When I first got to my house the room I was suppose to
stay in had stuff all over me and my compañeros bed, when they finally came in
super late at night I asked them if they would check to see which room they
were in to avoid confusion. The first guy looked like he came straight
out of the Congo of Africa but he is from the Dominican Republic, and his
accent is crazy, he said something to me and I had no idea what he was talking
about. His companion’s English was horrible too but I was able to use the
Spanish I knew and I did really good. It was at that point that I knew I
was going to do good here. We´ve become closer with the Spanish speaking elders
at the house we are in {the house fits five rooms of four people each} and they
are pretty funny we have some good times. I have taught some of them to pray in
English and how to bear their testimony in English, it was a very spiritual
moment for me. They in turn helped my Spanish on prayers and my own
testimony. On Sunday, while we were bearing our testimonies in church,
one of the elders leaving from our district said, “we leave our families for
two years so that someone else can live eternally with theirs." I
wrote it down because it was such a good quote. During sacrament meeting
the branch president said that he wasn't going to take six weeks to love the
new missionaries, that he loved us the moment we shook hands when we met... I
felt the spirit so strong in that moment; it testified to me that what he was
saying was true. After the meeting when we were leaving I shook his hand,
as we all do because he stands at the door, anyway I forgot how small his hands
were. It was like shaking a child's hands. Another thing I noticed
is that every time I pray for something it comes true, its for real here.
One night after some study in the classroom we decided to share why we
were on a mission and while I was sharing out of no where I mentioned what
Jackson and the other cousins were saying about how I was their role model, how
I was the reason they were going to serve a mission. It was a little tender for me. The days here are
excruciatingly long, normal day would be over and we still have four more
hours. I’m the comp that pushes us to work hard, weird huh? I'm not the
only one with hankies too, there is another big guy he has some and I see what
you mean by how punching me is nice. It’s because I’m meaty, he is fun to
punch. I killed all the elders in Foosball but two of them are getting
good. We live in this weird triangle kind of thing and my house is super
far from everything, like it’s the second furthest house. If we ever
forget to bring something to class or wherever else we don't even go back.
The other elders actually enjoy the MTC food, I guess this is where my
divine tastes are a curse. They told me I needed a haircut, along with half of
the other new guys. I went and when I was trying to say a little off the
top the lady totally ignored me. She took the shears and went over the
top of my head. I almost cried. When she was done she stuck her
hands in an industrial sized bottle of Mexican hair gel and lathered it on top.
It was absolutely horrible. My comp eats very slowly, actually he
does everything slowly. Over the last week we have been working on going
at the same pace. I started quoting nacho when I got here and immediately
it spread to the good stuff. The same happened with arrested development.
I quoted it and half the guys started freaking out over how good that
show is. My comps two favorite shows are Seinfeld and arrested
development. My comp says that if I keep drinking pepto at the rate I’m
going I will be pink in a week but good news everyone I didn't turn pink.
When we first got here I did the right thing and bought some glade for the
room and bathroom so I’m not the problem. When the servers at the comedor
see me they serve me less, I think they are out to get me. I write
cheat sheets for stuff all the time too, they help me to focus on Spanish. We have to prepare a talk for
Sunday every week because they decide who’s going to speak at church. There is an elder in
my district who was good friends with Jonah so that’s super cool. One more story, our teacher was telling
us how if we wanted to study the scriptures in silence we can purchase
headphones or tapones at the tienda. I went with a couple of guys and one
of them said, "yo quiero tampones" the guy was so confused so he
showed him where the tampons were. We all had a big laugh.
