September 6, 2012 (Week 3)

September 6, 2012

Como estan mi familia!!
I'm getting well adjusted now and I'm good to go. (patience, which by the way has been a trial... Elders Stahura and Naylor wore tie clips for 3 weeks straight and the branch president never said a word, but the day that mom sent me mine, he said," Put that puppy away. We don't wear those in the MTC. If its an heirloom from your grandpa keep it in your pocket, but we don't wear those." I wanted to cry hahaha. The only thing i need at the moment is some vitamin D and maybe a small bottle of tums. everything is expensive here even with THE HUGE 40% MISSIONARY DISCOUNT ON JACKED UP GOODS!!!! these guys are luring missionaries in like sharks to blood... haha but yeah thats it. I get about an hour or two of sunlight a week and my body is having a hard time adjusting from constant being outside and sunlight to trapped in a windowless box studying for 16 hours a day haha. Im sending my camera stick home with the package today (with mom's brownies if I can find some) and you guys can look through those! print off a few for me would ya? at your discretion. So yeah. if you could get an address book and one of those little 50 picture holders that would be perfect)
 I'm sending home this copy of Savior Redeemer of my Soul for you to copy. Brad should get a copy and play it. I like the one you sent me but we've been practicing this version alot and I'm pretty used to it. So if you wouldn't mind doing one side per page and shipping both copies (original and copied) back me and Elder Smith would both appreciate it!! :) Love ya.

As for everything else, I know i said I don't like the MTC but thats just a few parts. I absolutely love it here and now we are starting to learn tenses in spanish. past tense, preterite, future. you know, the fun grammar stuff I loved in English class! haha We are finally starting to progress and the days are starting to speed up. I am really starting to love the language. I can't help but feel that what President Nelson blessed me with in my setting apart is true. He said I'd pick up the spanish language really well and so far I have. Its all because of Jesu cristo though. "Work like it all depends on you, pray like it all depends on the Lord" We do these things called TRC once a week for an hour, its basically where we go in and talk to somebody we have no info about, find out about them, and depending on the week, share a message, or invite them to do something. Its all in spanish and we talk for a good 30 minutes. I talk alot more than my comp does but thats fine. he is doing so much better since week one. We are starting to rely on eachother. Whenever I cant think of anything else to say on the topic, he loves memorizing scripture locations for topics and will pull out a scripture and read it, the investigador, usually our teachers, will ask a question and we go from there. I love speaking spanish. We are teaching two investigators right now, and we challenged them both to be baptized the first lesson. One of them, Carlos Guerra said sure why not, and the other one, Juan Carlos Cruz said i need more info, cause i've already been baptized in the catholic church. So we found some scriptures and went back in the next day and he still didn't understand. Finally we just taught him to pray on the book of mormon and he did, so the next time, we were able to get him to accept baptism. both of them are attending church and Juan Carlos is talking to his wife and family about being baptized as well. These are all in spanish too which makes it that much more challenging. Especially when you're looking at a preach my gospel in spanish. We had about 2 minutes to prepare a 30 minute lesson on the plan of salvation. I've never taught that in english let alone spanish, but the Lord helped us enough to give me the words i needed to explain the pamphlet we gave him. We made the time. That was a rush.. haha (I get my adrenaline from playing the piano in front of people and teaching lessons... Drastic changes right? haha) anyways, my companion is Peter Allen Maughan from Issiquah Washington. He is younger than me but taller and about 80 lbs more. cool guy. we havent argued once. we both are pretty easy going. We disagree on a few things but thats to be expected. We live in an old building clear on the outskirts haha but its our building. Its great and the showers are bipolar but it just makes for a better story and a lot of elders screaming like girls when the shower goes from 104 degrees to -3 in about .002 seconds.

Elder Naylor

We had four elders leave tuesday and that was sad, but our classroom  is a tiny windowless box that is about 1/3 smaller than anyone elses classroom and it was really hot. Sad to see em go, but glad to kick them and four of 12 desks out after em hahaha elder Naylor was my favorite. (by the way, he hated that waterbottle he had so he gave it to me but he was sick so im sending it home for a good scrub. I don't need it here because of the water bottle filter, so just throw it in my room. It'll be good for hiking. Nice camelbak bottle.) But yeah he was the best. He will do well in the Peru CCM (MTC) for 6 weeks with his work ethic. He was probably the worst in spanish at the start but he worked so hard he was probably 4th place by the time he left. Short little kid. I've got a few pictures with him. Him and Elder Barton live in West Jordan. Ask Maddie Mchaley if she remembers elder naylor or barton. Both left for Peru with their comps. Elder stahura is a bit of a handful and i'm glad im not district leader anymore. They switch everything at 3 weeks. ZL's and DL's so everyone gets a chance for the 6 leadership lessons. Stahura gets at least a package a day and sometimes its takeout. His record is 4 in one day and sometimes its 2 or 3 a day. So no more grumbling dad :) haha. Oh well. the district is doing well. Lack of focus though. Thats the real reason i don't like the MTC. I want to be out in the field where i have one roomate, maybe another companionship living in the apartment but we are still focusing on the people and have a real purpose. Its hard to see that purpose in the MTC but its still worth trying. Its annoying how much we can't stay focused to the lesson plan. Teachers are getting frustrated too. Some of the Elders just don't see the purpose in why we are out here yet. I hope we all grow up soon or it'll be a long 5 more weeks. We have one Elder that won't play soccer cause he promised his mom he would be safe and won't even look at the sister missionaries. I'm fine with him being the strict person he wants to be, but he acts like a pharisee and acts like a 4 year old whenever something goes off plan or someone walks more than 5 feet from their comp. He focuses so much on the rules that he forgets why we are here in the first place. Theres a balance in everything. He brags alot that he understands spanish and always chastises Elder Smith because he doesn't let him speak enough but i haven't heard a complete sentence from him in spanish yet. He doesn't speak during lessons at all so it gets old when he tells us to do things pertaining to that.

Well. Thats the district drama. (i thought i graduated high schoool haha)

I'm having some real spirtitual experiences here, and they are all in my journal and i'll share them at home with you all. But i will share one with you right now. Just finsihed the book of mormon for the first time by myself yesterday, i know i failed mom, but i finally pushed through alma and didn't quit this time and i can testify to anyone that reads this that it is true. I didn't even need Moroni's promise at the end to know that. That was a spiritual reassurance. But throughout 3rd nefi i just kept thinking as christ was testifing that there is no way this isn't true. Not even a chance. In any case. I took too long typing. Don't expect these long letters in the field! haha but if theres anything  you want to hear let me know. If not, love you all and la iglesia de Jesucrist is verdadero. Yo tengo no dudo in mi cabeza or mi corazon. Yo se que estas cosas is verdadero y Jose Smith fue una profeta que el evangelio de jesucristo fue restaraudo. En el nombre de Jesucristo, Amen.

"Mi familia is mi amor" Elder Mortensen