Little Mermaid

 the MTC installed a swimming pool!

getting in touch with my artistic side

missionary haircut

sign on campus that i thought was funny

 

the food here just keeps getting better and better; we've had those taquitos a few times in the past week, and everything else is improving too. on topmof that, Mexican independence day is this weekend, so the comedor's been really festive all week, and there's been mexican candy out every day. i feel like everything's just now picking up, as the MTC has only been in service for a couple months. some guys that were leaving last week told us that the food had been consistently horrible when they got here, and now it's only horrible about once a week or so, so i'm definitely glad i got here when i did. i still can't wait to leave though. one day when i was showering i wrote a parody of part of that world from little mermaid in my head. here's what i got so far:

 

I want to be where the investigators are,

I want to see, want to see them learning.

Walking around in those -what do you call them?- street clothes!

up where they learn,

up where we teach,

up where we invite others to come unto Christ (you gotta sing that part really fast)

I want to be,

out of the MTC,

part of that woooooorld

 

but really, the next two weeks could not go fast enough. two of the elders in my district, Elder Peñate and Elder Loertscher, got three extra days tacked onto the end of their time at the mtc, cus there's a GA touring their mission, and their mission president wants to be there when they arrive, so they leave three days late. i guess i'm better off than them, but i still can't wait til i'm out of here. We're done teaching 'Esmerelda', one of our 'investigators', and we've started teaching a new one, 'Pamela'. it was all i could do to not bust up laughing during the lesson, cus of some of the things she said, like how she had met with the elders before but only because she thought they were cute, and then she was embarrassed and never let them in again. all she cares about are friends and money, so it's a bit tough to teach her. i suppose it'll be a good experience though.

 

every sunday, we watch an old mtc devotional, and some mormon movie. it's funny watching movies in an auditorium full of missionaries, cus whenever somebody kisses or anything romantic happens or is said, everyone makes a huge deal about it. the devotional we watched this week was awesome too, it was one that elder holland gave in January. after the video we said our goodbyes to district 11D, cus they left this week. their class was across the hall from ours, and they were mostly super cool. i'll send a pic of them in a different email, cus this one doesn't have anymore room.

 

one day in the past week, i don't remember which one, hermana haws was sick so she had her boss come teach us. his name is hermano brodegard (no idea if that's spelt right or not) and he's super chill. he told us about cortez who conquered the new world, and how he burnt his boats when he arrived to motivate his men. he was generally a horrible man, but we can learn a lesson in determination from him. we decided to 'burn our english boats' and speak only spanish. it sorta fizzled after the first day, but we have as a district been speaking spanish more than we had been before, so it was good. another day hermano flores was out of town, and he had hermano silva come teach us. we had teacher led TALL (technology assisted language learning) and the first thing he did was take Elder Peñate's name badge as a disguise and walk through every single tall lab to make sure that everyone was doing tall, and not other stuff. it was pretty funny.

 

the devotional yesterday was given by the area seventy, who spoke in spanish and then was translated by my branch president. he said that he had realized he needed to go on his mission when he was 23, but was leaving behind a girlfriend. she decided to go on a mission too, and got called to the same mission he did. they ended up not seeing each other once during their whole missions. they did, however, return home on the same day, and on the same plane. he continued with more coincidences. they were married in the same temple, had the same children, and even lived in the same house. it was pretty funny. he then mentioned that we all must have the gift of tongues, because everyone was laughing when he spoke, and before it was translated.