Last Words From The MTC

August 31st,

Okay so yes I have my travel plans and I'm leaving for the Chile on Monday in the early afternoon. So I DON'T think I'll be able to see Kerri while I'm going through Santiago but I'll see her again soon enough. So other than that, the MTC is still the MTC and the food is giving everyone the same amount of gas. (Apparently I have bowels of steel immune to the food here, I've also only gained a single pound while everyone else in my district has gained multiple). The Spanish is coming along well. I'm no native or anything like that but being in intermediate made things quite a bit easier but also makes it so much easier to justify speaking English more because "we already know enough for now". That can be a little annoying but I'm feeling pretty ready for Chile and I have all of this week to prepare which is gonna be pretty awesome. Yah, I can teach well in Spanish so everything else I'm studying is just everyday kind of things and grammar which most people aren't going to use anyway but is common in the scriptures so I best learn it. So The elders in my district going to spain still don't have thier Visas so the three of them will either be reassigned to another mission or just wait here until they get their visas (which is still up in the air).

In all reality, if it wasn't for the transfers requiring us to wait out the two months here in the MTC all of my teachers said that they would have sent most of us out a few weeks ago but its not their choice now is it. But I'm so excited to leave and finally start teaching real people. I mean, teaching volunteers, teachers, and other missionaries is great but 15 months of not only Provo but of those, 2 months in the MTC, I'm almost more excited to get out of UT than anything else

Yeah, life is exciting and this is going to be my last email before I actually enter the field so my next email will be about my initial experiences in the field so keep an eye out for that but I have no idea when my P-day is going to be or anything like that but i fairly confident that you'll keep an eye out for my email.

Yeah, I'm pumped to leave!!!! Chile is gonna be waiting for me in now under a week!

August 24th

So this past week has definitely been an adventure. My companion, Elder Pericle got his visa so he left for Spain on Saturday. I was so excited to be just a duo there for a second... but Elder Jack and I have gained another companion and we are back to being the eternal Trio, just with a different corner-stone. Our new companion is Elder Fundora, he converted when he was 14 and his dad is from Spain which makes it pretty cool for him to be going there. He is great, but I have realized that I will enter the mission field not having had the experience of working in just a two-some, which kind of annoys me, but meh, I guess I'll just have to learn how to deal with that in the field. In case you're wondering, we didn't get an apostle last week but we did get Elder Gonzalez of the Presidency of the Seventy and he was great. But once again, I have my hopes high that tonight we are going to get our apostle.
Right now I am taking the vaccine for typhoid, which means every other day a take a pill filled with live bacteria. I am glad I'm taking it so I don't have to get sick as often in the field but this vaccine is not the friendliest to the body, so I've been feeling a little but like my insides are trying to become my outsides. (Actually, it isn't that bad, but my little tummy doesn't like it very much)

So it is a little strange being in Provo and knowing that school starts back up at the Y in just a few days. For some reason, I tend to forget that the world keeps spinning while I am here and that just because I'm not at BYU, that doesn't mean they aren't still having classes. Missions do weird things to your perception of time.


August 17th,

We still haven't had an apostle come yet. I am starting to think that they are waiting for some construction to be finished on the bleachers in the gym/auditorium here in the CCM (MTC en espanol) Anyway, last week we had Elder Evans of the Quorum of the Seventies come and he gave a good talk about some changes that are happening in the world of Missionary work. So I'm not sure if they are coming out with a new version of Preach My Gospel or just making some changes to the way the work is being done but I know by the end of my mission, I will be doing things different than Mike and maybe even Kerri did/are.

So I keep trying to look up information on the Concepcion temple and it seems like I can never find any news about it, I am still fairly confident that while I'm there they will break ground for it but I would really love to see at least some significant amount of construction done on it before I leave. The studying here is all very much the same. We speak spanish essentially all of the time and are constantly studying the scriptures. Oh just a random note, i finished reading Jesus the Christ this morning. My goodness, that was a good book, it just took me three weeks to finish it which was longer than I hoped. The other missionaries in my district have referred to me as pensive, wise, and reserved which is probably the first time in my entire life that anyone has called me one of any of those things, which I think is fun.

So my district is now the oldest district in our zone because everyone else left this week. That kind of means we have to set good examples but it also means that people will come to us for help with teaching and Spanish now which makes me happy. I've grown a lot these past six/seven/however many weeks I've been here. And on a side-note, I really want Kerri to meet one of my teachers if after she gets home and wants to ease back into dating. Back to my own personal growth. Yeah, things are going well. I'm teaching in Spanish and really just enjoying the experience. I should be getting my travel plans sometime in the next week or so, and I'll let you know the info and I'll also pass it on to Kerri as well. ( Also a package filled with junk food would be awesome!! (Hint, hint ;) )


August 10th

Okay so I don't know if I'll have time to write Kerri today so let her know that I met a Hermana Bair, who is one of her former companion's little sisters. I'll be sending some pictures soon to prove it! Also I sent her a birthday card a while ago and I really hope she got it. Anyway.
So thanks for the mid-way package! I love being here in the MTC but 9 weeks really is a long time. But now that it is less than a month before I leave I am really excited. I'm still waiting on the pictures I printed off so i could send them to you but once they come, I'll put them in the mail right away. Also thanks for getting my address in the Lakeville ward bulletin, I really wanted to make sure that they got it. It sounds like things back home have been a strange mix of really exciting, fun, and stressful, which, frankly, is a pretty apt description of the MTC. We've been teaching in Spanish for awhile, but this is going to be the first week where we teach in exclusively espanol. The language is fun but I really want to actually be immersed in it, because you never get that total immersion here like you would in the country. So we didn't have an apostle last week but we had another emeritus seventy which was really one of the best devotionals we've had here, but tonight we have our fingers crossed for one of the big 15 (First presidency or an apostle). So there really isn't much else to report. Things are moving along here as they should and I'm really happy to be where I am. anyway i'm gonna run.