The current tri-companionship: Elders Hanson, Anderson, and Wolff
The classroom for the district. Eric's desk is fifth from the left, with the dark book on it. Since Eric took this picture in "panoramic stitch" mode, the walls look curved, but the camera is fooling us, and it is actually just an ordinary room with straight walls. (Click on any picture to see it larger.)
The classroom Christmas tree, decorated with everyone in the district's drivers' licenses...and a walrus?!
Hey Mom and Dad and everyone, I first of all want to say thank you to everyone who has written to me and sent me packages. I got the "Santa's Sleigh O' Cookies" package and it was very delicious! I also got the Christmas package you sent, as well as Nana and Papa's. They both look great and everything arrived well. I can't wait till Christmas to open everything!
It's too bad about how the post office lost the camera card I was sending home to you. It's really sad, because there are some pictures that were on there that I can never replace. But, don't worry! I have been taking some new pictures and vids on the other camera card to "somewhat" replace what you would have had. I will be sending it right away. I was really glad to get the camera card with pics and vids that you sent me, it was awesome, and I was really glad to see that everyone is doing so well!
The post office also lost something else. They lost Elder Wolff's visa! Elder Wolff just found out a couple of days ago. This means that he has to get a new passport and then re-apply for a visa. So now, instead of joining the other Dominican Republic elders down at the MTC in the DR, he is going to stay here with us Argentina elders until we leave, and then he will be assigned to a state-side Spanish speaking mission until his visa comes.
So Elder Anderson and Elder Wolff are both my companions. Elder Vanderholm and Elder Moncur are the new zone leaders, and Elder Taylor is now our District Leader. In the "new" district we are in, the other elders are all going to the Mendoza, Argentina mission.
To answer your question, they don't really teach us the language specific to our country, they just teach us basic Spanish, and they figure we will pick up the slang, culture, accents and pronunciation when we get there. In fact, many districts have their elders all going to different places!
We taught again to our pretend investigator this week in the TRC, and of course it is all in Spanish now. This time I was trying really hard to remember how to form sentences correctly and which tenses to use and everything. There are so many different tenses! (Subjunctive is really hard.) So I was busy forming sentences in my head while my companions were talking. As a result, when it was my turn, I mixed up the words "pescados" (fish) and "pecados" (sins.) In short, I ended up saying, "Jesucristo sufrio por todos nuestros pescados." That meant, Jesus Christ suffered for all our fish! Ha ha! So I learned how important it is to teach with the spirit. Basically, I had done a lot better last week because I relied on the spirit, instead of the little bit of Spanish that I knew.
Thank you for the tips on learning Spanish. But Dad, do you have any tips to teach by the spirit well, and not let the Spanish jump in front and jumble your thoughts?
I love all the mail I get and I keep all of it. I don't care if it weighs down my bag by 50 pounds, I'm keeping every piece of mail I've ever gotten and taking it with me whenever I move! I just want to remind everyone that my mailbox number is now 216. I still get the mail if it is sent to the old box, but it takes longer because it has to get redirected to the correct mailbox. Also, when I leave the MTC and go to Argentina, be sure not to send any letters here by mistake. There are too many missionaries going to all different countries, and so they can't forward the mail once you leave the MTC, so it just gets thrown away. But I am still here till around January 4.
My watch broke, so I would appreciate it if you could send me one for Christmas. I'll try to send you a picture of the watch so you can find the same one. I got it at Walmart and had two links taken out on each side. It's like 15-20 bucks, I believe. You don't want an expensive watch in the place I am going to!
I'm having lots of fun here, and am not even close to being sick of the MTC. There are many things like pranks and and challenges that go on in our residence areas. Anyone who has been in the MTC, knows how it is. But even though we have a lot of fun, we have many spiritual experiences, too. And while I love it here, I can't wait until I can go out and teach real investigators. Of course at the same time, I'm nowhere near ready as far as the Espanol goes.
Dad, I'd like to know a bit how the MTC was for you. Because I'm sure it's different and similar. For one, we don't have any culture classes like you said you had. Also, we spend very little time actually learning Spanish. The focus here is on the gospel, although, what good is knowing all the gospel if you can't teach it! We also have lots of personal study time called MDT. I got the inspirational articles you sent about Patrick Henry's real words and all of the other ones. I was also surprised to read about how the government used to be all christian, and I was really shocked to hear about the Bible being used in public schools, since that was unheard of when I was there.
You've all asked me to share some spiritual experiences. I've had many personal ones as well as just a general feeling of the spirit. So although none were really "stories" I could share, I just felt the spirit a lot, which helped me. So one night I decided to pray for a spiritual experience that I could use to share with my family to uplift them. The next day I received an answer to my prayer.
It happened when I was at the RC. First, we were late getting there, and so we only had about 45 minutes to do RC work, and you usually have to wait a while before getting any chats or calls. I logged on and received an incoming call almost right away. It was a lady named Norma, who was calling because she wanted a new Bible because "my ole one is wearin' out." I asked her if I could have the missionaries deliver it to her, and tell her a little bit more about it. She said yes, and then I moved on to telling her about the Book of Mormon, which she called "the Mormon Bible". She was a very religious woman and said she wanted to have one! Although, the whole time she was talking like she'd let the missionaries deliver it but she wouldn't listen to what they said. We kept talking and she told me she is a truck driver. I read a couple of scriptures out of the Book of Mormon, and shared my testimony and after giving her the BOM promise, asked her if she believed that God answers prayers. At that point she opened up and said, "I know He does," and she began crying and told me a story she had about God answering prayers.
She told me how one night she was walking back from her mailbox when she slipped on some ice and fell flat on her back. She said she was stunned and was "froze in place" just staring up into space. While laying there, she started praying for help. As soon as she finished the prayer, a man came up and helped her, took her to the hospital, and even paid all her medical bills. That was a really big deal to her because she was very poor and had no money and no insurance. The man said to her that he just felt he should help her even though he didn't know why. Because the man had gotten her to the hospital so quickly, she is now able to walk, at a year and a half later. She knows that it's because her prayer was answered that she is able to walk. She was crying and then she sort of bore her testimony to me. It was very powerful and spiritual for us both.
Anyway, I asked her if she would pray before and after the missionary visit, and she said of course! (She seemed very excited to meet with them now!) And then I gave her the phone number to call to order a Book of Mormon. (We can only send one item to an investigator, so if they want two things, like, for example, a Bible AND a Book of Mormon, they have to call twice.) I arranged to send the missionaries and the Bible and ended our talk. It had been a very long call, like almost 30 minutes. So then, after I had hung up, just a few minutes later, Elder Luce gets a call, and it's Norma again! She was calling to order the Book of Mormon! So now it's up to the missionaries out in her area to teach her. I would like to teach her, so I really hope the missionaries do a good job!
Well, after all that, ANOTHER incoming call on my line! This time it's a Hispanic girl in her 20's wanting the "Joy to the World" DVD. I love questions, because if you ask good questions, then the people kind of teach themselves. Anyway, I asked her why she wanted to order this DVD and she said because it looks happy. (She spoke a little English.) I told her about eternal families and after our chat about that, she gave me the name of her sister for us to call. Now you need to understand that it's REALLY HARD to just get referrals like that, so this was very rare! The spirit was really strong there, and they're going to have the missionaries over soon!
Later that evening, after the devotional by one of the Seventy, we had a very spiritual discussion as a district, it was very cool. I have a really great district.
I have a new favorite scripture. It is Proverbs 28:1.
As a reminder, I will NOT be able to call home on Christmas. :( There are not enough phones (there are like 12 phones and over 4,000 missionaries) so anyone who is just arriving or leaving soon doesn't get to call home. Don't worry, though, I can call when I'm at the airport around Jan 4.
Out of time, love you all,
Eric
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