1 Week Down

Whatup family?!

So, today is our first P-Day, we're all chilling in the laundry room waiting for the machines to finish right now. And we get half an hour on the computers for email. So I'll try to fit all I can in this and I'll see how much time I have left.

So... first day. Felt so weird. I ran into SO many guys from the ward and school though. Jay, Jake, Spencer, and David to name a few. Also, you guys know that Lane is in my District. And Derek is in my zone, he left today though. 

Below are pics of Taylor & some of his Orem High School buddies at the MTC!!

Spencer Herrmann & Taylor

Lane Mitchell, Jay Sargent, Taylor, Derek Omori, David Groesbeck, Spencer Herrmann

Spencer Herrmann & Taylor (again!)

Lane Mitchell, Derek Omori, Taylor

Lane Mitchell, David Groesbeck, Taylor

Taylor, David Groesbeck

But anyway, the first day and a half were so weird. it didn't feel like I was on my mission. But that''s gone away now, all of the guys in my district are SO sick. I definitely got lucky to have so many cool guys. My companion is Elder Jensen, he's from SLC. He's way cool. We have the room to ourselves so we chill in there at night, talking about everything. We both love music, movies, boarding. Never a dull moment in our group of rooms.

Elder Jensen- Taylor's MTC companion

The Pokies down the hall are our way good buddies too. (Pokies is the nickname for the Poccatello people, or however you spell that.) Oh yeah, Spencer lives a few floors down too, so I see him a ton.

So... the sleeping schedule. Not as hard to get used to as everyone says. They wear you out here. It's still a little rough because at the end of the day, everyone goes wild in the residence, so then we have a hard time going to sleep. But yeah, it's not bad.

The food was good at first, for like two meals. Then it starts destroying everyone. I've never eaten so many salads, I feel like a woman, but the food doesn't sit well when you're in class for like 9 hours a day.

Speaking of class. Our teacher is Bro Sender, he went to Mada and got back last November. He's so cool, and amazing at the language. The first time we met he didn't speak English at all. The language is so hard. Translated into English, it sounds like half Yoda, half baby. For example, a sentence like ''I am hungry" would translate to "Am hungry I''. It's way hard to think of things that fast on the spot. But we're getting better. We've already taught two lessons completely in Malagasy. SUPER simple concepts, but way hard.

Funny story about last nights lesson: So at this point we still write out everything we say in our lessons, and last night we were going to read one scripture story to our investigator, Tojo (pronounced Toot-zoo), and then we were going to have him read one to us. Elder Jensen started reading the first one, when Tojo asked if he could read it. Elder Jensen panicked and stared at him and said "Mamaky aho"" (I read.) And he kept reading. Tojo was like, what the heck? And I just started laughing. Maybe you had to be there? Oh well, those are the kind of things missionaries find funny now.

So for gym time, all of us go with the Pokies and play sand volleyball. And when we don't do that, we either run or lift. We call it "Tool Time''. The guys back home will appreciate that. We have a pull up bar, and we wrote 1-10 in Malagasy and slapped it up on the wall. Gettin yoked and learning the language, whatup?!

(Here are a few other types of exercise they have come up with!)

What else... so, everyone says to hold out til Sunday and you'll be fine. I don't know who said that, but I didn't feel a big difference yesterday. It kind of grows on me every day. I would definitely go crazy if I didn't have an awesome district. Everyone is so funny, we might be a little too crazy, but oh well.

Oh, we had our first temple walk on Sunday. Best thing ever getting out for an hour or so. Who knew there was so much to do at the Provo Temple with 150 other missionaries? We also got to do an endowment session today, then we ate at the temple cafeteria. SO getting away from MTC food for a while.

Thanks for the package by the way! I've never seen so many cookies, everyone was shocked. And the DearElder you sent, Mom, that sent like 5 times haha, my DL brought in a huge stack of letters, then when I opened them it was all the same one except for the one Britt sent me, ha. Ah.. I don't know what else to tell you guys, keep questions, letters and packages coming! And that's awesome that Kaesi works at The Chocolate now! I wouldn't say no to some caramel chocolate cupcakes.

Anyway, sorry this email is hardly organized. I was kind of rushed not knowing how long I'd have to write it. I'm surprised how much I fit. Anyway, love you guys, and talk to you soon!

Taylor

P.S. Oh, the new Elders come in tomorrow. Fresh meat!