Week 3

Hello family:)!

Another great week here at the MTC! I can't believe that I have already been here for 3 weeks, just one more and it's been a month! Crazyness! Time is flying by so fast and I can't believe I have been learning Spanish so easily! I never would have thought that I could learn this much of a foreign language in 3 weeks time, but I owe it all to the Lord and the gift of tounges! It's great how much study time we get here at the MTC, on Sundays we have around 7 hours of study time! Woohoo! I've been loving it here though, I've since lost 5 pounds since I started my diet (thank goodness)! I don't want to be a whale when I get out to the field! No-way-jose! I started a new exercise plan though, which is to run 5 laps around the track (10 is one mile), then do some workouts, then run another 5, workout, so on so forth till the end of gym time is over. Today though we will be able to have a lot of time to exercise because the temple is closed for 3 weeks for cleaning and I already did my laundry yesterday because there is a gas leak in the laundry room.

I don't think I have ever mentioned this but my teachers are awesome! My two teachers are Brother Lucero and Sister Cutler, they are both great teachers and very inspirational! Brother Lucero served in the Mexico Wahaka (I think that's how it's spelled...) and Sister Cutler served in Honduras. Can't wait to be able to speak Spanish like them in less than a year! Gonna be sa-WEET! Our district (class) teachers them every few days in our companionships. It's called progressing investigator. The teachers act like an investigator and we know just a minimal amount of information before we go in and teach them. Elder Fiala and I are doing a fantastic job! The spirit is so strong when we teach and our chemistry together is getting better and better each lesson! I'm excited to see how my Spanish will turn out by the end of the 9 weeks here:). Probably still bad though, haha.

Fasting here at the MTC is just like back at home, but sometimes it is a little more difficult because it's harder to study when you're dying of hunger;). We fast from 6:00am to 4:30pm on fast sundays. During sacrament, we each bare our testimonies in Spanish and it's an awesome spirit-driven experience! Almost everyone (including myself) are in tears before we even get to the stand! It's crazy! The spirit here at the MTC is definitely felt so much easier than anywhere else I can think of, besides the temple of course. Each building here is dedicated by a member of the twelve, which I thought was very neat:)! Anyways, so the fires around the MTC have been raging and the first presidency sent the MTC a letter asking for each Elder and Sister here to fast and pray for rain, in hopes to have the fires die down. Well, needless to say, it worked. It rained two times that day and I heard that the fires have died down tremendously, if not, are gone. Isn't that amazing?! Prayer is real, I know it. Our Heavenly Father answers our prayers, if we are willing to act on the answers He gives us.

And are you crazy mom?! I would NEVER become a sumo wrestler! NINJA FO LYFE! Haha love you guys:)!

I hope the ward is doing great, I miss each and every one of the people there! Tell them I said I love them and hope that they don't grow too much while I'm gone;)!

Love you guys, I expect a letter/Dear Elder from each of you soon!

Love,

Elder Alexander J Annand