Buenos Dias familia y amigos!
Well, the rumors are true. After the first 4 days, time
flies past so quickly, it's hard to remember everything that happened this
week!
Most of my time this week has been spent on Language study.
Espanol es una idioma muy bonita! A lot of people in my district are getting
frustrated how they 'struggle' with Spanish, but we've only been here for 10
days now and everyone can pretty fluidly converse in Spanish. Most of the
people here are too hard on themselves! I had to memorize Moroni 10: 3-5, The
Missionary Purpose, The First Vision, and probably close to 2000 words and
phrases. It's a lot of work, but I enjoy it quite a bit. Taking a break and
playing some Volleyball helps to keep us focused :)
Speaking of my district, we are super close friends even in
this short period of time. We pretty much do everything with the 10 of us. We
have so many inside jokes and things, I thought I'd let y'all in on some :) The
first one is we shout "Wo-eye-knee" at eachother all the time. One of
the Elders in our district lived in China for a bit and that means "Love
ya" in Chinese. I'm not sure when it became a thing but we say it
all the time. Another is Calmarse Diligentemente (The title of this email). A
translation of this would say "Diligently Chill" or something along
those lines. Our Branch President said that in a district meeting this week and
we liked it so much we made it our "motto" of sorts. He said it to us
because again, some people were being hard on themselves with how much of the
language they new and he just said "You aren't expected to know the whole
thing by the time you leave The MTC! Diligent study is required to learn the
language, yes. You also need to Diligently CHILL. It's fine!" It was a
pretty funny but also profound moment.
We also had our first choir practices. We practiced and sang
"Be still, my Soul" for a Tuesday night devotional. The choir
director is pretty funny, he tells lots of stories from his mission/life. The
assistant choir director is my Uncle Blair's dad! I recognized him from some
family stuff we had before and on Tuesday I introduced myself as he asked me to
say the opening prayer! Just a funny connection, it really is a small
world.
Some funny language mistakes this week from various
missionaries in my district were, "Where is my body" instead of
"where is my notebook", "We want you" Instead of
"We want to get to know you", "Canada is a woman" instead
of "Canada is better." Never a dull moment in language class!
One of the coolest things this last week was on Sunday. Each
Sunday all the missionaries have the opportunity to watch a "Sunday
Movie" right before bed. The one they encourage all new missionaries to
watch is called "The Character of Christ" It's a talk Elder Bednar
gave to the MTC on Christmas Day a few years ago. People say it's a MTC
Exclusive thing but If I were you I'd search everywhere for some bootleg
version of this talk because it was amazing. Elder Bednar explained some
amazing things about how one attribute about the Character of Christ is how he
always tuns outward to serve others while our natural inclination is to turn
inward and think about ourselves. He shared some heart-wrenching stories about
some people that displayed the Character of Christ, and I wish I had the time
to recount everything about that talk because it seriously was life changing.
Focus on turning outward and thinking of others first!
Selflessness is hard but it is so rewarding to serve others. The Savior was the
perfect example of that and we need to identify and take upon us the Character
of Christ.
Los amo a todos!
Elder Thompson
Fotos:
1. Our district's makeshift dinner when the Dinner
line was an hour long (Mostly provided by Hermana Arnold's suitcase of food and
other people Halloween treats)
2.This is Elder Gato, the MTC cat
3. The Elders of our District
4. Everyone in our district
5. The hour long line for Pizza Night
6. My companion and our Substitute Lang. Teacher
(Additional info to the family this week)
It really does feel like I've been gone longer than 10 days,
mostly just because everyone in our district are super close friends at this
point. We have soooo many inside jokes and stuff. Elder Freeman does so much
funny stuff, I'll tell you guys one thing that I didn't put in my big
email.
For Espanol practice we're supposed to speak it as much as
possible, of course. When we do need to use English we're supposed to ask
permission with something like, "Mi permite hablar ingles?". One
morning we were super tired and just deliriously getting ready and from the
corner of the room we hear in a weird voice "Mi permite..... FART"
the 3 of us just yell, "NO NO NO NO" then it happened. I don't know
if that will be funny to you guys or not but it was so hilarious in the moment!
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