Yeah, this is crazy... It is so weird getting letters from everyone! It feels like I'm gonna see you guys in a bit, so i keep wondering why we're writing each other.... I guess 2 years is kind of a long time =) time flies by sooo fast here! Everyone says, "The days go by slow, but the weeks go fast!" Definitely true. It's awesome to here from you guys, about what's going on back home! I'm pretty sure all of my friends have suddenly been turned into adults or something with college and work... Gross. Ha ha =) This week was a little more tough, but things are going very well. The gift of tongues is something we've been praying for constantly and we're definitely living that gift right now! It's amazing how much we all already know. The trick is not studying Dutch too much and getting stressed about it. So as district leader, I'm always trying to remind everyone what kind of study time we're in right now, so that we're making ourselves well-rounded. Being district leader hasn't been too bad, in fact it's actually gotten me into some really spiritual leadership meetings. It has some benefits. Lots of people have told me I'm doing a really good job, which makes me happy, but I don't feel like I'm really doing all that much. Scripture study and everything has been absolutely amazing. The MTC is a cool experience because almost everyone really wants to be here, we're all holding up high standards, and the Spirit is so strong here as a result.
In answer to some of your questions, yeah P days don't really give me enough time to write everyone back... I can write physical letters any day and send those, so I might do some more of that. DearElders are great though, because then I can receive those any day. Just use the info from my MTC mailing address and put it in to DearElder.com. It's free, I like it, and it's just like you guys writing an email to me. Emails are still fine though if ya want =) I'll just read the emails Tuesday on my P Day. Oh! One of my pairs of slacks has really long legs and already has a hem. Should I take it to the alterations place here and see if they can help me out? Also, a few of my white dress shirts are long in the arms too. I don't know how I didn't notice it before, but yeah... I don't really know what to do. Hopefully, I grow into them.
Almost everyone in my district got sick with gross colds this week. The three other elders in my room got sick (not me until yesterday, I got a runny nose a bit, but that's all) so I've been bubble boy. And the other companionship, just one of them is sick. I got a migraine one day, but it wasn't horrible.
I bought Jesus the Christ and started reading it. It has some really big words sometimes... But it's really really really good. Definitely a good investment.
So we finished teaching one of our actor investigators, but he ended up becoming our teacher now. So that was a weird surprise, he's pretty good though. We have like 5 teachers because they all have weird schedules. Usually you only have 2 or 3. Plus, there used to be 28 Dutchies in the last group going out. This week, we get two new onderzoekers (investigators), we've taught the first one already, but will teach the second one starting on Thursday. It's so cool how effectively we can already communicate, but I heard it's a lot harder out in the field when they talk a lot faster and aren't as patient!
Wanna hear (read) me recite Joseph Smith's First Vision in Dutch? Here we go =D "Ik zag recht boven mijn Hoofd een lichtkolom, de Helderheid von de zon overtreffend. Die geleidelijk neerdalde tot zij op mij viel. Toen het licht op mij rustte, zag ik twee Personen, weir glans en heerlijkheid elke beschrijven tarten, boven mij in de lucht staan. Een von Hem sprak tot mij, mij bij de naam noemand, en zei, wijzen op de ander: 'Dit is mijn geliefde Zoon. Hoor Hem!' "
I know, I'm cool. Dutch really is so awesome though, I didn't really appreciate it before, but now I definitely do.
Oh! I'm gonna try to find a piano today and sneakily play... None of us know what the rules are about it, so we're just gonna go for it and see what happens. We've gone with that theory a lot lately... Sometimes it works out well, other times not so much... I've decided to call this stragey Yay Oh Ell Oh Oh Day Ah, which is the pronunciations for the letters YOLO-ODA... You Only Live Once-Op De Aarde (on the earth). I think my pride is getting a little high right now =D
Sounds like everything is going pretty well with the family. That's cool about Chris's new job, not so cool that he hasn't written me... But I guess this is payback for me hardly ever writing him on his mission... Oh I keep freaking out everytime that we go outside of the MTC to the soccer field or to the MTC, that I might see Chris. I don't think I want Jason to meet me at the airport... It would just be way too weird if I saw anyone. It's been nice seeing a bunch of friends here, but yeah... Family might be too weird.
Oh the Danes in our zone didn't get any of their visas, so they'll all be transferred to serve somewhere in the states for 6 weeks, by which time they'll hopefully have their visas and then go to serve in Denmark. That sucks super bad though... I'm already sick of the MTC to be honest... The Spirit and learning everything and the devotionals are all waaayyyy awesome, but it is a little like prison... We're moving to the new West Campus on October 1st though for our last two weeks here, which I here is a lot nicer! So I'm excited about that.
Somedays I do feel fat... But then we go on a run or play basketball or soccer for an hour and I don't feel so fat anymore. It's a hard knock life.
Is everything working with getting my emails on the blog or sending them out or whatever you're doing? Danken jullie voor whatever way you guys chose! Anything else you all wanna know about? Love you all and i'm glad to hear anything about what's going on in everyone's lives! Thanks for the letters! Things are going well here and I hope they're going well for all of you too! Love ya!
Thanks a ton for the package by the way! Sorry sorry sorry for not thanking you earlier. I just have so much going on and so much I was trying to remember about this past week. We do so much stuff everyday that it's hard to separate the days and remember everything that's been going on. So anyways, now I have more time to write. The Provo temple is huge, it's ridiculous. We've been twice now. Today, we went and we saw the old movie for fun, it was interesting... I probably shouldn't really talk about it through email. But yeah, I like the new movie better, the old one has some interesting stuff though.Okay so the two attached pictures are with our whole entire humongous ginormous district of...... 6. From left to right is Elder South, Elder Devilishly-Good-Looking, Elder Rauma, Elder Warner, Elder Silva, and Elder Davis. The sun was obviously right in our eyes.... So that's nice. I'm trying to get a picture off of Elder Warner's camera later because I photo-bombed it, but the rest of the district actually got in it without knowing it as well. It's hard to explain, but it's pretty cool. If you guys email me within the next hour, I might be able to write you back... I don't know, we'll see. Oh and I don't know what I want in packages.... So don't worry about it I guess? I don't know. I'm almost done with Carly's candy! I have yet to try those Riddles Skittles that you sent me, but I'll get to them soon! Ummm.... maybe some popcorn or something? The other night I got hungry and made the mistake of microwaving a Hot Pocket from the vending machines..... GHSHDFJKHSDFKHUSDJfh. It wasn't my favorite. The other day, the cafeteria made a philly cheesesteak, but the cheese made it very dissapointing. Food's still pretty good though. I have yet to weigh myself. I'll probably try and do that sometime this week....
Oh, the other night we were staying up late (again) and we ended up trying to guess what we all were like before our missions and in high school and stuff, and we all pretty much nailed eachother to a tee. It was both creepy and felt very cool.
Yup, okay. Love ya all. Bye byes