From email written today Feb 25....
I am the new district leader. on saturday our branch president had an interview with our old DL, and we all knew the next person he called out to talk to would be the new DL, and surprise it was me. it's been alright so far, it basically just means having to pick up the mail 2-3 times a day, and going to a few meetings a week. my service assignment this past saturday was vacuuming the floors. i liked it a lot better than having to clean the bathrooms. at least this way it didn't smell all the time...
we received a new district yesterday. 6 elders and 4 sisters. i have only met the elders. yes, because they are "noobies" they seem way younger than i am, but i know people that have been here longer than i have, that are younger than i am, and they seem older. maybe its a maturity thing, maybe its because i know they have been here longer? i don't know. either way, i find it weird.
it's been snowing a lot recently. the snow sticks a little bit, and then later in the day it ends up melting. one day it snowed/rained (that slush type stuff) almost the entire day. it has only been cold a couple days, the other days its just a little chilly. on our temple walk on sunday, it was snowing lightly almost the entire time, that was pretty fun to be in the snow for 2 hours or so.
on tuesday we completed our final lesson in english at the TRC. so now it is completely spanish until i leave. the spanish lessons are a lot harder, mostly because i don't know how to say everything that i would like to say in spanish.
we started a game in class a couple days ago called "the native". it is where one person is chosen at random to be a native spanish speaker, and nobody knows who it is, and they can only speak spanish for a day. and then we all vote on who we think it was. as of right now, i am the native. although the last couple times, people have always voted me as being the native, even when i wasn't it. i take that a s a good sign.
here was something interesting. one of our main teachers was sick for a couple days, so we had a sub come in. his name was brother Del Toro. he lived in orange county... and so i enquired further and he said long beach. i told him i had relatives that lived there, and he said oh yeah, president durham (or something like that) and i said yeah thats my uncle. he said he was actually interviewed by him once or twice for his mission papers, and he even said he went to the same seminary class as ethan.
We went to the RC (referral center) this past saturday. that was nerve racking, actually talking to real people. however, only one person i called answered the phone. he said he was an uninterested catholic, and then he hung up. meh.
we are getting new zone leaders in a week or so. it is a companionship from our district. i thought that was interesting, since there is still a district ahead of us. maybe we just have really good missionaries in our district.
we have something we call the "red book". it is our main tool to learn spanish. its how we learn phrases and it has basically everything we need to know on how to teach the lessons in spanish. well, the mtc just got a new version of the book (2 actually, one grammar, one phrases). the books are VERY nice compared to our current ones, in my opinion. too bad we don't get them... only the new missionaries coming in get them. our teachers got them though, and i really like them. i want them.... and they don't even let you buy them from anywhere. only way you can get them is to be a new missionary. thats kind of frustrating.
so i don't really know what else to say...
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From email written on Feb 18, but received today ...
i went to the TRC (the place where we practice lessons on pretend investigators..) on tuesday, and it was the first time i really enjoyed it. we taught the second lesson, and it was good because we had an investigator who actually asked questions and participated, as opposed to falling asleep. it was really cool.
we had 2 people from our district leave this morning to the mtc in the dominican republic. i'm surprised how good of friends i was with them in the 3 weeks that they were here.
this week went by very fast... it feels like just yesterday i was writing a letter, and its almost saturday again, and it feels like it was saturday earlier this morning.
i woke up this morning and there was a little bit of snow on the ground. thats basically the first time it has snowed since i have been here, even though it wasn't all that much snow. i want to be able to go on the athletic field... but they won't open it until spring because its too cold or something. that's kind of lame.
i've been trying to take pictures of anything and everything i can that seems even remotely interesting... but this is the MTC, and it's kind of difficult to find interesting things to take pictures of. as soon as i feel i have enough pictures, i will send a card home to dad so that everybody can see them. also, dad, when you take them off the card, would you try keeping the quality of the pictures what they are at? i don't want low quality pictures when i come back :)
my friend darren at byu got his mission call this past week sometime. he's going to the brazil manaus mission (or something like that). he leaves june 30. i hear portuguese and spanish are somewhat similar, maybe i'll be able to talk to him huh?
this past saturday we had our weekly service again. i ended up doing the bathrooms again. came as a surprise with my district....
also, i successfully completed my first tie surgery earlier this morning. the thread holding the back of it began to come undone, i guess i had been wearing that tie too much, so i put some new thread along the entire seam, and it seems to be holding up really well.
i have been writing in my journal every day... its hard though. i basically say the exact same thing everyday. once i get to argentina that will change though.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Week 2: MTC is going well
Summarizing.....
1) Collin doesn't want emails while at the MTC (only has 30 min weekly to access email). Use www.DearElder.com
2) Collin is getting tired of the food at the MTC.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So to start out with, my companion. his name is elder hull. he's from boise idaho. hes a little weird.. but i guess i have gotten used to it. hes one of those "health nuts" who is scared of anything unhealthy. he only eats salad/bagels for meals, and he doesn't like getting sack meals on p-day so i am forced to dress up to go to the cafeteria. he used to be a vegetarian (gag) before he came.
Dear Elder - i dont know if i made it clear or not, but i don't especially want emails while at the MTC. it will take time to read them. i would prefer to get them in a DearElder letter (as dad has done). If/when dearelder letters are written, it would also be helpful if the date it was being written was put down also, as i don't know what day the letter was submitted.
every p-day we have the opportunity to go to the temple and do an endowment session. i went last week, and am going today in about 2 hours. im surprised how much i actually remembered after only having gone once before.
every week i have to prepare a talk in spanish over an assigned topic. last week i had the topic of charity, but nobody talked because it was fast sunday. this week i have the topic of patience. the spanish preach my gospel (predicad mi evangelio) as well as the spanish scriptures are very helpful for this.
We just realized that we have almost a 4th of our MTC time down. that went pretty quick. the first 5 days or so were very slow (all the way through sunday) but after that they have picked up a lot and the days kind of just blur together.
I finished the book of mormon today. i started it like a day or so before i went into the mtc. so a little over 2 weeks, not bad for only having about an hour a day to read it.
All the days at the mtc are pretty much the same. nothing really changed from day to day except when we do them. repetition repetition repetition. thats probably why the days go so quickly... you feel like you are still in the first day,doing the exact same thing.
we got a new district in our zone yesterday. there were 4 sisters or so in it. thats the first sisters in our zone in a while apparently.
i am still learning the language at a pretty quick rate. people still come to me for help (although i dont know how much longer that will last). i can say quite a bit in spanish (at least about the gospel) and both of our teachers said it took them about 4-6 months to become comfortable with the level of spanish in their missions, so we'll see how it all works out, but i'm not too worried about it right now.
went on another temple walk on sunday after church. there were so many missionaries up there. its like a sea of blackness covering the provo temple grounds.
im getting a bit tired of the food, its very repetetive. its the same food as i had in the canon center up at byu. and almost every meal is some form of meat, and they ALWAYS have cookies/cake/icecream/some sort of dessert. i feel like they are trying to fatten us up incase we don't get much food in our missions. so i try and eat as little meat as possible (meat 3 times a day for meals gets a little old after a while). although, some people are embracing the food and eating everything they can get their hands on. one from our district gained 10 pounds in the first week. not happening to me. i have stayed relatively the same. i change from day to day.
during gym i typically run for 30-40 minutes and then do some situps or something, because volleyball and 4 square always have a huge long line of people waiting to play, and i wouldn't get much activity in just doing that.
oh, i also had a weekly? interview with a member of the branch presidency. he complimented me on my nicely shined shoes. not bad for only having shined them once before in my life.
im having a good time, being obedient. learning as much as i can, trying not to do stupid things (like a lot of my district is doing...). i enjoy all the letters i get ( and thanks jill for sending that picture, it is hanging up above my desk space). until next week i guess.
-Collin
1) Collin doesn't want emails while at the MTC (only has 30 min weekly to access email). Use www.DearElder.com
2) Collin is getting tired of the food at the MTC.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So to start out with, my companion. his name is elder hull. he's from boise idaho. hes a little weird.. but i guess i have gotten used to it. hes one of those "health nuts" who is scared of anything unhealthy. he only eats salad/bagels for meals, and he doesn't like getting sack meals on p-day so i am forced to dress up to go to the cafeteria. he used to be a vegetarian (gag) before he came.
Dear Elder - i dont know if i made it clear or not, but i don't especially want emails while at the MTC. it will take time to read them. i would prefer to get them in a DearElder letter (as dad has done). If/when dearelder letters are written, it would also be helpful if the date it was being written was put down also, as i don't know what day the letter was submitted.
every p-day we have the opportunity to go to the temple and do an endowment session. i went last week, and am going today in about 2 hours. im surprised how much i actually remembered after only having gone once before.
every week i have to prepare a talk in spanish over an assigned topic. last week i had the topic of charity, but nobody talked because it was fast sunday. this week i have the topic of patience. the spanish preach my gospel (predicad mi evangelio) as well as the spanish scriptures are very helpful for this.
We just realized that we have almost a 4th of our MTC time down. that went pretty quick. the first 5 days or so were very slow (all the way through sunday) but after that they have picked up a lot and the days kind of just blur together.
I finished the book of mormon today. i started it like a day or so before i went into the mtc. so a little over 2 weeks, not bad for only having about an hour a day to read it.
All the days at the mtc are pretty much the same. nothing really changed from day to day except when we do them. repetition repetition repetition. thats probably why the days go so quickly... you feel like you are still in the first day,doing the exact same thing.
we got a new district in our zone yesterday. there were 4 sisters or so in it. thats the first sisters in our zone in a while apparently.
i am still learning the language at a pretty quick rate. people still come to me for help (although i dont know how much longer that will last). i can say quite a bit in spanish (at least about the gospel) and both of our teachers said it took them about 4-6 months to become comfortable with the level of spanish in their missions, so we'll see how it all works out, but i'm not too worried about it right now.
went on another temple walk on sunday after church. there were so many missionaries up there. its like a sea of blackness covering the provo temple grounds.
im getting a bit tired of the food, its very repetetive. its the same food as i had in the canon center up at byu. and almost every meal is some form of meat, and they ALWAYS have cookies/cake/icecream/some sort of dessert. i feel like they are trying to fatten us up incase we don't get much food in our missions. so i try and eat as little meat as possible (meat 3 times a day for meals gets a little old after a while). although, some people are embracing the food and eating everything they can get their hands on. one from our district gained 10 pounds in the first week. not happening to me. i have stayed relatively the same. i change from day to day.
during gym i typically run for 30-40 minutes and then do some situps or something, because volleyball and 4 square always have a huge long line of people waiting to play, and i wouldn't get much activity in just doing that.
oh, i also had a weekly? interview with a member of the branch presidency. he complimented me on my nicely shined shoes. not bad for only having shined them once before in my life.
im having a good time, being obedient. learning as much as i can, trying not to do stupid things (like a lot of my district is doing...). i enjoy all the letters i get ( and thanks jill for sending that picture, it is hanging up above my desk space). until next week i guess.
-Collin
Thursday, February 4, 2010
1st Communication from Collin - 04Feb2010
I received our first communication from Collin this afternoon. He now has an email address -- collindurham@myldsmail.net --
He also recommends using www.DearElder.com to communicate with him while in the MTC. Correspondance via DearElder.com arrives the same day. I explained how to use DearElder.com on a previous post.
The text of his email today follows......
Hey everybody...
So i only have 27 minutesto write this email, as i had to register first, and i am only given 30 minutes. so sorry if my thoughts are scattered all over the place, or if i mispell things, this keyboard is terrrible andosme of the strokes dont register. ok so hereit goes.. and you can send this to everybody in the family. every week on wednesday i get 6 dollars to buy thngs like paper stamps envelopes food and anything else i need from the bookstore. apparently laundry is free to do, but i dont know yet. i just put my laundry in and am sitting here typing while i wait for itto finish. food at cafeteria is free too. haircuts are free. i have 2 spanish teachers, hermano soelberg and hermano latimer. hermano soelberg went to buenos aires north, so he has been tellin us alot about the culture and things like that. i really like my district. there WERE 12 of us. 5 of us going to BAW, 5 going to san antonio, and 2 going to the dominican republic. however, one elder got sick, or he has been sick for a longtime, and went home yesterday. he was going to san antonio. the 2 elders going to dominican republic are leaving to themtc there in 2 miore weeks. my zone is pretty cool too. the zone leaders are awesome and really fun. sacrament was typical, we are expected to write a talk every week that lasts no longer than 5 minutes, inspanish, and we are told 20 seconds before wegive the talk who is actuazlly talkin. Dear Elder... tell people about this, as it prints off the message instantly andi am given it the same day. its really nice. thanks to everybody who has sent me letters so far, i really enjoy knowing that thereisstill live outside of the mtc. On the first day, i saw 10-12 japanese elders. they didnt know enlish, so they had to have translator headsets, thought it wasinteresting. on sundays after church we are allowed to go on a temple walk so we can get outside of themtc grounds. there are TONS of elderswho go on this, and the provo temple gorounds are just covered with elders. we have a lotof "pretend" investigators who are actually members, and they seem to help a lot, although it can be funny when we ask them questions about mormons, as tyhey actually now the anser already. we get to go to the gym once a day except for sundays and p-day, but i didnt get to go on thursday, my first day, because we were in the immunization line, and that took almost 2 hours. i didnt need to have my immunization in my hand... we didn't useit until thenext day. they didn't give me a spanish hymn book, i had togo buy one myself, but missionaries getdiscounts, so itonly cost me like 3 dollars orsoething, and theysaid i could get it engraved with my name for free. we had a song fireside on sunday, that was really nice. we sang a ton of songs, and my voice was kind of hoarse afterwards. on tuesday we had a devotional, and elder hinckley and his wife spoke. i saw 2 elders from our stake so far. Elder Wheeler from katy 3 is actually in my zone. and i have seen elder wilkes also. the laundry room has dry cleaning, so ifi ever spilled anything onmy suits i could get them cleaned, but it costs somethinlike 5 dollars per suit, andionly get 6 ddollars a week... so you can see where thatis going. one of the first things i didon my first day was get a big blue bag of stuff i would need. the first thing i pulled out was a water filter... that made me feel good. san antonio and dominican republic didn;'t get one of those. the rest of the stuff in the bag wasmostly things for my language, likea dictionary, spanish bible and book of mormon, a red book that has spanish translation of anything we would ever want to say in spanish, and a spanish preach my gospel. they also gave nme an english PMG as well. i got a binder that had my schedule for the next 9 weeks, and my tentative departure date is march 29th. in my district, i am already considered the "smart" one, because i am so good at spanish.. but thatis all relative. the showers in the dorm rooms are terrrible. 3 of the 5 showrwers we have hardly have any water pressure at all, andmost of the time all the showers are cold. i once tried taking a showerin the handicapped shower, but there was no curtain for the actual shower, only a curtain for the whole room. soif i used the shower it would spray over all my clothes, so i was forced to use the faucet, and had to benddown inorder to get any water onme. not very comfortable. i walked intomy room and the first thing i saw was a hgue tower of purpple fanta cans, stackedin a tower. the administrator actally made them take it down today as it was a health risk. he said it can cause people to start getting colds and sore throats and stuff. i started feeling like that yesterday, before he told us that, and began taking zycam, so hopefully removing the cans will fix the problem. on my first day, we had an introductory meeting with all the newmissionaries. to my surprise ( and everybody elses) president uchtdorf walked in and talked to us for about 5minutes. appaerently that was the only time that a member of the presidency hastalkedto the missionaries in over 3-4years. pretty neat. i like my district, but soetimes they are not very mature. they talk about thing that people in junioor high would talk about, and its kind of frustrating. but i can get over that. our spanisht eacher told us that we would actually "learn" the language in 6 weeks, and the other 3 would just be review and practice. In my spanish class, i tend to ask questions about things i dont understand, and people dont even know what i am talking about, and this has caused the teachers to know that i am the "most advanced" in the class. yesterday we had a sub teacher, and he only spoke spanish to us, that was neat. i actually understood a lot of what he was saying. we use a program every once in a while called TALL, its basically a church knock off of rosetta stone, but its helpful i suppose. i got my driving record in the mail yesterday or the day before. did my fbi letter arrive yet? i was told that we dont need a visa to get into argentina, and that we can travel only on our passport if we need to. i will need it within 90 days of arriving though. on pdays and service days we can get bagged breakfast and lunch, so we dont have to dress up in order to go to the cafeteria. its nice. although the foodisnt asgood, i likenot dressing up. i polished my shoes for the fist time today, it went well. iguess i didit right. the elders giong to san antiono all received ltters from their mission presidnet saying they needed bikes, but none of usgoingto BAW got a ltter. oh well.
i guess today is the big day for brianna huh? tell her goodluck, and sorry i couldn't be there. hope she has a really good time. tellmom not to worry too much about the weddding either.
it would be cool if peoplewould send me food, as the food ehre is bad... itgives everybody gas and when wer are all in the same room it isreally furstrarting. sorry for my bad typing, but this keyboard is really bad. i only have 50 seconds left, so i love you all and hope that yo udont feel too sad that i cant be at the wedding. ia m really enjoying all my time here and will keep writing yo uall
Collin
He also recommends using www.DearElder.com to communicate with him while in the MTC. Correspondance via DearElder.com arrives the same day. I explained how to use DearElder.com on a previous post.
The text of his email today follows......
Hey everybody...
So i only have 27 minutesto write this email, as i had to register first, and i am only given 30 minutes. so sorry if my thoughts are scattered all over the place, or if i mispell things, this keyboard is terrrible andosme of the strokes dont register. ok so hereit goes.. and you can send this to everybody in the family. every week on wednesday i get 6 dollars to buy thngs like paper stamps envelopes food and anything else i need from the bookstore. apparently laundry is free to do, but i dont know yet. i just put my laundry in and am sitting here typing while i wait for itto finish. food at cafeteria is free too. haircuts are free. i have 2 spanish teachers, hermano soelberg and hermano latimer. hermano soelberg went to buenos aires north, so he has been tellin us alot about the culture and things like that. i really like my district. there WERE 12 of us. 5 of us going to BAW, 5 going to san antonio, and 2 going to the dominican republic. however, one elder got sick, or he has been sick for a longtime, and went home yesterday. he was going to san antonio. the 2 elders going to dominican republic are leaving to themtc there in 2 miore weeks. my zone is pretty cool too. the zone leaders are awesome and really fun. sacrament was typical, we are expected to write a talk every week that lasts no longer than 5 minutes, inspanish, and we are told 20 seconds before wegive the talk who is actuazlly talkin. Dear Elder... tell people about this, as it prints off the message instantly andi am given it the same day. its really nice. thanks to everybody who has sent me letters so far, i really enjoy knowing that thereisstill live outside of the mtc. On the first day, i saw 10-12 japanese elders. they didnt know enlish, so they had to have translator headsets, thought it wasinteresting. on sundays after church we are allowed to go on a temple walk so we can get outside of themtc grounds. there are TONS of elderswho go on this, and the provo temple gorounds are just covered with elders. we have a lotof "pretend" investigators who are actually members, and they seem to help a lot, although it can be funny when we ask them questions about mormons, as tyhey actually now the anser already. we get to go to the gym once a day except for sundays and p-day, but i didnt get to go on thursday, my first day, because we were in the immunization line, and that took almost 2 hours. i didnt need to have my immunization in my hand... we didn't useit until thenext day. they didn't give me a spanish hymn book, i had togo buy one myself, but missionaries getdiscounts, so itonly cost me like 3 dollars orsoething, and theysaid i could get it engraved with my name for free. we had a song fireside on sunday, that was really nice. we sang a ton of songs, and my voice was kind of hoarse afterwards. on tuesday we had a devotional, and elder hinckley and his wife spoke. i saw 2 elders from our stake so far. Elder Wheeler from katy 3 is actually in my zone. and i have seen elder wilkes also. the laundry room has dry cleaning, so ifi ever spilled anything onmy suits i could get them cleaned, but it costs somethinlike 5 dollars per suit, andionly get 6 ddollars a week... so you can see where thatis going. one of the first things i didon my first day was get a big blue bag of stuff i would need. the first thing i pulled out was a water filter... that made me feel good. san antonio and dominican republic didn;'t get one of those. the rest of the stuff in the bag wasmostly things for my language, likea dictionary, spanish bible and book of mormon, a red book that has spanish translation of anything we would ever want to say in spanish, and a spanish preach my gospel. they also gave nme an english PMG as well. i got a binder that had my schedule for the next 9 weeks, and my tentative departure date is march 29th. in my district, i am already considered the "smart" one, because i am so good at spanish.. but thatis all relative. the showers in the dorm rooms are terrrible. 3 of the 5 showrwers we have hardly have any water pressure at all, andmost of the time all the showers are cold. i once tried taking a showerin the handicapped shower, but there was no curtain for the actual shower, only a curtain for the whole room. soif i used the shower it would spray over all my clothes, so i was forced to use the faucet, and had to benddown inorder to get any water onme. not very comfortable. i walked intomy room and the first thing i saw was a hgue tower of purpple fanta cans, stackedin a tower. the administrator actally made them take it down today as it was a health risk. he said it can cause people to start getting colds and sore throats and stuff. i started feeling like that yesterday, before he told us that, and began taking zycam, so hopefully removing the cans will fix the problem. on my first day, we had an introductory meeting with all the newmissionaries. to my surprise ( and everybody elses) president uchtdorf walked in and talked to us for about 5minutes. appaerently that was the only time that a member of the presidency hastalkedto the missionaries in over 3-4years. pretty neat. i like my district, but soetimes they are not very mature. they talk about thing that people in junioor high would talk about, and its kind of frustrating. but i can get over that. our spanisht eacher told us that we would actually "learn" the language in 6 weeks, and the other 3 would just be review and practice. In my spanish class, i tend to ask questions about things i dont understand, and people dont even know what i am talking about, and this has caused the teachers to know that i am the "most advanced" in the class. yesterday we had a sub teacher, and he only spoke spanish to us, that was neat. i actually understood a lot of what he was saying. we use a program every once in a while called TALL, its basically a church knock off of rosetta stone, but its helpful i suppose. i got my driving record in the mail yesterday or the day before. did my fbi letter arrive yet? i was told that we dont need a visa to get into argentina, and that we can travel only on our passport if we need to. i will need it within 90 days of arriving though. on pdays and service days we can get bagged breakfast and lunch, so we dont have to dress up in order to go to the cafeteria. its nice. although the foodisnt asgood, i likenot dressing up. i polished my shoes for the fist time today, it went well. iguess i didit right. the elders giong to san antiono all received ltters from their mission presidnet saying they needed bikes, but none of usgoingto BAW got a ltter. oh well.
i guess today is the big day for brianna huh? tell her goodluck, and sorry i couldn't be there. hope she has a really good time. tellmom not to worry too much about the weddding either.
it would be cool if peoplewould send me food, as the food ehre is bad... itgives everybody gas and when wer are all in the same room it isreally furstrarting. sorry for my bad typing, but this keyboard is really bad. i only have 50 seconds left, so i love you all and hope that yo udont feel too sad that i cant be at the wedding. ia m really enjoying all my time here and will keep writing yo uall
Collin
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