MTC Week 3

Hola todas personas!

Well first I would like to say mom and dad that as soon as I sent off your letter asking for grandma's address I realized I had Grandpa's old pocket hymnal with his address in the front of it. Haha, but I appreciate you giving it to me anyways.

Happy three week anniversary! It is crazy that three weeks have gone by. Do you realize that my next e-mail will be one whole month on my mission, and then there will only be 23 left. Four of the elders in our district are leaving tomorrow at 4 AM to the Dominican Republic to finish their MTC training there. It seems like we are still newbies though. There are two districts below us now so we are pretty much in the middle of the pack. I didn't think I would get very close with the Dominican elders but spending 12 hours in a classroom seven days a week with somebody really allows bonding to take place. I am going to miss them, but we have all come to the realization this may very well be the last time we see eachother. So Elder Fannin was the district leader, but now that he is leaving they called a new one, and that new one is Elder Gilmor...i mean Elder Sabey. Gotcha! He is doing a great job for having to catch up on three weeks of information.

So the newest district that arrived in our zone last week were all supposed to go to Russia, but Russia has currently suspended visas or something like that so they were all informed of new calls the DAY they walked into the MTC. How insane is that! Elder Cameron Hodson from my floor at BYU is one of them. They are now all going stateside spanish speaking. Anywhere from San Jose, California, to Chicago north, to Dallas Texas, and Cameron is going to Tuscon Arizona...um...they all bought thermal clothing...and now will be serving in Tuscon...really? They are all handling it really well though so props to them.

(Mom and Dad this next paragraph is a secret code for Joseph he wanted me to add so just humor him...also he sends me all his e-mails so you dont have to anymore) So on the subject of heat, we heard some stories that sometimes you can get so dehydrated that when you look at your socks at the end of the day there are salt crystals stuck in the socks because your sweat is salty but the water evaporated. I wonder if my socks will get salted in Argentina...

The Spanish is coming well. This week we learned past tense and such. I can pray, bear testimony, recite the missionary purpose, and just for kicks i memorized Joseph Smith's first vision so i don't have to read it when i am teaching in spanish. We also learned the Hay que rule, or "there is" rule. So everyone for there example sentence did something gospel oriented except me...i guess i didn't get the memo. So i said "Hay que un serpiente en mi bota!", which is the classic line from children's classic Toy Story, Theres a snake in my boot! I don't know who thought to have Tim Allen and Tom Hanks in the same movie but they were a genius. I have also learned boss children's songs like Elefante Loco! It has hand gestures and everything.

Five minutes left... Well, Elder Anderson has been teaching me some Tagalog so I can small talk with him. Also, I was given my answer on why I did not go Mandarin speaking. I have learned how to say "Thankyou" and "I don't know" in Mandarin and even those small phrases i cannot do with a straight face. I am laughing whenever i try to say them. Wo Bu zhu dao...or something to that effect puts a smile on my face whenever i say it. The Spanish speakers play a game where we say random asian language phrases to any missionary with unknown characters on there tag. Its funniest when I say "Domo arrigato" to someone who then responds...I am going to Armenia...oh sorry...

18 seconds!!!!!!

I love you all bye