MTC -Week 1

Just wanted to say, VACA SANTA!!!(Holy Cow!) Not sure if that's right, pero (but) wow. A) This place is amazing. Completely blew my mind from day 1 B) Probably the most intense thing I've ever done.

So, my companion's name is Elder Nielsen and he's from Fredricksburg Virginia. He has 16 people in his family! Whew! Also, he's pretty cool.

We're all struggling with the language, or at least we were. It's still tough, but being so...immersed? is really helping out. Super intense studying though. We taught our first lesson on Friday to an investigator TODO EN ESPANOL!!!(All in Spanish) And we had our second this morning. Two days of reveiw/learning some gospel words, and we were expected to be able to talk to a man that speaks absolutely no English. I'm really worried about how much I'm struggling, pero things do tend to seem to fall into place when we're in our lessons. The words just come out, and I know that that's the Spirit taking pity on us, and filling in the gaps, Jajajaa!!

Another strange thing about this place is the time. There's SOOO much of it, but SOOO little of it. If that makes any sense. Considering the fact that we get up at around 6:00am, y (and) retire at around 10:30pm, there's sooo much time in the day. However everything is soooo scheduled and planned out that we never really see any of it. Some kind of weird time warp around here makes it seem like the days are weeks, and the weeks are days. It feels like just this morning that I stepped on the curb at the CCM (Missionary Training Center), pero now it's SATURDAY!! WOW!!

lso, side note, the reason why I'm writing today is since it was a short week for us noobies, we have a mini P-day today. My usual P-Day is Thursday. Just so you guys know.

I love this place. It's one of the most places spiritual I have been in a long time. At least, a constant and ever present spirit. All of my district feel same way that we are speaking Spanish all the time, trying to get better. It's weird to actually be speaking English/writing English, since the only thing we've been trying to do so far is communicate our ideas in Spanish. we struggle a lot, but it's still more gratifying? to be able to express our ideas en Spanish.

I was having an especially difficult time Thursday morning when I got the information that we had to teach an investigador the first lesson in nothing but Spanish, but I got a feeling that it was going to be alright. (and) Y the words came to my mind, "Mediante la fe en Jesucristo, todas cosas son posible" (Through faith in Jesus Christ, all things are possible) So I've adopted it as my kind of "motto" for the next two years. I'm very excited, and I cannot wait till I am out in the field.

I Love you all,

Elder McDonald