Hola Familia y Amigos!
Pues.... I have TONS of information again and will make a bullet list. I'll probably start creating lists like this every other week or so, especially when I get in the field. And that's coming up so soon! Anyways, here it goes:
- I leave in 9 days. Loco, no?
- For the last week or so, we've taught anywhere from 1 to 3 30-minute lessons each day
- I've seen tons of ppl from BYU this past week: Reid Empey, Chad lanam, Austin Finch, Todd, Scott Swingle, Taylor Howard, and even more whose names I can't remember right now. It definitely seems like BYU ppl come here in waves.
- My companion and I got new roommates. 2 of the Elders in my district ended up going to the Dominican Republic MTC about a month ago (One of them was Elder Matthews, the guy I talked about about in my last letter :)). So basically, for the last four weeks or so, my companion and I have had an entire room to ourselves. Now we have to share again, but no worries. The new missionaries are cool and are learning Portuguese. Español es mucho mejor, pienso. hahah I already have some Spanish pride.
- Another one of my investigators was baptized last week
- I HAVE MY TRAVEL PLAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I leave the MTC @ 8am on Sept. 26. We will drive in a huge van/bus type thing up to the airport, where we will prepare to fly with American Airlines. After flying to Dallas Texas, we will climb aboard a hulk-like plane that will take us all the way to Buenos Aires, Argentina! It will take like 16 hours in the air! I'm so excited. So pumped.
- Also, right after my email last Friday, President Sanchez extended new callings to me and my companion: Zone Leaders. At first, this felt a little overwhelming b/c we are now over about 50 to 60 missionaries. It's been awesome, though. Here's a short summary of what we get to do:
Plan and schedule Priesthood/Sacrament
Teach a 30 minute welcome lesson to new districts of missionaries during their first day
Collect everyone's weekly reports for the Branch President
Follow up with and try to help the other district leaders
Give tours of the MTC to new missionaries
- And those are the main duties, at least that I know of at the moment. It's honestly not that bad. My companion and I love it, and sometimes we get to miss class :) Anyways, I should move on.
- I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but there has been construction going on for my entire time here at the MTC. And guess what? The new building opened this week. It has the new mailroom, barbershop, bookstore, etc. It's SUPER huge and incredibly nice
- Oh yeah.... speaking of barbershops... So I had to get a haircut last week, and let's just say it's a little shorter than my usual :). It's actually not as bad as I was expecting, though. I'll just probably wait a week or two before taking more pics haha
- I've been talking to some of the portuguese elders a little bit lately, and we can still understand each other a decent amount of the time. Cool, huh?
- The district above us leaves in 2 days. It feels a little weird b/c that means we will be the oldest district in our Zone and one of the oldest at the MTC. At the same time, it's really exciting
- We only have one more appt at the TRC (Training Resource Center)
- Alright, you guys r gonna love this. My district has started playing a game that helps us speak spanish all of the time, which is good since we've been here for 7 weeks and can communicate kinda decently. Anyways, so we got a 15-lb rock and wrote "Rock of Shame" on it in Spanish with a sharpie. Whoever speaks English in our district has to carry it until they hear someone else speak English. It's hilarious b/c nobody wants to carry the rock since it's so heavy. Plus everyone stares at you funny (especially in the cafeteria and hallways). So basically, I've hardly heard any English the last week or so. It's an awesome/funny game, and it really forces us to speak our language like our teachers always say every day. Also, the record is 7 hours. Yep, an Elder had to carry the rock of shame that long haha. He shouldn't have let an English word slip :). I've carried the rock a few times too. No bueno. haha
- hmmm what more.
- My accent is definitely getting kinda alright. I still definitely don't sound like a native yet though
- we found out that there are 50 languages taught here
- I found some other Elders who like ultimate frisbee, so I've played catch with them some each gymtime before soccer
- my next (and last) P-day here at the MTC will be next Saturday b/c our schedule here is different during our last week :)
- Some of the elders in my district and zone make fun of me for taking naps on P-day. What's up with that? We all know that naps rock. come on haha
And that's about it--or at least that's all i have time for. I'll send more next week on Saturday. Then I'll be in the field before I know it. Thanks for all of you support and letters. The MTC is great and so is everything about the work. Nos Vemos!
Elder Rory Jones
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