The Best Two Years in Saint Petersburg: July 8, 2015 1st week at MTC

Well where to begin! It's been such a crazy and insane first week at the MTC, I can't believe that I'm already a week into it. The first couple of days felt like they were a month and a half and I was thinking, "oh my goodness how can I do this for two years?!?!" And then the last couple of days have been like, "oh my goodness how have they gone by that fast?!?" So I have my journal with me and I'll try to give you a play by play of what has happened. Oh and also, tell everyone to use dearelder.com. It's and awesome website where you can type up letters and give same day responses. Even if you don't have my P.O. Box number (It's 36) they still get to me and I get to read them. So tell Nathan and Rebecca to do those, they can fill me in on all the little things that happen everyday while I'm at the MTC and given that that is two more months they can give me a lot of little notes. I won't be able to respond until the next week but still, worth it :). So I don't know if you got the picture from President Burgess but when he saw me on the first day at the MTC he recognized me from Jamboree, although he knew me as the little brother of the young man he played catch with (always in David's shadow). We talked about the Buckner's and NYC for a little bit, it was a lot of fun. There are 10 people in our district, 8 elders, 2 sisters, and 2 trio-companionships. Why 2 trio-companionships do you ask? Well because everyone except for my companions Mehr and Sonderegger (more on them latter) are going to the MADRID, SPAIN MTC on July 20th. And they had no idea until they arrived in the MTC that that was happening to them. And two of them are from Provo, and their families are just finding out today. Crazy, huh? So my companions are both from Kaysville, we all get along really well (sometimes too well and need to bring back the focus we need, but we do a pretty good job of it). To answer your question I surpassed my knowledge of Russian on day 1. As soon as you dropped me off, I got everything I needed, dropped off my bags, and went to class for 3 hours. And it was all in Russian. We learned a lot in that day, but it's been good. Right now I'm definitely the best in the class when it comes to cases and conjugations, and probably vocab as well, just because it sticks a little easier, but not by much. It's crazy what has heppened in 6 days. On the 2nd day we had to teach an "investigator" and it was really really really hard but definitely an awesome learning experience. I also received some dearelders from Brother Litster which was awesome, I forgot to grab his email with me, but if you can message him on facebook or something and get his email I would love for you to add him to the list. Then the 4th of July was awesome, although we had like 9 hours of classroom instruction which sorta blew my mind, they were surprisingly productive, especially by my usually standards of productivity. I finally saw Stone Shimai, one of my faves from BYU, after what felt like an eternity of seeing everyone else, (oh yeah that's also what our first companionship inventory was on, me stopping to say hello to people like every 10 steps. Now I just wave and continue on my way). We got to watch the stadium of fire and I made a jump rope out of glowsticks which was fun. Then the MTC security guards stopped us because apparently having fun while watching fireworks isn't allowed because it was "dark outside". Ok suuuuuuuuure, *party poopers*. One of our goals is to read the BOM by the time we're done at the MTC and we're at the end of 1st Nephi right now and it has been awesome, I didn't know reading a book could bring as much peace as it does, but with all the struggling with the language it has been really nice to have that peace. Yeah then Sunday came and that was the first day that took off it felt like, the first couple were FOR-EV-ER and then Sunday just flew by. I took a couple funny pictures with some of my friends, but we're having issues with the pictures right now, I'll try and send them all to you later. Stupid MTC computers. But yeah all in all a wonderful time thus far, I cried at Nate's cute little "at first I cried but then I felt like a caveman" it was just too cute. I love all you guys so much, and miss you so much, but I'm also having a great time and not crying myself to sleep. Also, just threw in the load and now I'll be able to send you the pics, because I guess all it took was trying a different computer. So that's awesome too. I don't know what else to say because it's just a lot of the same. Working hard, unwinding for a few minutes everyday where we just laugh uncontrollably because Ctapeuwina Mehr gets really gassy from all the MTC cannon food. We're all thinking of purchasing a fan for our room (you can choose to send that to people or not mom haha). Just lots of fun, but also working really hard and making sure we know as much of the language as possible by the time we leave SYL'ing and trying to make the most of the 7 total hours of language study a day. Hopefully more and more will stick after a while. Anyway I love you all tons, write me, dearelder me, it's great to hear from anyone and everyone, but especially if you're on my email list it means that you're at least somewhat important to me :P. Tell grandma and grandpa and cousins and the whole fam I miss them and love them and that I'm so thankful for everything they do in my life. Love you tons Lalinny :). Thanks for the letter, it was awesome, and as always you have great insights and are so intune with the everything. LYTIABABA. I'm going to write Nate and Rebecca now too (but seriously have them send Dear Elder's that way they can tell me a little something everyday at least while I'm at the MTC).