Thursday, November 4, 2010

Thinking...in Spanish

Holy cow, I can’t believe I've only got like 2.5 weeks left here in Provo.  I should be expecting my travel plans this weekend or on Monday.  I am super excited for that.  The weather here has still been pretty nice, but now that Halloween has come and gone, I think it's time to bring on the snow.  I want to see some major snow before I leave Utah, because it's gonna be so wet in New York.
I spoke with Jaren last Sunday.  He told me that of the 24 people going to Peru, 6ish of them had their papers lost, and he unfortunately was in that group.  We were joking after that it would be funny if he was temporarily reassigned to my mission.  But there's definitely a reason for that to be happening.  Hopefully for his stomachs’ sake he doesn’t have to stay for 11 weeks - preferably just 9.
Spanish is still coming.  We've started talking a lot more in Spanish, and I am trying to start thinking in Spanish and speaking only in Spanish and then using an English word only if I don’t know the Spanish one.  On Tuesday we taught a guy named Juan in the TRC (His real name is Hno. Arnell).  He was probably the hardest person I've ever taught, because of the person he is.  But yesterday he took me and my companion and gave us some feedback and helped us to find different ways to understand someone who speaks really fast Spanish like he does.  His TRC character is really quite hard, but Hno. Arnell himself is probably one of the more helpful teachers myself and Elder Maybury have had at the MTC (except for our actual teachers of course).  Anyways, Spanish is going pretty well all in all.  My companion is still struggling a lot but I've been trying to help him as much as I possibly can.
This bed bugs thing does not sound very nice.  That could make my time in NY a little less enjoyable.  Hopefully I have clean companions and we can keep those things out of our apartment, although I don’t even know what they look like.  I will be going to NY before thanksgiving.  My estimated departure date is the 22 of November, so I'm in the MTC for a total of 9 weeks, but my first week was only like 4 days long.
It's been sweet to have the apostles come and talk to us.  And guess what?!?  We had a third one on Tuesday.  This time elder M. Russell Ballard came and spoke to us.  His talk was definitely the favorite one I've heard so far, it was all about becoming a great spiritual communicator.  He also left us with some apostolic blessings.  1. To have a realization of how great the work we are doing is, and 2.  He blessed us that we would have the ability to become great communicators.
What was everyone for Halloween?  I'm sorry to hear about the blue truck.  Tell Sarah that I approve of her driving Shirley [Carson’s car] as long as she is careful and practices a lot.  But she better not hurt her anymore [as she learns to drive standard].  On the bright side, if she's driving Shirley, she'll have a much easier time driving in the winter, because the truck sucks for driving in the winter.  It slips everywhere.  Or what you could do is sell the Honda and my car, and then get a nice little SUV, preferably something like a Rav4 (Toyota).  That, or don’t get anything and have her take the bus to school; she has barely had to all three years!  JK 
I've been getting a pretty good amount of treats, but if I were to say something, I'd say that I love tootsie roll pops, and pretty much anything that is gummy  i.e. Wine Gums, Fuzzy Peaches, Swedish Berries...I don’t need anything really, and I've been getting at least one letter a week, so I'm happy.  I just can’t believe how long it took for you all to get the first letters I sent.  I sent Sarah’s and Dad’s a week after Daniel’s first one.  Did Sarah like that Spanish chart thing I sent her?  Hopefully it helps in her Spanish class, I know it's helping me a lot.
Love you all, and I look forward to hearing back from you.
Elder Dilling