MTC Week 3 Email

My District outside of the Provo Temple

Another week has flown by! I'm doing well, Spanish is coming along nicely, I can comfortably teach the first couple of lessons in Spanish. I'm glad everybody is enjoying the letters, I try to write everybody back. We went to the temple today as a zone, it was nice. Everything is going great, the devotionals this week have been at the Marriot Center. Elder Brown, a former General Authority and mission president in Korea spoke at one, and the Head of Administration at the Provo MTC spoke at the other. Quite a bit of emphasis on the importance of charity, and loving the people you teach, as well as the importance of the name of Christ that we carry on our nametags. They actually had us walk to the Marriott Center, which was nice coming back when it was dark and had cooled off, but walking over there in suits was not exactly my definition of fun.

As far as questions from the family are concerned: We do sing songs in Spanish, at the beginning of every classroom instruction time, but when we have devotionals we sing in English. My favorite flavor of BYU ice cream so far is Graham Canyon, tastes just like a really good graham cracker. I try to pray in Spanish, but I still do in English in my head sometimes. Dear Heavenly Father is "Querido Padre Celestial." There are lots of newer missionaries than me now, I'm considered a veteran. I have not yet played basketball with the future BYU basketball player yet, no, but I am interested in seeing how good he actually is. I actually still don't think I'm used to the altitude; my shot is a little flat whenever I try to play basketball. My skin is actually doing surprisingly well, not dried out like I would have expected. I have both practiced and performed with the MTC choir, we sang "Faith of Our Fathers." The choir director is actually one of the directors of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir! My favorite part of Preach My Gospel...that's a hard one! I definitely enjoy the "How to Teach" section, it is full of good insights to improve my teaching methods and skills.

I'm doing well, I don't think I really am in dire need of anything, although Bahama Bucks does sound extremely appetizing. Not sure how well that would ship though, unfortunately!

Give everybody my love. Michael