Sunday, December 4, 2011

First Email - November 5, 2011

Hey mom and dad glad to hear from you.

The MTC is pretty ridiculous and there is so much to do that you really don't get any time for anything else. I wasn't able to send anything or call before I had to get to my room the first day as soon as I got there.

The accommodations are pretty good. I got my companion the day after I arrived, Elder Weeter, He's a good guy and I really like him as a first companion. He's really good at making me happy which is nice since it's kinda depressing your first few days. We are in a room of four with Elder Shindler (list jokes have been made by all our teachers) and Elder Paulsen. They are really good roommates and we all get along. Me and Elder Weeter, as well as 6 Guys in our district are going to Antofagasta in 9 weeks. Elder Shindler and Elder Paulsen are going to Guatamala MTC in 3 weeks, I already know I'll miss them when they leave.

Learning spanish is hard, really really hard. I have never spent so much time studying any one thing in my life and my brain hurts at the end of everyday. Yesterday we did a mock investigator excercise in complete spanish (2nd full day) and we have another one today. We did terrible, but it was good. We had two substitute teachers but we met our actual language teacher yesterday and he is really good. The first two days they use an immersion technique and so we spent 3 hours yesterday sitting in a classroom being talked to only in Spanish. I feel like I'm failing miserably at learning the language but then I remember its only been three days, it already feels like 2 years. The Elders around here say that days feel like weeks and weeks feel like days and its true. I was feeling super depressed the second morning during class about the language but I'm getting the hang of it quickly. The speaking will take a lot longer but the understanding is coming. They have a program called TALL "Technology Assisted Language Learning" and it helped a lot, and its only been an hour.

The schedule is so tight that you have no time for anything. I have been trying to do everything that I need to do but I have not managed to do that yet.

The food is pretty good here, way better than EFY, and you actually get full meals. I've been trying to eat the same amount as I did at home but it's hard.

About sending letters. The best thing I would say to do is to send them through Dear Elder while I'm at the MTC. If you get them in before noon on Thursday I will have them before my P-Day and I'll be able to think about what I want to say. My P-Day is friday starting next week so that's when you will get an e-mail. If I'm at the MTC then Dear Elder is free and so just get them to print the letter out and have it delivered. Reading a letter is more relaxing than reading an e-mail and I only have half an hour on the computer every week for e-mail, so reading cuts into that. So yeah just get it printed and delivered.

I dont think I'll worry about sending mail while I'm here as I have enough to do.

It was great hearing from you have a great week, I would attempt some Spanish but I would probably butcher it.

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