Learning how to be a missionary

Two great missionaries...Samuel Smith and Eric!

Hey you guys,

I'm so glad you finally got my letter! And I want to thank you for writing me every day!

The first week went by fairly slowly, but this week has absolutely flown by. The first Monday, we started on the normal schedule, which will be the same exact schedule we will have every week until I leave. I love it!

You have asked me a lot of questions, so I will try to remember them and answer them. The names of the elders in my district:

Connor Vanderholm (from Elk, Washington)
Garret Anderson (from WallaWalla, Washington)
Rulon Ward
Michael Wolff (we call him Elder Lobo)
Bryan Groll
Mark Philips

We all have little nicknames but I won't get into that, especially since we are really trying to only call each other "Elder."

My building complex is the Erastus Snow Building (5M) and my room number is 5M-225. It is very conveniently located on the first floor! And yes, I am very warm at night, since I've been using the sleeping bag I brought as a blanket, because they don't provide blankets here.

The language is coming very easily to me, and to everyone in our district. The language study has really brought back all the memories of Spanish that I learned in high school, although we are now far ahead of what I learned in high school (or at Wendy's!) Focusing on Spanish, and working so hard at it, however, has really hammered my English ability. I am now making many spelling mistakes that I didn't used to, and I keep having to stop and correct myself.

The food is still very good, and I am quite surprised that despite the approximately 39 meals that we have had so far, they still continue to have new food every day, unlike school food where you had the same 5 meals year-round. (Mom's note: Yep, that's my son, all right...who else would have counted that they've eaten 39 meals?!) My only complaint about the food would be that it is never hot.

In a couple of hours, I am going to go to get a haircut. I had to schedule it out at the beginning of last week!

In a couple of weeks, our 4 Dominican Republic elders will be leaving to go down to the MTC in the Dominican Republic. So that means that our entire district will then consist of my companionship only! It has been great having them all in our district, but I guess maybe we'll get more out of the classes when there's only 3 of us, because it'll be like we're having a private tutor all the time.

We are having a great time going to the RC (Referral Center) and acting as official missionaries. Anyone who uses the mormon.org question center, or who calls the representative phone number, or orders anything from us, will be talking to us!!! No, not some educated teachers who do this for a living, but us, the missionaries-in-training! It's really fun, and it has been my favorite part of the whole MTC experience. I have done a lot of good, sent out lots of books, dvd's, and arranged for missionary visits, and hopefully some of those people will actually get baptized someday, because I helped them!

Continue telling everyone to use dearelder.com to communicate with me. It's the best way. Ask me any other questions you may have, and I'll probably mail you some more pictures in the future. Tell Marisa that I hope she gets over the flu soon, and tell Nana and Papa that I hope they have better luck next year with their garden.

I wish all of you the best!!!

Love always,
Elder Hanson (or Eric to you! :) )

_____________________________________________