ESPANOL!!!!!

Elder Mike with Elder Steven Doxey and Zach Seastrand...friends from Oly!

Elder Dial w/good buddy from Olympus Elder Alec Anderson

Elder Dial's MTC district...his companion is on his left...I think just bad shot w/eyes closed...??!!

He even ran into Elder Warren Crowley, a Virginia buddy!

Olympus buddies at "the map" at the MTC...

Elders Dial, Anderson and Morgan Evans..I believe at the temple

Again, w/Elder Doxey who leaves for Chicago because he has yet to get his Visa to Peru. Note the terrible wildlife tshirt on Elder Dial...however, he does have his name tag on!   His companion cannot believe that he knows someone at every turn!




September 3, 2012 MTC


Hola todos. I can officially say that all of my high school Spanish has returned to me and even more. The gift of tongues is completely real because there is no way that I could ever learn this blasted language this fast at this rate. So many things have happened. Elder Fawcett and I are getting better at teaching our investigator, Manuel. They throw you into teaching on the second day in the MTC IN SPANISH which was awful. We didn't know how to teach or speak the language! But I think they do that to you so you learn to rely on the Lord and to give you a sense of urgency to learn how and what to teach. That urgency has made me change my study habits drastically. I used to just READ the scriptures. It is good, but it is not the best thing that you can do. Every single thing I do must be focused on my purpose as a missionary, which is "Invite others to come unto Christ by receiving the Restored Gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end." We had that memorized within the first couple days, and in Spanish not soon afterwards. Every single thing we do must be directed towards that. That means that my study habits must be focused on my investigators first. The Spanish that I study is the Spanish that I need to use in my lessons. It was hard at first, but now I feel comfortable doing it. Two three hour sessions of classtime used to be torture for me, but now I look forward to it. Isn't that weird? I HATED Spanish class earlier on, but now I can't get enough of it! This church must be true or something.

For our Sunday fireside, we got to watch the Prophet's 85th birthday celebration. It was way good! Then after that we watched some terribly made missionary movie made in the 80's. It was hilarious.

I love gym time here. I play more basketball than anything. That's all Elder Fawcett plays. My district is terrible overall at basketball so I pretty much dominate, which is the first time I could ever say that haha. I do some running too. The other day I ran 3 miles but I need to run more often. I gained like 4 or 5 pounds but I caught myself and hopefully I can watch what I eat. I stay away from most bad things, have a wrap like every day with a salad sometimes, and then I only have ice cream on Sundays and Wednesdays. If I keep gaining then I am going to stop eating completely. Maybe that will work.

I am going to audition for a musical number this week. I need to ask someone in my zone to play piano for me but I have someone in mind.

Well they have a TERRIBLE setup on the computers here in the laundry room so I can't attach pictures here. I will try to send some later. Congrats on callbacks Jojo! You are gonnna do great!!!!! Thanks family for the care packages. My district loved the cake and the treats. In the next one, I humbly ask for my decongestant spray in my bathroom and some nyquil. I have had a gnarly cold the past couple days and my sinuses have been going crazy. Love you tons!