MTC, Week 5

Well, it's been an exciting week.

Last p-day I got a haircut at the MTC barbershop, so of course they cut it really short and I look rather silly right now. But o well, it will grow back.

On Wednesday new missionaries came (like they do every week). Our zone got some new Elders, but they are all fluent in Spanish already. So they are only here for three weeks then they leave. It's rather humbling to have some new elders come in and start speaking to me and I have no idea what they are saying even though I've been here for a month. But they are really cool and are willing to help us with our spanish, which is nice. Elder Kelly and I have taught some of them two lessons so far. They say that they understand everything we say so we need to stop worrying so much about what we are saying and just focus on teaching. But I can't understand what they say when we ask them questions. So I need to work on listening to natives. I understand other missionaries that are learning spanish cause they all talk slow and use the same words I am learning. But these new ones talk fast and use different words. So it's great that they are here, they should really help my spanish.

Also on Wednesday Hermana Yost (Allie) entered the MTC. I looked for her all day but didn't see her until Thursday afternoon. She is doing well. There isn't really time in our schedules to talk to people, and we have different food and gym times, so I haven't gotten to talk to her too much. But I see her every now and then when we are studying outside. I'll have to send a picture of us home (we did an awkward photo together since we're missionaries and can't put arms around eachother or anything).

Another person who came in on Wednesday was Elder Delmoe (I knew him as Ben at BYU). The weird thing is he and my companion and another elder that was in my ward at BYU (Elder Anderson) were best friends before the mission. The world really is small when you are mormon.

On Friday we had a fake sacrament meeting in Spanish with another district. I don't know why we did that because we have a real sacrament meeting in spanish every Sunday, but we did it anyway. I was asked to talk about the law of chastity. I thought that was kinda silly cause I don't know spanish and if I were to say something wrong I could end up saying something pretty bad. But it went ok. The only one who really understood it was the teacher and he said I did a good job.

We got to go to the temple today! Today was the first day it was open (I think) after being closed for a month. It was nice to get to go again. And I still learn lots of new things even though it was my sixteenth time.

And today is no ingles lunes. Our zone is trying to speak in only spanish all day. We've tried it as a district before but it hasn't worked all that well, but hopefully as a zone we can keep it up for longer. It's hard not to speak english, but we are at the point where we can communicate pretty much any idea in spanish that we need to, we just need to make ourselves do it. So it is nice to have to force myself to think of how to say it in spanish. Hopefully that will help once I get to Argentina and I absolutely have to speak in spanish.

Well, I'm out of time. I'm doing great in the MTC. God is good. Talk to you all next week.

les quiero,

Elder Gardner

"Open the gates and seize the day. Don't be afraid and don't delay. Nothing can break us, no one can make us give our rights away. Arise and seize the day!"