It´s P Day! So here we go.
The MTC is on floors 4,5, and 6 which is really 5,6, and 7.* The way to remember is the three degrees of glory. The lowest is classes which is the worst of the three, the middle is beds where you sleep which is second best and the highest is the cafeteria where we eat which is the best. Whenever we walk up and down the stairs we have a magnificent view of the temple. It´s really cramped. We have small 6 person rooms with barely any room. 3 bunk beds and 6 small closets. But guess what. We now have 8 people in each room with cots taking up all the floor space so it´s a little cramped.
I´m living out of my suitcase right now. By the way, I have no idea where some things are. I couldn´t find my recommend to save my life. I got a new one, but the president wrote it wrong, got me a new one, I left it in the library, tried to pick it up at the secretary but she gave it to the president who thought they had found my original one so he tore the newest one so he had to fix the one where he wrote wrong stuff. Wow.
They threw us right into classes and everything our first day here. My teachers are a man from Texas, Hermano Pickup; a lady from the Canaries, Hermana Perera; and a lady from Spain, Hermana Camerero. They´re all pretty nice. But they don´t all use the ceta so that's confusing. I´m getting used to the ceta now. It´s nice to have to know how to spell things. I am understanding more Spanish now. We did go to the park the first Saturday. It was good and bad. The park is gorgeous. It´s El Parque de Retiro or something like that. Look up pictures. Some people were very blunt and mean, but we had a good conversation with some Bolivian tourists and a really long conversation with this nice Spanish man. He liked our church but he also liked his. He loves our geneology stuff. I´m still not perfect so it was interesting to communicate.
The food is great. The milk comes in boxes like juice. I´ve drunk a lot of pineapple juice here and Fanta is the only good drink around. There is so much fish. The first night here I found out that we had swordfish. We´ve had squid too. They have a basket of mass produced pastries but they are still good. I love the Cañas de Crema. We´ve also had croissants some mornings. Mostly we have cereal in huge bowls. I´ve fallen asleep most meetings. I don´t know why but during certain times I am ridiculously tired. I already had a clothing casualty. On the way to the park I tripped and tore my shin on these sandpaper cobblestones of death that give grip next to the curb.
My first companion is Elder López from the Phillipines. He doesn´t speak Spanish. I have not much time to write so I hope Mom will correct my mistakes and make paragraphs. (I did) Thanks mom. We also had another accident. A train here crashed here badly. It went around a 80kmh turn at 180kmh. It killed around 80 people and one of our elders was in it. Thankfully he was in the 8th car so he only had a bruised femur and a fractured vertebra. He´s back here recovering with a neck brace. Look for me on the news. They took a lot of pictures and video here. I think it was mainly the associated press.
When I left one of the meetings a little boy as tall as my thigh came up and hugged my leg and smiled. It was random but I felt better afterward. I´ve been to the temple twice now. It´s gorgeous. Since there are so many of us it´s in English. There are about 80 of us here and another 20 ish at Provo waiting for visas. Hopefully they figure out more space for them. Oh, we get "merienda" here which is the magical snack time that Spaniards get during siesta except we switch cena (dinner) and merienda so its more normal for us. They say the first few weeks here are like being sprayed with a fire hose and trying to drink. Ya. That´s it. It's a bit overwhelming but I´m getting better. We have a tight schedule.
I love singing Spanish hymns. I love you guys a lot. It´s weird to think I wont be home for 2 years so I try not to. It feels like a dream and like I´m going to wake up any moment. The keyboards are funny. They have things like ñ and ç with their own key and things like ¬. No idea when I´ll use it. There are loads of languages here. They do Spanish, Portuguese, French, Russian, and Italian. The Russian guys are funny. I spoke a bit to the French. I know how to say ¨Je ne parles paz francais¨ ("I don't speak French.") or however you spell it. I got some laughs. It´s really funny here. We have a lot of happy and funny elders. We have a sister that looks like the girl from She´s the Man, an elder that looks exactly like Bill Nye, and one guy looks exactly like the guy who tries to blackmail Batman in the Dark Knight. Love you! My timer is running out so I gotta go.
P.S. Also, physical letters are really exciting to get so I´d be absolutely fine to get those from people. :) Emails are great too. Thanks for the letters!
*In Europe the 2nd floor is known as the "1st Platform" (I can't think of the word in English), and so the 5th floor would be known as the 4th in Europe
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