear it to intimidate our investigators to persuade them to be baptized haha!
Choir this week, we sung a really strange arrangement of "True to the Faith" which is a great song, but it was changed to be like super slow so it was kinda boring. Swasey and I sat in the very front row of the choir kids and it was so weird cuz we knew that our voices would be the first ones that people heard, good thing we're amazing!
It's kinda weird, we've already seen districts come and go, Spanish speaking ones because they were in the advanced class and we're in intermediate, so they only need 3 weeks while we have 9, that's because they're basically already fluent. But those guys were really cool. When each district leaves, they do a musical number in Sacrament, so I think that'll be fun. Some people get annoyed that I sing so much...and so loud...and high pitched...but oh well, I like to belt it. I am first string tenor after all :P
This past week I got a massive package of food from Aunt Debbie and Uncle Clint, so if you're reading this right now, thank you very much, you will be getting a hand written letter soon because that was awesome. I will finish it all slowly but surely :) And thank you very much Mom for your big bag of candy, I surprised the hermanas in our district with a few pieces on their desks for a few mornings and they really liked that.
Halloween in the MTC was almost indistinguishable from any other day, except a few guys on our floor went around with their shirts off and towels on their heads saying they were Nephi, hahaha. I switched nametags with Clark...I know...I'm a wild man!
It's getting really cold here now, still not as cold as it will get, that's for sure, but it's definitely quite chilly. Let Grant know that all the stuff he doesn't think he'll need, he'll still want for the 3 weeks he's here, trust me. And bring a sweatshirt for when you do service projects at 6am cuz I don't have one and it's quite chilly, thank you Mama T for telling me to bring that warm gray beanie, I wear it everytime :)
How's everyone doing? It's nice getting all of your letters, even though I don't know how many people are actually reading this but thank you mucho. I'll end with a little Spanish testimony so here goes...
Yo se que esta iglesia es verdadera. Todas de mis bendiciones en mi vida son relatadas al iglesia. Aprendiendo cada dia mas se trata el evangelio, las fundamentales en que yo creo, fortalece mi fe, mi conocimiento, me entendimiento que tenemos un Hijo que nos salvo de nuestros pecados y todos de nuestros desafillos. Cuando yo leo las escrituras cada dia, yo sentio que hubo muchos profetas que segian el Padre Celestial y creian que sera un Salvador por todo el mundo.Yo se que orando a Dios cada dia, muchos tiempos durante del dia es el mejor importante cosa que yo hago. Necesita expresar sus pruebas, sus desafillos, y da gracias por todo que Ud tiene. Yo aprendo mas y mas cada dia sobre el idioma porque yo tengo fe en mi Padre Celestial. Tengo fe que todo que necesito dira a mi si yo creo en El. Me encanta esta iglesia y estoy muy agradecido por esta oportunidad para servir mi Dios en un mision. Estoy agradecido por el amor de mi familia, y poniendome en la direccion que yo necesitaba. Y yo digo estas cosas en el nombre de Jesucristo, amen.
Feel free to google translate since I can't do that here bahaha :) Love you all, have a great week
PS: I still haven't gotten Max's last 2 letters, Mama T you better send them to me soon ;)
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