MTC Week 3

DEAR FAMILIA

Thank you to everyone who took the time to write me letters! I love getting them so much you have literally no idea! Also thank you Kira and Kamree for the cookies they were delicious! I have written almost everyone back today and still have time to write letters as I do laundry so no worries. Also, it's snowing outside, which is awesome.

Anyway, I definitely heard all about Japan, mom! It's kind of big news here so basically everyone knows most of the facts. But hearing things through the grapevine is the only way I find things out so thank you! From what I hear, every single missionary was accounted for so that's awesome! I was trying to talk to a couple Japanese missionaries today about it (all foreign missionaries report on Tuesdays) but they didn't understand a word I said besides "Tsunami." They're here from Japan to train for their Japan missions. Weird.

It sounds like Saul's farewell was awesome though! There are a LOT of missionaries here and it took me a week to see Elder Whitaker from my BYU ward but I'll still most likely see Saul when he gets here. It's not for two weeks though right? April 6?

My week here has been great though. It's weird because I feel like I have been here for ten years. Three weeks sounds much shorter than it feels. But at the same time, I feel like it was JUST p-day. I am, of course, learning so much every day. From the awesome devotionals (no apostle last week it was Richard J Maynes, 1st Quorum of the Seventy STILL COOL, maybe one will come tonight) on Sunday nights and Tuesday nights, to class discussions, to studying the scriptures and Spanish all day long! I love it. My teacher Hermano Gneiting is such an example to me because he's only been back for six months yet he's a spiritual giant! It really proves how much one can grow. He showed us this talk from Elder Holland (called Miracle of a Mission) that he watched while in the MTC and he said that it was one of the biggest helps for him on his mission when times got hard. I have seen Elder Holland get passionate about what he is saying but I have honestly never seen a talk like this one. It taught me so much about making my mission count. He said, "be bigger and older and bolder than you've ever been." And that we're doing the most important thing that we will ever do. He said that to this day, he has never done anything harder! And he's an Apostle!! But that it was worth it because of how he has been blessed since. He then stressed the importance of obedience and faithfulness and finally about how the atonement must be central to our message. After which he said that he'd finally finished the introduction to his talk but was out of time.

So basically that is ONE example of an hour lesson I learned on ONE day of THIS week! This place is awesome! The language is coming along and my district is really cracking down on speaking Spanish all the time, especially in class. My teachers won't even speak English anymore unless absolutely necessary. What is cool though is that I understand every word they say! I can also mostly understand the scriptures when I read them in Spanish.

Anyway, it's hard to find things to write about when every day blurs together so sorry! Once I get to Argentina (in 6 weeks) I'll have much more to say! Maddy, I wrote you a letter so hopefully it got there! Please someone, tell Jordan about my blog, he doesn't know about it because he deleted his facebook. Tanner wrote me and I can't respond to anyone but family while in the MTC so I have to wait :( But mom can you forward his letters to his family to me through dearelder? That'd be awesome. I'll write Kim and Jen letters through the mail because I'm almost out of time and Stephanie; I already wrote yours today so I'll be sending it in a bit.

I love you all and appreciate all the sacrifices you make for me, especially you mom and dad. Thank you for your letters, I wish I had more time to respond to them individually but I don't... don't stop sending them though! Until next week.

-Elder Ryan David Garrison