Thursday, April 30, 2009

On the picture front, I'll try and get more pictures with me in it, but I don't have any time here. I mean really I almost regret most of those because I wasted so much time taking them! I'll see what I can do.

Pero I got a lot of letters yesterday so it sounds like everyone now knows about the blog I got some from the Leppert's (George and Rhiannon). Oh and I forgot that Ben, Julie Nash and Barb have all emailed me. I'm sure barb hears a lot from all of you so thank them all if you can. That is really great to hear about Bryton. Tell him that if he stays close to the Lord and does his best to do everything that he can to study the gospel, it will help him immensely on his mission and tell him that I admire what he is doing a lot.

Tell all of the priests to make sure that before they come out here that they read the BOM and hopefully the entire standard works and Preach My Gospel. Doing that has helped me a ton. I feel as though I'm not behind in the gospel section, just the language. I'm learning a ton here about the gospel but almost all of it is familiar. I just have to refamiliarize myself with the material then start to apply it.

Oh and I'll probably get a good plaque picture in Argentina. I'm thinking there isn't a whole lot a great places here.

I'm sorry I'm not answering many of the questions from the letters. I'll do that on Tuesday. But many wanted me to talk a bit about what it's like here. But, thank you all so much for your advice and support. I really enjoy getting your letters and feeling of your love.

Life in the MTC. Huh well ok. From wake up to the time I go to bed. It is a little bit different each day but I'll do my best to explain it all. Wake up; I usually wake up around 6:30 but not always as sometimes I have to get up earlier to be able to be ready on time like today. I finally got quick and organized enough to be able to get to class on time most days.

I start class at 7:00 am where we sing (in Spanish) pray (in Spanish) and read a scripture (in Spanish). We do that as a district. After that my companion and myself go off and study usually our personal study stuff. We mostly focus on our investigators and try to have stuff like scriptures and such in our study journals so we have material to draw from during our lessons. At 7:45 am we have breakfast and on Wednesdays we have an English fast were the entire zone (three districts right now) don't speak any English all day (more or less).

Breakfasts here are alright I guess nothing compared to the other food in my opinion. Breakfast is 30 minutes then we usually go to gym. Gym is granted a little annoying for me because I can't bike and I can't swim, which have always been my usual methods of exercising. I would run but me knee has been giving me a lot of problems so now I usually just play volleyball. The field just opened last week but once again those all involve a lot of potential opportunities to mess up my knee more. Gym goes for 50 minutes and afterwards we have a half hour to shower and get ready for more class.

After gym it is usually personal, companionship and language study time. Also due to our teachers we teach a ton during this time. We teach about 15 lessons a day to teachers in what is called the TEC. Usually missionaries might teach a couple a week, so I'm really glad for that because I love teaching and knowing what I can do to improve. In fact we got one fake baptism and two more with dates (imagine that).

After study time and teaching we usually go lunch at 12:30 for 45 minutes. This is some of the best food ever! I love the food here and there are great choices all of the time too. Interestingly, almost all of my district complains about the food here but I think that once we've had our 50th straight serving of beef in Argentina they might think differently. Which interestingly most everyone here gains a lot of weight but actually I'm not gaining everything. In fact I actually lost a couple of pounds which I have since gained back. But at least I don't have to worry about getting fat here (sorry to disappoint you Sebring).

After Lunch we have class time with a teacher or LGM. LGM is large group meeting and they are awesome. They are like mini devotionals. A teacher has a prepared lesson about how to be more successful which I love. My companion usually falls asleep which is too bad because he misses a lot at them. After LGM we go to class with either Hermano (brother in Spanish) Craine or Call.

Ok, times up and I have to go but I'll continue a little bit later today with this. I have to go to breakfast bye!

30 Minutes Later After Breakfast...

I only have 5 minutes left so I'll have to finish the rest of this some other time.

Class time with the teachers is awesome. We actually just got a new teacher. Both of the previous teachers were over the 3 year limit on serving here, which of course means that they were fantastic and we are so blessed to have them. The new one, Hermano Call, is not nearly as experienced. You can tell, however, that he is an amazing teacher none the less. Hermano Crane is my favorite out of them all, and he has really helped me a lot through interviews and such. He went to Argentina on his mission, which is good because he knows all of their terms, which are a lot different from the rest of Latin America.

Also I have the accent down for the most part because he taught us how, so I'm pretty good at the accent. Well I'm out of time. So I'll continue next week and answer all of your questions when I bring the letters to the lab.

Thanks so much for everything

Love Elder Sands