Week 2

Dear everyone I love (including my loving mother who keeps on checking her email every 5 minutes for a letter),

 

It's been a whole 10 days here at the MTC, and man, does it feel crazy!  Sometimes I feel like I've been here for like a month, and other times it seems like I just got here yesterday!  Does that really make since to anybody?  haha!  Well, I'm definitely LOVING it here still.  My district has grown very close already, and as we learn the gospel and attempt to speak spanish with each other, we continue to support each other with things that are hard and things that are fun.

 

To all of you who sent me letters, THANK YOU SO MUCH!  I kind of knew that missionarries liked letters before I came out here, but now I REALLY know what they meant when they told me that.  Think of how addicted every living young adult and I was to facebook.  Now take that and multiply it by about 6 billion.  Yeah, THAT'S how much I love getting letters!  So, I'd love to here from you, friends!

 

Ok, so one of the awesome/weird things about the MTC is all of the familiar people that you run into AND the people with random connections to your relatives.  First of all, I keep on running into a ton of people from each of the 3 wards I was in at byu.  It makes me feel pretty popular, so I kind of like it, but I hope it doesn't annoy Elder Oldroyd too much.  The big personallity sometimes is all one can handle sometimes. haha!  Also, I ran into 3 other people.  First, you may have heard of a certain Sister Brinkerhoff who left from the Arlington 1st ward a few weeks before I did?  Well, I saw her, and I was so surprised that I almost hugged her!  And then I was like "oh yeah..... dang it"  (That's probably my only problem about being a missionary.)  I also ran into Sally, Kamille's good friend who goes to BYU.  And not to mention my teacher Hermano Lewis who served in Williams mission, AND today in the temple, I ran into a worker who's name was Bryce Walker (or something like that) who apparently was a good friend of Uncle Ted when he was growing up!  Yep, it's a small Mormon world around here.

 

Classes continue to get more challenging and more involved so that we can start using the language as soon as possible.  We now have to speak in ONLY Spanish during classtime, and if you slip up and say something in English, you have to carry this HUGE rock that I like to call "La piedra de shame"  (I don't know how to say "shame" in spanish).

 

I've learned that Gym time is probably my favorite 50 minutes of the day.  It is SUCH A RELIEF because when you do 12 hours of class and study a day, you need something to shake it all off.  Fortunately, the people around here are not NEARLY as terrible at volleyball as the people were at Heritage Halls.  So, now, the games are actually challenging and fun!  Also, I've discovered how magical (yes magical) P-days are!  Today was my first P-day, and it has been so cool.  It's only one day, but as a missionary, it really does feel like I'm on vacation.  It's wonderful.  Plus, I had such a great experience going to the Provo temple for the first time today!  Before, I made fun of that temple because I thought it always looked like a cupcake.  However, now that I've gone inside and seen how beautiful it is in there, I probably won't be doing that anymore.

 

Well, I'm running out of time, but I'd just like to leave off with a scripture.  2 Corinthians 5:6-7.  I came across this while studying, and I loved it so much.  We trully do walk by faith and not by sight when we exercise our love for God.  I love you guys so much!!  EVERYONE OF YOU reading this right now (yes, even you, Tanner).  haha!  I'll email nexy Thursday!  Buenos dias!

 

Elder Hutchinson

 

PS. Mom, do you have my pictures?  I'll send you and grandma another letter this week!