Hola! MTC is so great. I have been receiving your dearelder letters daily, and I love reading them throughout the week. Saturday is our P-day, and I only have an hour to email. I'll just send a family letter to mom's email, and if I have time I'll send more than one. Long story short, we spend 10-12 hours in the same classroom daily. It differs between spanish class or just a doctrine class. Our teacher is Hermano Wolfe. We like him a lot. But the catch is, he only speaks Spanish in class. Even on day one, there wasn't a single english word. I felt so lost on day 1. It was a little better on day two, and we learned how to pray that day. Yesterday, we learned how to bear our testimonies in spanish as well. I have 2 companions because one Elder in our district hasn't shown up. I am with Elder Romo from North Carolina, and Elder Milius from Arizona. Elder Milius is only here until Monday cause he is going to the MTC in Spain, he just needed his visa to clear. Elder Romo and I get along really well and we work together well in learning and speaking spanish. As a companionship, we have prayed in spanish the last 2 nights. The first time we prayed in spanish, I went first. I said a few simple things then I got stuck on how to say something else. I tried my best, and suddenly the words came out of my mouth with no hesitation. After I closed my prayer, one of my comps asked me how to say what I said, but I couldn't remember. It was a very cool experience with the gift of tongues. All I had to do was try to say it, and I was reminded how to say it. Yesterday, which was day 3 in the MTC, we taught our first investigator. The investigator was an actor, but I treated it like a real investigator. Me and my companions tried to come up with a lesson plan on the Restoration. We worked hard to translate what we wanted to say. The other Elders in our zone told us that the first lesson always sucks and they all bombed theres. the investigators we teach here are actors who don't break character, and it's all in spanish. the investigator doesn't say a single word of english and doesn't understand english. When we had taught the investigator, I thought we did alright. We didn't bomb it, but there's definitely room for improvement. Thursday night, we met our branch presidency. They are 3 men with their wives. On that night, we had a chance to introduce ourselves to them and to bear a brief testimony to them. After a few discussions with them (we had our district there and one more district from our zone) they said that they were going to choose district leaders. And I was chosen! So I was given even more responsibilities. We basically have no free time. We are either in class, lunch, class, dinner, class, or bed. We get back to our apartment at 9:45ish, and bedtime is 10:30. Just enough time to shower and write in my journal. Oh I forgot to say, I'm on the west campus. I'm staying in Wyview. No, i can't see the stadium...but we go to a church every now and then on Canyon Road I think. When you walk outside of that church, you can see the stadium. I can see the gates that we have been walking into lately. From the northeast side of the stadium. There is so much to say... and so little time. We don't really have time to think about home (sorry) but I still think about you guys while I'm trying to go to sleep. We are always so busy and hurrying from place to place. Sometimes we spend 4-6 consecutive hours in our classroom. But honestly it doesn't feel that long, probably because I don't have a phone to check every other second.
This is my email address, and I'd love if I got emails on here. I can only email and write on P-day. Please be sure to tell Cheryl thanks for the cookies.
My spanish is coming along fine. I can say a simple prayer and simple testimony. I can feel it getting easier and easier though.
I'm glad to hear about Tyler's football, and I'm glad to get messages from everybody. Glad to hear dad almost throwing down with someone.
I'm not sure how to upload pictures to emails, but i'll find out. if i had time to take any pictures up to this point, i would have tried to put them on today.
Since today is P-day, we went to the Provo temple for a session. They showed the old film for some reason. I like the new one better. The temple was beautiful and it was still a powerful session. At the end, I figured the best place to pray for the gift of tongues is in the Celestial Room, so that's what i did.
I love you all, and i do miss you. But I'm having so much fun. You are in my prayers and thoughts. Again, I love getting dearelder letters. Please tell Lindsy about it. haha. I love you!!!
Love, Jared
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