Collin continues to do well at the MTC....

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.