Week 1 - MTC

Dear Everybody,

Today is my first Preparation Day! It’s impossible to imagine that it has only been a week!  It’s probably been the longest week of my life, but by far one of the best! I never stop working; everything I do is devoted to learning Spanish and learning how to teach the gospel!  There is no time for the idle mind, which is good; we all know what the idle mind can do!

So I currently am rooming with 3 other people!  Elder Despain (my companion), Elder Aurich and Elder White!  Elder Aurich and Elder White are like my role models in the Missionary Training Center (MTC, or CCM in Spanish) They are such great people and so fun to be around!

So in one week I am already trying to speak Spanish as much as I can!  It’s amazing how good we are getting in such a short amount of time!  I can only explain it by saying the Spirit is helping us and God is watching over us!  

So the temple is literally out the front door of my building, so I pass through it´s garden´s every day at least twice!  And today I get to go through it with all the missionaries!  It´ll be so amazing!  One of my favorite teachers will be working there while we go through!  I can´t wait!!

Here I found out that ties can be considered currency, and letters are like priceless artifacts!  It´s so funny, people say things like "Hey Elder, I´ll buy that sweater for 3 ties!"  I think I need some more ties!  

So here we practice teaching people by the teachers acting as one of their investigators (people interested in the church) from their mission and we prepare lessons for them and then teach them. Completely in Spanish.  It´s so difficult, but so cool at the same time!!  I really love it!!  

Every morning we all run down to this park for exercise and we play soccer in this lowered soccer court!!  I´m getting to be ok at it! 

Sundays are the best days of the week by far.  They are so spiritual!  We all spend the week preparing a talk on a specific subject (in Spanish) and then they call up 5 of us to give the talk!  It´s so nice preparing and studying for a talk every week!! And we have two devotionals (often watching church videos, such as On The Lord´s Errand: Life of Thomas S. Monson!  So amazing and so spiritual!!  I recommend it to everyone!! 

Now I´m running out of time, so I´ll end by saying if you send me an email I may not respond within a week due to time constraints, however I take a picture of it and prepare to respond the next week throughout this one!  If you send me a letter, firstly I get to keep it with me at all times (yay!) and secondly I may end up responding in email because that´s faster for me!  So letters are good!  We love letters here!! (my mom has my address)

I love you guys, and miss you all!!

Love,

Elder Forsgren