MTC: BONUS ROUND, WEEK 7

Hey y'all!

How is everyone doing? Hopefully everyone is staying safe and healthy. 

This last week has been more same old same old. Lot's of progress in the language and a lot more intense boredom. Ready to get out of here!!! 

Well since I have a list of questions to answer this week, I might as well start there:

Do I study of the Spanish scriptures?

Yes. Sure do. It's pretty hard because it is in scriptural language but it is excellent practice for vocabulary and for pronunciation. I'm pretty proud because I'm one of the relatively few missionaries that can understand the jist of what it's saying so that I can do some of my personal scripture study in Spanish. It's one of things I've grown to enjoy and it has definitely helped my Spanish immensely.

What is breakfast like at the MTC?

Breakfast is the same as the other meals. Basically there are 4 different lines. Each line has something different. Then......FREE FOR ALL. MTC food is always 

a.)Flavorless 

b.)Charred beyond all reason 

The solutions are: Hot sauce. And more hot sauce.

As we are going into the field soon, we had to go to a in field training meeting about health and sanitation. Basically a guy telling us how to cook, wash our hands, and shower. FOR AN HOUR AND A HALF. He.................Talked.............Like...........This.........................................Sometimes....................................Slower..................... And you will be happy to know that they have developed a "system for missionaries to purify their own water in their apartments". They call it the......wait for it......."THE Water Purification System". Wow. This bit of revolutionary genius piece of branding brought to you by your friends at the Department of Redundancies Department of Redundancy.

On to the cooking instructions. 

Meat must be cooked to the point that it is the "consistency of a hockey puck". HE ACTUALLY SAID THAT. HE SAID IT. WHY. Oh and he also said that if it isn't and you're eating at someones house, to send it back and have them cook it more. HA. How about no?! I don't care if it's raw, I'm not telling someone to cook my meat more. SO RUDE. Anyways, that was super frustrating. I'm sorry to say that if cooking my own food, I'm gonna cook it how I like it, I'm not a fan of hockey puck like steaks.

Exercises:

We mostly play basketball and sometimes we do upper body workouts. Push ups and pull ups and that kind of stuff. Pretty boring. And generally not enough time to actually get stuff done.

P-Day/Laundry day:

We wake up and go to the temple. Then we come back and hang around the rooms until lunch time. After lunch we put on jeans(which is fantastic) and we head to the laundry room. We start our laundry and then come to this computer lab to email! Pretty straight forward. After laundry we have a little time to clean up the rooms and stuff like that.

How many elders to a room?

Right now just me and my comp, which is sweet! Normally four or six to a room though.

More about my companion:

He is Elder Spencer. He's pretty cool. He's from Gilbert AZ. He's a swimmer and a life guard and he worked at Taco Bell. He's pretty cool and only rarely gets on my nerves. He definitely doesn't understand what it means to grow up in the country. But I guess we can forgive him for that.

Does everybody say flippin'?

Yes.

Favorite meal:

Anything with enough hot sauce on it.

Well this will be my last email for about two weeks because I won't get to next week. (I'll be on a plane) Can't wait to email y'all from the city!

-Ry

The Weekly Ry

Hey all!

This week was very hum drum. Meh. Ehhhhh. 

It's kinda funny how this MTC roller coaster works. One week is fantastic and then the next makes you want to jab your eyes out with a fork. We spend nine hours a day sitting in a desk studying Spanish and churchy stuff. I went all day yesterday without speaking English. That was kinda cool. Pretty crazy that in 5 weeks I can communicate pretty much anything I want to say in a brand new language. Sadly, my English skills, which were already questionable, are now debilitating rapidly. I have trouble remembering words in English, especially churchy words.  Oh well. I'm not gonna need English for two years anyways. Sorry if my emails slowly degrade into horrible Spanglish.

Good news! Because I'm came here the week before Christmas I get to spend an EXTRA BONUS WEEK IN THE MTC to wait for transfers in NYC. HOORAYY! I leave here on February 2nd and then hopefully things will get a bit more exciting. I'll have a little more to talk about once I'm actually in the city. At the moment I'm already kind of running out of things to say..... Anyways. Love y'all! Hope everyone is doing well! 

Que tenga un buen dia!

Elder Ry

Week 4 in the CCM

Hey all!

How've you all been? Staying busy? I sure hope so. I can't even imagine not being busy all the time. I can't remember what it's like to relax and be lazy. Oh well! I'll survive. I'm ready to head to NYC. The MTC is not the most fun experience ever but I'm learning Spanish super fast. I found myself unable to remember a word in English the other day. I could only remember the Spanish translation. I guess I'm gonna have to relearn English when I get back. It is super exciting to be able to speak in a new language though. It's kinda like a code. We speak spanish when we're out and about in the MTC so we can share secrets. 

This week my companion and I had an appointment to teach some members. Just as an explanation: missionaries teach about three different sets of people. Investigators, inactive members, and active members. When we walked into our member appointment room we were met by David Archuletta, his Mom Lupe, and his aunt! My companion actually didn't recognize him until after we left and he said, "Was that..." And I said, "Duh". We got to teach and discuss lesson three from Preach my Gospel. It was great! My comp and I were two of four people that got to teach them. David (who served in Chile) said that our spanish was super good especially considering that we've only been out for three and a half weeks. He said we'd be speaking like natives in no time. I feel like I'm basically best friends with him now. Does this mean I have to start listening to his music? I mean..... Some of the songs are alright but.. It's not really my style..

Speaking of speaking (<--heh) like a native. One of the teachers here, Hermano Mace, went to Chile. Concepcion? I think. Anyways..... He can exactly replicate the way a Chileno talks. Mas o menos becomes: maomeno. Apparently they just cut their words in half most of the time. He speaks super good spanish though. I am looking forward to the time that I can speak super fast. I can speak pretty easily at a regular conversational pace, but I'm not quite Puerto Rican. I can understand Hermano Mace when he speaks Chileno for the most part, but when he does the Puerto Rican one, I literally can't get anything. CRAZY FAST. Shoot. The Guatemalan that we teach is super fun to talk to because he talks so slow. He does tend to slur his words together though. Our teaching is progressing like crazy! It's awesome how fast we learn the Spanish that we need for each lesson.

Tonight there is going to be a new MTC president called. Rumor has it that there's gonna be a few apostles here. That would be cool. I'm singing in the choir, which is weird. I don't sing but...... Yolo right? I'll take notes and let ya all know how it is. 

Love y'all!

-Ry

Checking in from the CCM

This week was pretty hum drum. Nothing special that's for sure. It was also fast sunday which was horrible, but I survived somehow. My companion and I have been teaching a Guatemalan named Jose Meza (Mesa, there's no z sound en espanol). We finally had a breakthrough with him!! Before he would kind of just ask us endless questions and try to get us confused and stuff. But we were talking about trials and the reasons we have them when he broke down and started telling us about his life in Guatemala. When he was 7 he started working to help support his family, they barely had enough money for food. When he was 14 or so, he had a falling out with his dad and he left and went out on his own. He lived in extreme poverty, one meal at a time. He loved milk. The first time he was able to afford a glass of milk was when he was 24 years old(he is now in his late 50s and is living in the USA and doing much better for himself. He has a wife and a disabled daughter.) Anyways... We took him to a few scriptures, specifically the 121st section of D&C, he loved it and he committed to be baptized, which is fantastic. Teaching in spanish is pretty crazy. I'm very surprised how well I can already communicate. Also, understanding a fluent spanish speaker has been very easy for me which is pretty weird cause they talk FAST.

I've heard a few things about my mission president: He is the most laid back mission president ever. He lets people go to baseball and soccer games and stuff. My mission doesn't include any of Manhattan but hopefully I'll be able to get over there once or twice. If I don't I am gonna need y'all to come pick me up so we can!! I have to go switch over the laundry so I'll talk to ya later! I'll try and get a letter or two into the mail. 

-Ry