Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Subject: soy un misionero

Hola familia,

I am very excited to write to you. I can't believe that I am actually a missionary and am writing letters and having p-days and stuff! a lot has happened since Sunday. in the morning we wake up and we have personal study, breakfast and then ejercicio. the latino missionaries love playing soccer so that's what we do almost every morning. It is very important to be good at soccer here because if you aren't, you miss out on a lot of opportunities to spend time with the youth and share the gospel with them. on our way to soccer every morning we see lots of dogs. they don't belong to anyone and they have fleas so we don't touch them. we almost saw one get hit by a car multiple times because he likes to chase them.

For those who have never been in the mtc, know that you spend a lot of time in a classroom, so its not really possible for me to tell of really interesting things that happen throughout the day. you spend about 8-10 hours a day in class and it can be rough. We find relief in hanging out as a district outside of the building at our "spot". *o el punto. we also teach investigators that are teachers that act like non members. we are working with pedro y carla. it is rough teaching in a language you don't know, and part of me wishes that it were possible to dedicate 2 weeks to just learning spanish and how to teach the lessons and then having investigators, but it is important to always practice.

Also here's a crazy thing! I ran into hermana todesco from our stake! she had a meeting in the MTC because it was in her mission and I got to see her.

I went to the temple on Tuesday. It was very nice but very packed. we fit 100 missionaries in a room meant to seat 80 and it was very packed, but the chile temple is beautiful. I have a roommate in the MTC who will go to the temple for the first time today and he is very awesome. he is from argentina and his name is elder torres. he speaks english very well and we love to joke with him a lot. he is a convert and he is the only member in his family. He left behind a very good job to come here to chile, and he is such a great example to me.

I feel like I didn't tell you too much about my companions on Sunday so I will do so now. elder swan is from farmington Utah. he has the best laugh you will ever hear. he went to hood college in maine on a swim scholarship. he is about 6 foot 6 and always has a smile on his face. elder stephens went to BYU with me and he is awesome as well. he is from sacramento california and he used to run for BYU's cross country team. with two collegiate athletes as his comps, guess who is usually the last one to arrive at the MTC when we run back from the parque :)

today, wednesday, is Pday, but I've heard that it can change from week to week, but I don't know. on P days we get to go outside the MTC (or the prison as we like to call it) we went to liders which is a grocery store. on our way there, elder stephens ran into his best friend who is serving in Santiago sur. after that we went to the market and some elders got some treats. after that elder swan and I went and got a hair cut. now we are back here in the MTC writing.

The MTC is a lot of work. it is very stressful if you and more importantly your companion do not know how to manage time well and plan. I would say that the greatest problem we have our district (except for the hermanas) is that we have not yet realized who we are supposed to be as missionaries. somos representivos de Jesucristo. we are still learning that it is not about ourselves, but it is about helping our companions, other missionaries, and our investigators. we shouldn't have time to be worrying about ourselves

Just so every knows I am doing much better health wise. I came down with a cold last week and it is almost completely gone.

Also I have an hour to write on Pdays, so I will try hard to write as much as I can and respond to as many people as I can.

Love you all lots,

Elder Williams

P.S. Happy birthday to Evan and Phil