August 24, 2012--From the MTC
Hey fam and everyone!
So let's see... this week has been going pretty well. Starting to lose track of time in here, we kinda just go to class, study, do gym time, eat, sleep, and repeat. P-day is always super nice to go to the temple, eat some temple breakfast, write all our letters, and usually get a nice nap in there at some point.
I liked Mom's letter about sleeping in and stuff. How difficult it must be to have to get up at 6:30 every day!!.... Oh wait.... Ha ha. Just kidding. It is getting easier, though; we have ways of keeping ourselves awake now. The best is just pulling the good ol' wall sit. You find a lot of ways in here to keep things lively. The big thing this week with this one district was timing their bathroom breaks-- the record right now is 26.8 seconds for going, washing w/ soap, drying, and zipping all up. Highly impressive.
It was good to hear that the YW retreat went well; I was wondering how that would go. After studying the LdM (Book of Mormon) a lot more lately than I ever have before, I find it really crazy that, so soon after Christ came, these people became so terrible. All the secret combinations and stuff going on remind me of Duke frats. And when the families aren't helping by raising kids right, that doesn't help either. I got lucky that I have a Mom that doesn't take smack from nobody.
I went into the health clinic on Tuesday to check my leg, its fine by the way, mostly. We are working hard, running a lot faster now, doing a lot of crunches, pull-ups, pushups, and everything. I won our district pushup 'non-competition' (because we don't compete at the MTC) with 84 pushups in one go, I believe. The doctor at the clinic said that my leg looks like it’s totally healing but it feels weird around it, like its numb. He said I probably cut a nerve or something and that it'll take months to grow back if it ever does. Thank goodness for resurrected bodies. It’s not bad though; I don’t really notice it. I liked your comment about optimism-- we were sitting around at dinner on Wednesday talking about our Thursday schedule, in which we have six hours of class in a row, and people were getting down on it. It made Thursday go by a lot more slowly.
In answer to Candace’s question, we don't really get bored of classes here because we are (usually) learning new things-- we love our teacher, Hno. Tonson (Thompson), and he keeps things entertaining and really gospel related. But sometimes we have some terrible subs and then it stinks. We have two investigators right now, Daniel and Patricio. We are teaching Pat about the plan of salvation tonight, and following up on our baptism commitment from the first lesson. Daniel is harder-- he has more questions that we are starting to be able to answer better, but Elder Clawson is still kind of struggling with the language. We would both appreciate your prayers. We need that “ol don de lenguas.”
So let's see... What else happened this week... We played some real good soccer, some real good basketball. My free throw shots are on fire these days, because if you miss you don’t get to play. I am getting really good at the pull-up shot from the free throw line, except when Elder Walton is guarding me. They call me The Mouthwash, because I always be swishin’. Just kidding. They don’t call me that. They call me Elder.
I heard it was Thomas F's birthday! What a kid! I hope that he is doing well with his lil FAClets, and I hope that first week at Duke goes well next week. I've been missing it just a little, but not really because I’m way less stressed being here, most of the time. And it was Sam's birthday—17, I believe? Hopefully he is doing well, too. Haven't heard from him or Ben, but I'll write Ben today and send you the letter to send to him.
We are doing real well here in the MTC! We got some air fresheners for the room. We have been working hard, staying focused. Elder Andersen came and gave a great talk on Tuesday about Thomas S. Monson but I had a stomach ache so it was rough. But I really liked what he had to say about spiritual promptings. Elder Clawson and I have been working hard to receive personal revelation as we study more and to be more converted to Christ. But it’s important to remember that we have to act on the revelation and promptings we receive. Elder Andersen shared a story about how President Monson had ignored a prompting and a guy had died before he got there, so be sure you follow the promptings that come from the Spirit. The Spirit is the real teacher, not us.
Love you guys! Hope all is well!
Elder Brown
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