First Week

Hola!

This has been one of the craziest weeks of my life.  My MTC experience has been a bit different from the rest, because all of the spanish speakers are in a seperate area to the west of the MTC called Wyview.  The first day, we got to our residence and we were told to grab our scriptures and PMGs and were taken to class.  Less than an hour after you dropped me off, I was in class being spoken to solely in spanish.  Still, Hermano Mecham, mi Maestro, is an awesome guy.  He just recently got back from his mission.  Mi companero, Elder Grant, is pretty cool too.  He is a full-blooded native american from the Omaha tribe.  But he was adopted when he was young and has been, in his words, "white-washed."  He comes from the town of Cody Nebraska, population: 150.  They do try to keep us busy here though.  We start the day off with three hours of class time, then an hour of language study.  After lunch we have gym time.  Since Friday, as in my third day, we have been teaching an "investigator", Maria, in the afternoon, en Espanol.  Then we have a couple more hours of personal study.  After dinner we have one hour personal study, one hour companionship study, and one hour of language study.  Then we go back to our residence for some personal time, then we are in bed by 10:30.

Our residence hall is in the dormitories, so we just have a standard bathroom with a shower, instead of the line of showers in the main MTC.  We also have a nice area outside the classroom where we can study, weather permitting.  I've heard we are really lucky for this, because even going between the buildings, the people at the main MTC don't see the sun.  Still they have things that we don't, but I think we got the better end of the deal.  We also get to go down to Brighams Landing, where the Burger Supreme we passed is, on P day, and all of the places give a missionary discount.

This Sunday we had a special devotional with President Uchtdorf for Easter.  He gave an amazing talk on the power of the resurrection.  He talked about how Peter changed from a man who was afraid of death, to the point of denying Christ, to a man who was willing to openly defy the Pharasees.  His main message was having no fear.  Then in the evening we had another devotional about teaching non-christians.  Then we watched a recording of a talk Elder Bednar gave two Christmases ago at the MTC.  It was called Character of Christ, and if you ever get the chance to hear it, I highly recommend it.  He talked about how the character of Christ, and so the opposite of the natural man, was turning outwards when others would turn inwards.  It is one of the best talks I've heard him give, but it sure does hit you hard.

This morning we got to go to the temple and do a session.  Everything went well, but when we came outside there were a couple protesters telling us what they thought.  I was used to it, having been to General Conference, but some of the Elders were about ready to roll some heads.  Still, we ignored him and moved on, but it is interesting seeing how different everyone's experience is.  We had to rescue the Hermanas from him though.

The district I'm in is pretty great.  Besides Elder Grant and I, there is Elder Kruse and Elder Armstrong, and Elder Knudson (the K is not silent) and Elder Gregory.  Elder Gregory just joined the church a year ago, and while his Spanish is coming slow, he studies harder than anyone else.  I know he is going to be a serious force on his mission.  We also had Elder Cerros for a couple days, but after changing their minds a half dozen times, they moved him to the advanced class and decided they're shipping him out in two weeks.  He and Elder Knudson were companions, with Elder Gregory being in a threesome with Elders Kruse and Armstrong, but it's all changed now.  He is from Australia, and I do miss hearing how he said things.  Speaking of which, I am now calling weiner dogs sausage dogs.  Still, if they think he's ready, it is good for him to get out there.

I miss you so much, but I know that right now, this is where I'm supposed to be.  

Love,

Elder Samuel Long