P-Day #2

P-Day #2
Alex has been in the MTC for 13 days! (It seems much longer) It is hard to believe. The family won't let me leave cookies in a tree or show up at the Temple on Sunday when all the missionaries are milling around. I want to see him and have him tell me to my face he is doing well but... I may just have to sneakily do something!



September 21, 2010

We'll see what I think of.

We got into a Tuesday-wide arms race to get a good laundry stop this time and we prevailed, but we ultimately got up at an insane 5:30 to beat the other missionaries soundly enough to not fight or get in line for washers. It's never dryers; there's like three times as many. Which makes no sense. Whatever.

There's a really handy word in Spanish, 'pues.' It simultaneously means 'yes,' 'well,' and 'anyway.' So when you say pues, you say "Yes... well, anyway..." Good transition. Handy.

Pues, everything is keeping up to its normal insane pace and heavy spirituality. I haven't really had a desire to watch TV or anything. Music is enough. I'm focused like never before. We do this, and we do it all day, every day, without a chance to rest, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I don't think this is the hardest material I've ever studied, but learning it, speaking it freely to real people, being rolled like a doob several times before catching on to the right ways and doctrines to teach is a growing experience. We are up to a 5-7 minute message in Spanish about the Restoration. We only don't speak Spanish in meals, usually. Or today.

It's almost becoming too much. The language center of my brain is tired and makes mistakes in English very often. For some reason, I have problems remembering when double letters exist, and also those strange three-vowel syllables like the end of simultaneous. I have to spell check them.

Pues, on a normal day, we get up at 6:00. Most missionaries get up at 6:30, but we like the free showers. My companion is always dressed before me, he's one of those fast people. We go to breakfast, which is usually some entre, but most people get cereal and fruit. Then it's usually to class until perhaps lunch, so that's three and a half hours or something. The scedule changes every day, but that's usually how it goes. Usually that class is Missionary Directed Time, sort of a general study time, of which there is about three hours a day. Sometimes it's split up, sometimes all together. A missionary has to get through one hour of personal, companion, and language study each. I don't like personal study because I get bored with it really fast.

My experience with Spanish is really noticeable. If I may, I'd say that I probably was sent to that class to help others as well as learn. I didn't really learn anything for the first week beside Gospel words and things. We've done two kinds of past conjugations, one for instantaneous events and one for habitual or background events. Sort of a "At a time when there was a lot of religious excitement (that's one), Joseph Smith prayed to know which church to join (the other one)," if you will. Neither is really hard to use and the brevity you get compared to English is remarkable. Throw in some pronouns and you can get through a sentence with two words. Lo hacer'e means "I will do that."

Then lunch. Same idea as breakfast, but it gives people serious gas. Serious gas. Not me so much, but I experience plenty of it. Gym is usually about then. I usually play soccer on the big field for the exercise, but sometimes volleyball. I don't eat very well here, I think, but I've tightened my belt regardless. Then class, dinner, and class again. Sometimes a meeting with the Zone, which is about a company-sized group of maybe 4 or 5 districts of 6-12 missionaries. They come and go very often.

Then we plan the next day and talk about how it went. It usually takes about 20 minutes. We have that much to talk about, surprisingly. We contact other missionaries and teach lessons to fake investigators. I'll just some up what I've learned about it so far with this: you have to care about them. You have to care about them for the Spirit to be there at all. Once you have that, it's hard to go wrong.

Pues, I can write on Tuesday with email, then during the week. Dear elders get to me the day you write them, so do those whenever. Sorry, time's almost up.