MTC-Week 1

Bonjour, ma famille!  Well, it's day 7 here at the MTC, and I haven't gone insane yet; I tell all of the foreign language missionaries that I'm only in here for another week, and they just glare at me like, "I've been here for four weeks.  I still have three to go." In a lot of regards, it kind of reminds me of prison! ...Not that I'd really know what prison's like... But at least they get to make one phone call.

But seriously, the MTC has been fantastic!  My host missionary, Oliveira Chorro (Chorro is "Elder" in Japanese), actually knew Casper Chorro, which was pretty sweet.  Actually, since I've been here, I've seen quite a lot of people I've known, too!  You can look their last names up on my facebook to find out who they are if you'd like.  Here's the list:

Elders- Perry,  Thomas,  Jarvis,  Bartholomew,  Davies,  Dennison,  Swenson,  Brunst,  McGuinn,  Emmett,  Payne,  Hasleton,  Harris,  Hasleton,  Nakai,  Weitzel,  Barber,  and Newman.
Sisters-  McKinley, Mottl,  Fotu,  Madsen,  Teng,  and Bradley.

Non-missionaries- Brother Ellsworth, and Sister Chapman (Both my age).

It's been so much fun to see so many of my friends as fellow emissaries of the Lord!  They all offer their condolences and prayers to us, which gives me a huge boost.  Oh, and Sister Madsen wanted me to make sure to tell you, "Tell Jori that I say hi and that I'm sending her all of my love.  And tell your mom that your dad was a great man, and a much loved friend of my father."  She was very helpful as I tried to do my laundry today!

My companion is actually really awesome!  His name is Elder Newcomb, but we call him Elder Oldbrush, just for fun.  He's from Gilbert, Arizona, and loves films and music!  He'll talk to me for hours about different musicians he's interested in, or explaining the plots of "the greatest movies of all time that [I] absolutely have to see when I get back!"  It's pretty fantastic.  He talks a whole lot, which I didn't mind one bit; I'm not a very talkative individual.

Not to brag, but I think our district is the best district in the entire MTC.  Just saying.  There are 12 of us, and we all got here on Wednesday, and we're all leaving either Monday or Tuesday of next week.  There are only two other Elders going to my mission, and no, neither of them are my companion; Elder Newcomb (and about half the district)'s actually headed to the Jamaica Kingston mission!  The other two coming to Canada are Elders Baker and Walker.  Elder Baker is our District Leader, and he's pretty stellar.  He's from Murray, and he loves... Well, everything! He knows how to talk to any one of us in our way, and teaches like an RM.  It's inspiring.

Elder Walker is the youngest one in our district, since he's still only 18, but he's probably the funniest of us all.  He's from Missouri, but we don't know where because, according to him, "it's a little town so far in the middle of nowhere that it's not even worth explaining."  So we don't ask.  But he's great at quoting movies, which I don't mind one bit!

Which leaves only two more Elders: Harris and England.  They're E. Newcomb's and my roommates, which means we don't get to sleep a whole lot.  The lights go out on time, but the talking doesn't stop for a long time.  E. England's from Price; he actually wasn't planning on serving a mission until the girl he was dating put her foot down, saying she wouldn't marry him unless he was an RM!  With such an out of the ordinary reason, I expected him to be less motivated than most of us, but he's probably even moreso.  He and E. Harris are actually our new Zone Leaders, which is pretty cool, because people like to give them food as a peace offering, meaning we've had candy and pie a lot.  Elder Harris is from California.... Somewhere.... I can't really remember.  But he's this hulking mass of a person that commands the room; yet, he's also one of the nicest people I've ever met.  Weird.  They're both headed to Jamaica as well.

I'm starting to run out of time... But I'll try to write about the sisters!  There are six of them in total: Hawkes, Woolf, Christiansen, Newcomer, Schindler, and Wilson.  They're all extremely sweet and super spiritual; E. Newcomb and I are slightly intimidated by their strength and insights.  We've decided that men are required to serve missions to become equal with the sisters.

Our teachers are phenomenol (Sorry about spelling), and we've had so much great instruction!  Hopefully I'll be able to send you some fun stories or something next week; information vomit got the better of me.

I love you!

Mission scripture: Alma 26:27