I'm having a great time here at the MTC! It's so hard, but so fun. One thing that I learned that helped me out this week was: don't expect not to suffer and don't pray to not suffer because we are representatives of Jesus Christ and He suffered everything, so don't want to not suffer. It's something that is just going to happen and our suffering isn't anything near what Jesus Christ suffered.
This week was crazy for me. Really up and down. Some of the lessons we taught seemed good and others really stunk. It feels so bad to have a bad lesson. But we are getting better and improving and my Spanish is still coming along which is nice. It seemed like for a while my Spanish kind of plautoed (no idea how to spell that) and it was frustrating. But I kind of got over the hump when I just stopped worrying about myself. We have learned just about every grammar principle now, but putting them to use is really hard. I can kind of conjugate everything, but it takes a while and my talking isn't too smooth. As I am teaching sometimes I have to say the word three different times to just conjugate it right! So I think the best thing to do is to just read Spanish out of the scriptures and Preach My Gospel so that I can learn the structures better and learn just how to put sentences together. It stinks though because in some branches, they have personal tutors that you set up a time to get a one on one lesson, but we don't have one yet and I don't know if we will get one. But our district is pretty good at Spanish because we kind of did the full imersion program where we just started teaching every lesson in Spanish and not English while some other districts taught English first and then are trying to teach in Spanish in the later weeks. The ones who teach in English give much better lessons and have probably learned how to teach better, but I like the way our district did it because we have really picked up Spanish pretty fast.
On Sunday and Tuesday for Devotionals, we started off by singing "Called to Serve" in the coolest way ever.
-First the piano plays like a marching tune.
-Then we start singing
-Verse 1 (we sing really soft)
-Chorus 1 (soft)
-Verse 2 (normal loud)
-Chorus 2 (loud)
-Repeat Chorus (really loud)
-Repeat the "God our king will be forever, Called- to - serve- our- Kingggggggggg (slooow and then we held King forever)
It was way cool expecially the soft singing part was awesome
Me and my companion get along really well, it's really nice. Our whole District seems to get along which is great and our zone is really close. We only have now 7 people in our district because 2 went to Peru after 3 weeks to go to that MTC and 1 got bumped up to the advanced class and is already in Ventura California. Five of us are going to Orlando and the other two are going to Ventura. We have a total of 4 districts in our zone and we might get another next week. Some people are going to Culican, other cities in Mexico, Bolivia, California, Baton Rouge, New York, Orem, Provo, and some other places. There is a companionship where one guy is from South Jordan, Utah going to Baton Rouge and his companion is from Baton Rouge going to Provo.
The things that I learn here are crazy. I don't like not being good at something and there is ALWAYS something that I can do better. It's frustrating, but I'm learning a lot. One of my teachers is just a real spiritual guy who is just amazing and I want to be like him, the other is real inergetic and the enforcer who just tells you straight up how it is. So its a real nice balance.
Tuesdays devotional was amazing! F. Melvin Hammon (Emeritus Seventy) and his wife Sister Bonnie Hammond spoke. She gave a great talk and was just real upbeat about EVERYTHING. She loved EVERYTHING. No kidding. She was just so happy, she was just praising how much she loved her husband and said he had a great voice and then had him sing for us. She kissed him right there by the pulpit in front of everyone. He sang some church song about love, I forgot, but in part Spanish and English. He was real good. They were mission presidents in Bolivia and Sister Hammond told us a story about a man named I think Elder Scott Peterson? He was on the BYU football team and then went on his mission to Bolivia. When he was on his mission, BYU won the National Championship. So a Sports Illustrated writer came to Bolivia and interviewed him on why he served a mission. The writer and his brand new wife came to church and Elder Peterson bore his testimony on how he loves his Heavenly Father more than football. The sports writer and wife adopted a baby in Bolivia, brought it back to America, wrote the story, and the cover of the Sports Illustrated magazine was Elder Peterson baptizing someone. I guess it was just a great story. You should look it up if you can.
Everything is good here! Except ironing. I dislike it very much. So I don't do it. But my stuff isn't really wrinkled. In Orlando I don't think I'll have to iron thank goodness! I'm still a little sick. My big nose just won't stop going. But I'm fine. I'll get over it.
Times up. Love you all, thanks for the prayers and letters and packages!
Love, Elder Christiansen
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