MTC Week 8 - cont.

We received a letter from Sean today in the mail, dated 8/13/2008. This will be the last letter we receive from Sean from the MTC. He flies to Argentina on Monday!


Mom, Dad, How ya doin?

I have gotten responses from both Grandmas so just know they aren't neglecting me. Also, there is not a very good chance I can write Lacey this week so this is for her, too. Well, continuation of the Senor Consul story. No I lied... first, BERNIE MAC!?!?! Crazy! That is more random than Heath Ledger... by the way... everyone should know, with the passing of Bernie Mac, Heath Ledger jokes are now appropriate. Bernie Mac was a really funny guy too! That's too bad...

Ok now Senor Consul. In addition to death threats, he also gave us an hour of pronunciation lessons. It was torture. It didn't matter how we said it we were wrong haha. Pretty soon people stopped volunteering to try and say the words, and he got kind of frustrated. Basically someone would try, "NO! Again! Be Aggressive! I thought it was funny. He said "Be Aggressive" like 100 times. And there were some things that I guess he knew was weird and after he would say them he would just shrug his shoulders and say, "We are Argentine". I think I am going to like it. I can use that excuse for anything!

Our Branch President's son went to BAW and he visited last Sunday. He didn't really tell us much, he just said we are going to love it. I was hoping he would tell us at least some little golden nugget, but I guess he figures we are about to experience it for ourselves anyway. He said there is one Zone in the Capital, but the rest is mostly mud roads and dirt floors. He came home 6 years ago though so some might have changed.

We had a health meeting Monday night. It was for no specific country, and the speakers served in Mexico, so I think it is going to be different in Argentina. All they did was get people scared because they used like 20 examples of Elders dying from food. Really? Not necessary. Basically their message could be summarized as "you could die by eating anything but fresh bread and bottled water". We will find all that out though when we get there.

As for Spanish, I feel semi-confident. Am I fluent? No. Am I going to understand everything? No. Can I teach someone the gospel? YES! I am fluent in Lesson 1-3 pretty much. I can teach the doctrines without difficulty. My only problem is when the investigator asks a question.... I have no idea what people are saying.. and those are just volunteers at the MTC, so I expect Argentina to be interesting. Also, William Joseph has a CD called Beyond that a bunch of eople have here and it is BOSS... maybe a good Christmas present for me.

Anyways, I would just like to say that D&C 84:85 is the most true scripture ever... even though they are all true. The Spirit is putting words into my mouth.. ALL the time! We taught Plan of Salvation in Spanish this week. There is a lot of doctrine to cover in it.. especially in Spanish. Side note: For some reason doctrine is different in Spanish, hahaha... just kidding. We were practicing with Hermano Rupper and I was dancing around with my words because I didn't know what to say. Finally the grammar principle clicked and I said the next sentence, then I looked at Hno. Rupper and asked if I was right. "Well, the grammar was perfect, but it was false doctrine." HAHAHAHAHA I said, "Christ was resurrected, completed the atonement, and became perfect." Which I would never say in English because everyone knows Christ was already perfect, but in Spanish it was a toss-up haha. So I have to watch out for false doctrine. It reminded me of Mom's flags for the 12 Tribes of Israel and how she was accused of teaching false doctrine. Hahaha.

Anyway, yeah we were teaching and my mind just went completely blank, not good timing at all. So Elder Stokes taught for a few minutes and nothing was coming to me at all, then he looked over at me, which is our signal for, "I have absolutely nothing left to say about this." Right then, so many things popped into my head and I was able to teach the whole rest of the lesson without hesitation. It's pretty cool.

Anyway, shorter letter because I will be talking with you soon. Alright, talk to you on Monday hopefully. If not, man the phones! It could be any random time. Also remember, the Dallas times are Central Time, and I think the Buenos Aires time is that time zone? I don't know. Anyway, talk to you soon!

Love, Sean