This first week has been a blast.It's been super long, but not too hard. Sitting in a classroom and studying all day? That's not too hard. It's been kind of tough getting used to being called by my last name though. I've already learned so much here, and I don't know if its the calling, endowments, or prayers, or a mixture of all of them, but I've seen answers to my prayers sooo fast here. It's awesome. In the past i've always been really nervous when trying to teach people, but teaching is a lot more comfortable here. I've learned that missionaries don't really teach "lessons" per se, it's all completely catered to the investigator. I thought that when i went on splits, the time before the teaching was just small talk. But its so much more than that. That's the time that you take to show that you care about the investigator(s). They don't care how much you know unless they know how much you care.
Sleep is pretty hard to come by. Sometimes I find myself waking up during personal study. I've seen ~15 elders here already that I knew from BYU. It feels kind of like how Alma felt when he was reunited with the sons of Mosiah. It's great to see friends that are still strong in the Gospel. Elder Hales came and talked to us yesterday, it was pretty cool.
P-days kind of suck, unless you really love laundry. You can't do any physical activity here, like you can on all the other days. Is that backwards or what?
I talked to a 2 guys yesterday; one went to the Canada Toronto East Mission and the other one went to the West. The CTEM is Toronto, and nothing else. The CTWM goes from Detroit to Niagra to the North Pole, and it still has less than the CTEM. My mission apparently has the largest fleet of cars of any mission in the world. So I won't be biking. It will be up to 95 degrees in the summer with like 90% humidity. The guy that went to my mission met people from 100 different countries, and the guy that went to Toronto met people from 160. I'm beginning to wonder if I'll meet any Canadians. But this seems really awesome to me. It's almost like the Lord is sending me all over the world, in just one mission. And guess who my new mission president is going to be? Elder Russell M. Ballards son! It's going to be awesome.
I think the toughest challenge for me is learning how to work with my companions. They will all have different teaching styles, and it's really frustrating for me when I am trying to teach one doctrine a certain way and my companion doesn't work with me. I guess that's what planning's for, but I get the feeling that I will have to spend a lot of time teaching my companions. My companion right now is 24, used to be inactive, doesn't like sports, didn't go to college, hasn't played a video game since he was 10, and is kind of new to the scriptures. He works hard, though. We just don't have much in common. He is related to the guy that wrote the white salamander letters, which is pretty crazy.
I've found the scripture masteries invaluable so far. They cover most investigator questions pretty well. I'm excited for my list of useful scriptures to grow. I'm writing down all of the useful scriptures in categories like baptism, faith, atonement, etc. Hopefully I will be able to put them to good use.
The MTC has been nice so far, but if I had to stay here for 9 weeks i would go crazy. And judging from the foreign-speaking elders that live on my floor, that's a pretty accurate statement. One of my friends from BYU as well as my RA's little brother are in my district.
Love you guys!
