My Spanish is coming along great. Every monday is "El dia de
espanol", where we try to speak pure Spanish the whole day. It went
better than the last few weve had. Besides that, weve try to speak
spanish as much as we can, but when were having discussions or other
things where we need to be able to express ourselves fully and
understand eachother, we speak english. The 501 verbs book is very
handy, actually I'm planning on going through and testing myself on
how many I know, to try to have all of them memorized before I go.
Just by flipping through, I realize I know alot more than I think I
did. There are sometimes where I think in spanish, I want to get to
the point where I can just read or think in spanish without
translating. I can already do that with most things, but some trickier
stuff like the scriptures is hard to understand.
Obviously we spend alot of time focused on the doctrine, but its
mostly how to talk about it and teach it simply, not really learning
it. We do have a branch, which is basically our ward, its about 80%
elders. We have a sacrament meeting in the morning, and a priesthood
meeting in the afternoon, and all the sisters have a giant relief
society. We have the oppourtunity to watch music and the spoken word
every week, its great, because thats the only music we get around
here. Did you see the one right before christmas with Richard York?
Legit. That guy is a pro.
In my own scripture study, I'm not on a set plan, I will usually
jump around, spending a fair amount of time in the New testament, as
I'm likely to run into people who know that very well also. But I do
want to know the BOM better also. Its weird to say I wish we had more
time to study, even though we spend 2-3 hrs on just personal and
companion study per day. I am definitely looking forward to getting
out in the field. I felt like that at week 2. I have that feeling
thats sort of nervous but excited at the same time about it. Its gonna
be awesome.
There are alot of things that are fun at the MTC. Gym time is
always a blast, 4-square is still my favorite game, though I try to
mix it up with running and occasionally b-ball or volleyball. Also, an
Elder from down the hall, Elder Ragsdale, have started juggling alot.
He is a pro. I have gotten alot better at juggling, thanks again for
the Juggling balls for christmas, and I can do the throw behind the
back trick fairly consistently. Elder R is really good, he can do 4
balls at once, and do lots of cool tricks as well. He showed me one
where you juggle like normal, but bounce them off of a wall in front
of you. Then I showed him the 2 person juggling with 5 balls, where
you go across to eachother, and then were like hey- lets combine them!
So weve been practicing doing that off the wall to eachother, with 5
balls. I'm sure it looks just crazy, us standing next to eachother
hucking balls at the wall, and somehow cathing all of them and getting
them going again. It's pretty fun. I took some videos of us juggling
earlier, with my companion elder Rose, but I havent taken any with
Elder Ragsdale, and in all kindness, Elder Ragsdale is way better. I
gave my SD card to Jay today, who is going to take it to someone and
have them email some pictures and videos to you, but keep in mind weve
improved alot from tho.se
I definitely laugh alot, our teachers tell us funny stories and we
joke around when appropriate. I'll tell you a story my teacher Brother
Adams told us, he went to Chile. So the little kids there had somehow
learned swear words in english, and they would yell them at the
Missionaries. But since their pronunciation is so bad it didnt really
carry alot weight to it, and he'd usually just respond with "no, the
playa is that way ninos". So one time on a bus some kids were swearing
at them in english with funny accents and he said to them, "you know,
those arent really mean swear words in english" and the kids said
"tell us a mean one!" and he said "no, no I dont want you going around
saying it" and the kids said "no, tell us! we promise we wont say it!"
So he made them promise not to say it if he told them, and he said "ok
here it is: Baptize me" and the kids immediately started saying it and
asking him what it meant. He said "No I cant explain it to you, its
too mean" and so all the little kids on the bus were yelling
"Baptizeme baptizeme!!" and he would put his hands over his ears and
say "No, dont say that! You promised!" And so for the next few weeks
when he was in that area all the little kids would yell at them "Hey
Elders, Baptizeme!" I'm sure there are little kids in Chile still
yelling at the missionaries Baptizeme!
Anyways, I'd love to hear from all of you via dearelder or
otherwise, tell Daniel I love him! Thanks for the pictures!
Love,
Cam
Extra note-
Oh yeah, we sang "we'll bring the world his truth" in a large meeting the other day, and they changed the words from " we will be the lords missionaries" to "we are now the lords missionaries" and that was a HUUUUUUUUGE rush and confirmation from the spirit that what Im doing is right. It was really awesome. You can put that in the main email if you want.
-Cam
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