Week 1 - I am alive!!

Below are excerpts from Elder Morgan's first email to us.  I've corrected some of the misspellings just because he only has 1 hour on the computer on his P Day (Preparation day - always Thursday while in the MTC), and he was in a hurry to get the most emailing done. (I left some grammar mistakes in that I think show some of his Spanish showing through :-) ).  I may add clarifications in blue.

Our happy Elder

Hola Familia!

I am alive. I made it here safe and sound. Forgive my spelling errors. We have not much time, and a lot to talk about!

First off, as you dropped me off, I got to sit on the plane next to an Elder going to Brazil. Also, before that I sat in the airport next to a guy who went to the Campinas, Brazil mission!

Anyways, as we were on the plane, there was a girl sitting next to us about our same age. As we began to talk to her we found out her name was Natasha. She goes to a Russian Pentecostal church. We were able to start talking about our church and talked for about an hour! We didn't even realized we had touched down because we had been teaching her so intently. Anyways, after we landed, I didn't think that it was a right time to give her a Book of Mormon, but I made my own version of a Mormon.org pass along card out of a napkin and told her she could learn more. It went really well! So then we landed, took the shuttle to the MTC.

This is when the chaos began! We basically got herded around like cattle! We were able to get our tags and eat lunch and everything. Then we got our assignments for housing, companions, and other stuff. 

All of the Spanish speaking missionaries are on the West Campus which is over at the Wyview and Raintree apartments (this is on the BYU Provo campus) . It's nice, but weird at the same time. It's nice because the perks are that we have apartment style living with big rooms like at school whereas the regular missionaries on campus have only dorm style. We also get our own bathroom although, we share it with 6 people. 6 people in one shower is no bueno. So, we take turns in the evening or get up early. Another perk we have is that we get to go to Brigham's Landing for Pday which is basically a mini mall in Provo. Main campus doesn't get to do that :)

Okay, so the hardest day was the first day. Probably because of exhaustion, but also because of homesickness and just the dauntingness of 2 years away! But, I prayed hard and good that night and was given comfort INSTANTLY and I have not had any other problems since then.

Okay, so about the day to day. We wake up at 6:30 and are in class until 9:30. We study, have language class, have devotionals, and everything else. Our classroom is in a tiny bedroom of an apartment at Raintree. Our teachers name is Hermano Pasantino, but there are also more that teach us. He is a BYU business student who got off his mission in Argentina about a year and a half ago. He's actually taking the classes I took first semester last year! Anyways, we have been learning a lot! The learning is so fast! By the second day we could already bear our testimonies in Spanish and pray in Spanish! And by the 4th day we taught a whole 40 minute lesson to a investigator named David. David is a character played by one of the teachers here who is based on a real person that he taught on his mission, so it's very real.

 

Elder Backus

My Companions name is Elder Backus and he is from Phoenix Arizona. He's a great guy. Hard to read at times, but good. He needs so work on his Spanish for sure. I'm way ahead, but he's making leaps and bounds. In our lessons, I pretty much taught 95% of the time because he can't say really anything yet. We just taught David for the last time yesterday. The first 2 times we taught him, we just taught lessons, and on the 3rd time he basically just told us that he didn't see how it applied in his life. It was hard because we didn't have enough Spanish under our belts to help him understand, but we resolved to take a step back and talk to him about what his needs were and then tailor it to how we could help him. So, yesterday, we asked him about his life and he said he had many sins he felt guilty about, so bingo! We taught repentance and how to repent. We also committed him to be baptized!! Which was awesome, and he prayed with us! We were so thankful that we immediately knelt down after we got back to our class and thanked Heavenly Father. David is real to us and we love him. 

Their District

So, our district is compromised of 6 elders all going to Tijuana. We all live together and are getting along really well. I'll send a picture of them. I was called to be the District Leader which basically means I handle the mail, go to branch council and leadership meetings on Sundays, lead the District during class and district meetings, and basically just make sure everything is running smooth and everyone is doing well. In our zone, there are like 5 districts of people that have been here anywhere from 5 weeks to us new kids. 

Thanks you guys so much for the letters! Letters mean the world to us missionaries. Thanks for thte packages too. We love the goodies! The whole district now has a joke that mom will send me anything and that anything they need (a cow, more food, anything) just needs to go through Elder Morgan's mom :)

MTC is good. We get packages everyday if we have them. Pday is the same everyday. Food is good! Trying not to get too fat! Spanish class is good. I'm just in a beginner class, but this is like on steroids. Our teachers ONLY speak in Spanish to us. Even the first day! I'm definitely doing much better than the other elders in my district, but we all are learning so much and I am thankful for my 3 years of Spanish. We practice talking to other companionship's sometimes and people always think I've already been here for like 4 or 5 weeks because my Spanish is good! We try and speak as much Spanish as possible, but it's impossible to speak only Spanish because we have to speak to English speakers too and stuff. Anyways, It's going so well! 

I love it here and I love everything that I am doing. I love that I have the call to wear The Lord's name on my chest and to have the power to testify to people and promise them things that I could not normally promise with such great power and authority. I know that this church is true and that our Savior atoned for our sins. We must all repent and come to him if we are to live with our Father in Heaven again! I miss you guys a ton, but as I bury myself in the work, I have no homesickness and I want to be here! Know that I am safe and that I am loving being here! Love you guys, More pictures will come later and ask me as many questions as you want. This email is huge, and I promise the others won't be quite so big!