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.
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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