First letter from MTC

Malo e lelei!

Whats up? The MTC is pretty great. The food is pretty good and the

chocolate milk is actually heavenly. Jack should serve a mission just

so that he can gain the blessings from the chocolate milk.

Here's a brief summary of whats gone on so far as recorded in my journal:

I absolutely hate roosters! I didnt get any sleep at all the night

before I entered the MTC because those dang birds wouldnt shut their

pie holes. Anyway eventually I got up, checked emails made some phone

calls etc and got ready for the day. Gramma and I then went to

barbara's to visit with her for a little while and then we went down

to the despains so gramps could drive us all down to the MTC & to see

Sam. Sam is cool, he looks really different, his leg looks like a mess

though but he says he'll be ready to go in five months or so. So thats

good. Also Sam told me to make sure I let him know when X and I are

looking for an apartment down there. After we saw Sam we went to Costa

Vida mexican grill to have lunch and I made a phone call to you guys

down there. The phone calls were definitely the hardest part of the

day even though we were worked like mules once we got in, especially

saying goodbye to Nat, I hope she is doing okay. So then I got to the

MTC and I said goodbye to gramma and gramma and grampa and grampa

cried so that was nice. Then this kid named Elder Hassen helped me to

get settled and took my luggage to my room and stuff while I got my

name card and all of that good stuff.

Anyway after all of that I went to class and the teacher refuses still

to speak a lick of english, its been straight tongan the entire time.

But its amazing how much Ive been able to understand and pick up in

the first two days of classes. Tongan is pretty cool and fun to learn.

I am going to be giving my first lesson tonight actually, IN TONGAN.

So thats pretty cool. My companions name is Elder Leseure pronounced

Le swere, hes pretty chill/ cool and we get along well. My district is

flipping awesome Tongans easily have the most fun and we are close

with the samoans to. Samoan & Tongan are like Portuguese and Spanish

it turns out so thats cool. All of the guys in my room and district

are athletes to and pretty good at basketball so thats fun. We get

along well and have fun.

At dinner wednesday night we met a fellow tongan missionary from the

states named Elder Nonu. He grew up over here and told us a story

about how one time his grampa flew over from tonga to visit them and

ended up cooking their family pet dog for dinner without them knowing!

Imagine eating hank without realizing it! So that was funny. Hes a

cool guy.

We had a zone meeting wednesday night and met our zone mission

president, President Willes. Hes a nice older guy who reminds me a ton

of President Hinckley. Anyway we met our Zone leaders that night to

and they both seemed so knowledgable and older than all of us were,

yet when asked we realized they were both months younger than both of

us but had just been here for four weeks. Its crazy how much they all

know after four weeks. Anyway later in the night after President

Willes left they gave us a bunch of tips and what not about how to

survive the MTC. For example only drink the orange juice if you are

really constipated and its completely normal to not be able to poop

for four to five days at a time they said. I havent experienced any of

that yet thankfully.

This place really is amazing though, its a lot of fun and everyone is

really cool, atleast in the polynesion zone. We had a zone prayer last

night and then afterwards recited a scripture verse about bringing the

everlasting gospel to people and everyone was basically yelling and

shouting the verse and then afterwards everyone went crazy and just

started hugging everybody while yelling like war cries and stuff, it

was pretty cool and overwhelming at the same time.

So yesterday was a good day to. Class was fun again and I am learning

so much tongan its really crazy how quickly we are all picking it up

and speaking it. Oh yeah and theres a pull up bar outside of my room

which is nice for the morning. I was able to bear my testimony in

tongan farely well yesterday also. I learned that everyday we have

free gym time! About an hour to lift weights or play basketball or

volleyball or soccer or run. Played basketball the whole time was

really fun.

This is where it went south.

After basketball we went back to our residency to change and shower

and what not and I felt the strangest most uncomfortable sensation in

an area where you do not want to feel those things. I quickly found

out that I couldnt pee easily and then I just wasnt able to for a

decent amount of time. Eventually and with an incredible amount of

pain I was able to go a little bit and I kept trying harder and harder

and it hurt soooooo badly you have no idea and then I passed the first

really tiny kidney stone. And then I passed one more five minutes

later. They both hurt probably as much as when mom was torturing my

arms last fall after that competition.

I have no idea why I would ever get one, All I drink is milk and water

and I make sure not to eat many salty things. Anyway that sucked.

I made sure to have double the amount of chocolate milk in water that

lunch though. After lunch we studied tongan some more independently

and started to prepare our lesson for today.

Last night we had another Zone meeting to determine the district

leaders for the new missionary districts that came in on wednesday.

All of the elders got interviewed and long story short I was asked to

be district leader for the tongan district, which I accepted.

President Willes spoke to and the spirit was really strong.

So the first two days at the MTC were pretty much as awesome as you

could ask for. Im having a great time and learning the language.

Everything here is pretty sweet and the only thing that´s been a sour

experience were those devil stones but Im alright.

Today is P-day and so we went to the provo temple this morning and did

sealings for the dead. Id never done sealings before so that was a

cool experience and you could feel the spirit there. Im getting really

good at praying also. The celestial room in the provo MTC is really

cool to, I liked it a lot, I think I like the Manhattan celestial room

better though. Next friday we are going to do an endowment session

with our district. After the temple my companion and I went to the MTC

store to get some stuff we needed like a laundry bag, I thought I had

a laundry bag packed but havent been able to find it anywhere.

Also the food is good. The bathrooms are incredibly clean for being

public bathrooms and the seats are way comfy.

And since we did sealings after we finish our hour of emails we are

going to have like two hours for gym time before we have to go do

laundry and start preparing our lesson a little more thoroughly for

tonight. I have to read more about district leader responsibilities to

now that I think about it.

Thats pretty much it so far. How is everyone doing.

Also make sure to look up dearelder.com and copy your emails there as

well as on here so that I can read them before I get to the computer

lab so that I will have more time to type. Im going full speed as it

is and would like to say more and email more people. These keyboards

are weird to because theyre modified so that all the regular

penunciation stuff are know letters for other languages and dont type

out what they say they are. So please excuse all of my mistakes and

absence of slashes and question marks and what not.

Alright Ive got to email more people now. How are you guys doing.

Whats everyone up to. Has Jack beaten hogans score in golf yet and has

anyone let hogan beat them in ping pong. Hed probably like that. I

know he did when I let him beat me.

Malo!