One Month In

The latest news from Alec:

Hi, guys.

Just got back from gym time. I've been playing a lot of basketball, volleyball, and they even have Kan Jam and Spikeball here, too – it's just like home. The Russian missionaries who left a couple weeks ago would play Spikeball every single day for exercise time, so they were insanely good. But now that they're gone, I'm pretty much the best one at the entire MTC. The basketball doesn't get all that competitive – at least not the games I've played in. There is one missionary in my district from Kentucky, but he's not a UK fan so we get along fine. In the other Russian speaking zone, there is a missionary that grew up in Chapel Hill. He just graduated from high school, so he wasn't a student, but he went to tons of games so we've talked a bit about that. We actually have some of the same t-shirts we've gotten from the basketball games. 

Every Sunday and Tuesday we have a devotional with the entire MTC. This Tuesday we had Elder Bednar come speak. It's the first time a member of the quorum of the twelve has come since I've been here (they had 3 in a row right before I arrived,) so it was pretty cool to see. He and his wife talked about General Conference, and what he does when he studies General Conference talks. He says he has three things he looks for in each talk: 1) the basic doctrine or principle that the talk is based upon 2) an invitation to act--and he said this one can be kinda hard to find sometimes--you have to look carefully, and 3) promised blessings. There are always going to be guaranteed blessings when we are following through on the invitation to act, and it's good to know what to expect.

I still appreciate all the Dear Elder messages. They're nice to read after a long day. A couple weeks ago I got one from Ronnie Marshall, which was nice. I also got one from some family from Rochester who said they recognized me from my Science Stage shows. That's really all they said. I have no idea where they saw me that they recognized me,or how they got my mailing address, but it was nice.

It's funny that you mentioned that Come Thou Font was one of your favorite hymns, Mom, cause it's actually in the Ukrainian hymn book, so we sing it all the time. 

In case yoiu're wondering, here is what a typical day is like for me:

We wake up at 6:30 and get ready for the day. I hate waiting in lines for showers, so I usually shower the night before, which means I can lay in bed for an extra few minutes. Then we're supposed to be in the classroom by 7:00. We have 50 minutes of personal study - they give us a topic to study - and then we have 30 minutes for breakfast. The food here really isn't so bad, but I can't stand mass-produced scrambled eggs, so I pretty much just eat cereal or a bagel every morning. After breakfast we have a 3.5 hour block of class time, usually with one of our teachers. Then there's lunch, then another 3ish hour block of class time, sometimes with a teacher, sometimes not. After that class time we have an hour for exercise time. I've been going out to the field as much as I can while it's still warm. Then we get half an hour to shower/get dressed before dinner. After dinner, there is another 3.5 hour block of class time, sometimes with a teacher, sometimes not. I actually prefer not having a teacher. The teachers are great, but I feel like I learn a lot more when I can go at my own pace and focus on what I need to focus on.

It sounds pretty dull, but it's really not. Either we're focusing really hard, so time goes by fast. Or we're not focusing at all, so time goes by fast. It is pretty amazing, though, how well you can focus when you don't have a phone to distract you. 

Sunday will be the halfway point of my time at the MTC. Tomorrow will be the one month mark. It's crazy because time feels like it goes super fast and super slow at the same time somehow.

A couple things from the past week:

First, one of the missionaries choked on a Pez and had to go to the ER in the middle of the night. We've been giving him a hard time about it cause, who chokes on a Pez? He was ok, he just coughed so much that he like tore a muscle and was hyperventilating and everything, but now he's fine.

Second, I got a haircut last Thursday, and Elder Mangum (he's in Donny Osmond's ward, btw) decided to style my hair. Here is a picture of me looking like a real Utah Mormon. 

I immediately changed it so I didn't look like a typical Mormon, but it was interesting to see what it would look like if I was. 

Here is a picture of our birthday party for Elder Mangum. His parents sent him hats and we wore them for like 10 minutes. That was about the extent of the party.

I have to go for the day, but I love all of you guys and I hope everything is going well at home!

Alec