7-30-14 pranks to keep us sane

Hola mundo!

I think I've finally gotten use to the whole schedule for the MTC. I use to think i would never get over the energy crisis but i finally decided that it will always exist, so i just stopped caring about that. Most everything is getting into a basic routine though. Meals are always the same-ish. Breakfasts usually aren't that great so i grab a bowl of either blueberry muffin tops or fruit loops, 2 glasses of cran-apple, and then snitch a couple bites of whatever the main course might be. Lunch is either a hit or a miss. Sometimes they have chicken cordon blues or burgers, which are fantastic, but the other times its like egg rolls with bleeding chicken or cardboard steak. At least they have A1 sauce, so i can down the steak pretty easily. Dinner is usually a glass of either red powerade or a blue powerade/sprite combination which is sort of like Baja Blast? Hey don't judge, you get bored here. Main meals for dinner are always random, and i still don't know what to say about that, besides the fact that everything tastes like it was mass produced.

The other three guys in our apartment have started to find some interesting ways to keep us entertained. The following are some of the ridiculous things we've done over the past week:
1-We've started to pull pranks on the new elders every week. Good times. Last Wednesday night we were walking home from class and we saw some new elders that had their dork dots on their tag still. Since the four of us still had the dork dots on the back of our tags, we decided to flip ours around so it was just a blank, black square and we asked them where to get our name tags engraved. They had no idea and we started freaking out because we didn't know what to do. Elder Kirk started having a panic attack on the side of the curb, and then eventually some other Hermanas from our district walked by and blew the whole operation. Good times while it lasted though, figure we gotta have some sorta stories while we are here
2-We were on our way to the Tuesday devotional and the other 2 guys from our companionship knocked on our door so we could go with them, but we wanted to sneak around back somehow. So our apartment is on the second floor so we figured we could hop out the window and just run around the back of the building. So, we decided to pop the window in my bedroom, and there was a screen. Elder Ferrin punched the screen out and turns out that on the other side of the window at about the top right was a small beehive. Didn't knock the beehive off, but it definitely shook it and sent about 15+ bees flying on our window. The dorms are super small to so we all tried running out and we tripped over everything and the beds on the way out. Ferrin got stung by a bee on the head and then closed the door with me and Haslem still in the room, with the lotta bees xD We had to leave the apartment since we were late with the door open, since nobody wanted to get close enough to close the window, so when we came back in the room there were still like 2 bees on our sheets and a few on the window 2 feet away from my pillow. Finally killed them off, but it was freaky sleeping that night, fear of killer bees is real, i now know.
3-The dinner here is at 5:00 for us so as soon as 10:00 rolls around we are always starving. I had a care package sent to me a week or two ago with snacks so i wouldn't be starving when night time came around, and that package included wheat thins and easy cheese. Anyways, last night we ran out of wheat thins and still had the entire container of easy cheese and we were trying to think of something to do with the cheese. Long story short, we decided to have a Elder initiation for our district so we bought some microwavable chicken nuggets from the creamery( nastiest chicken nuggets of my life by the way) and we stuffed them with easy cheese. Nasty taste, but hey now i can say I've eaten chicken nuggets stuffed with easy cheese. Can you say that? Probably not, and i wouldn't recommend it either =P

Lessons are getting better, and we have finally started going to TRC every day now, which for those of you who don't know its like teaching a progressing investigator every day, compared to practicing with your teacher. Your not sure if the investigator is a member faking it or a real non-member, but you treat them the same regardless. My Spanish is progressing, but it has slowed down since the first two weeks. I'm still learning fine, my personal goal is memorize 75 words a day, and so far that's fine. I'm definitely an over achiever, as everyone else's goals are around 15 words, but hey I'm hear to learn Spanish, so i'm gonna learn Spanish! =P

If anyone happens to find a bunch of non microwavable food or snacks they don't want, and a box that already has a shipping label addressed to the MTC, by all means feel free to send it! But if not, i'm surviving just fine at the MTC, learning a lot, and getting giddy to go to Costa Rica.

Hasta próxima semana,
Elder Campbell

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Buenos Días Familia!

Mom & Dad:

Starting to already feel how the mission life is going to change me over two years. There are so many things i wish i could stop saying or doing to improve my personality and friendliness, and being with my companion and talking to other people all day gives me plenty of opportunities to keep practicing and growing. One of which is i'm learning to slow down how fast i talk, which is still really hard to do. I'm glad that when people speak fast in Spanish, they don't ever really tell you to slow down, so at least i can talk as fast as i think in my lessons, but with everyone else i really gotta focus on talking nice and mild. I feel like i'm talking to a baby kind of speed when i try, but everyone says its the same speed that everyone else normally talks at, so maybe ill just get use to it. 

Its surprising how blunt a lot of people are here coming from all different backgrounds. I'm use to my friends and my family kind of sarcasm and ways to comment on something, but often times lots of the people here just feel like jerks the way they ask someone to do something. So many companionship's have so little respect for each other in the way they ask their companionship to do something, or will intentionally try to irritate their companions. Hope i'm not coming across that way with my companion, but man some people just learn to hate each other hear. I think i'll just have to adjust to some groups of people. 

I've also learned to really tone down my competitiveness here. All the time when i play volleyball during gym i watch guys that get way to competitive or jump right in a girls way just so they get a slam, and then i get to watch how everyone talks behind their back about how mean they are during sports. Maybe i'm just getting so use to calm and uplifting atmospheres that anything mildly offensive or mean is super noticable to me, but regardless, i can see the aftermath of being too competitive with sports now. I apologize for anyone in the past that may have felt that way with me, i finally think i understand why XD

Todos modos, finally getting a hang of it here, just pushing a long and waiting tell i can get to Costa Rica. So excited to actually start meeting the people and exploring the culture compared to the same stories here.

hasta miércoles,

Elder Campbell

7-23-14 2nd week at MTC

Hola World

So to explain how Dear Elder works, basically i can get the mail in the cafeteria in either the morning or at night, so twice a day, but it normally takes 12 hours to process it. So if you want to Dear Elder me, do it before Tuesday so i can get it and reply before Wednesday morning when i reply to everyone.

Health is getting better. Head cold finally died out about two days ago, and ear infections went away yesterday, so two weeks into the MTC my health is back to normal.

Last p-day we saw the new video at the temple. It was still really good, but honestly i didn't like the acting very much, the characters were a bit sketchy. Satan was bald, and ya i understand that when we are resurrected not a single hair on our head will be lost, but if you going to outer darkness do you seriously gotta take it all the way and make Satan bald? Meh, actually not really, but he was just an angry actor. And i thought Eve was smiling when she was suppose to be crying, so i think i like the first one better. Still haven't seen the video where Heavenly Father is sitting down, i've heard that one is pretty glorious.

Great to hear from the siblets again, i love their one sentence comments, its useful for some entertainment while i'm here on MTC campus. Its mostly boring here since its the same old schedule of class time every day, and we don't get enough time to practice teaching investigators. We teach once about every two days, which feel like the highlights of the day, but that should change as soon as we start teaching at the TRC building next Monday. 

Spanish is still coming along pretty well. I can just about fluently speak my mind now, but there are still a lot of words i should memorize for regular concepts and objects. My companion is actually pretty decent at Spanish, but only when we talk slow. Whenever we talk with a mock investigator i'm always the person to answer the questions, because he never knows whats going on, and we get docked if we try to talk in English to our companions to explain stuff. And by docked i mean our investigators will stock keeping commitments or be harder to work with if we talk in English. Its kinda like forcing those uncomfortable with Spanish to use it as much as they can, but it doesn't bother me.

I can talk Spanish, and read mostly, but flipping to a random scripture in the bible and trying to interpret it, ya that's where my skill of Spanish stops, because i have no idea whats happening. My spanish is fine, but my grammer is most likely way of so reading scriptures is hard.

I am finding a couple things though to keep me entertained beyond the usual during my free time. I'm starting to tab up my scriptures with these little 1/4" x 1/2" sticky notes at the end of pages and highlight in different colors depending upon what the scriptures are talking about. I remember a couple years ago CJ tried telling me to highlight based on concepts, but i never really listened to that. Adam showed me his scriptures which had the tabs on his and it looked like a cool concept, but i forgot about it when i got here. One of my teachers had it in his Bible and it looked way convenient, so i tried it and it works fantastic. 

I also found out during our study time we can listen to the music on the computers that's available on LDS.org. I use to wonder how i would ever be able to listen to motab or other super calm music all day, but after going an entire week without any music, anything will do. I've also been following the bible video series the church has. I know that they had clippits of sections of Jesus's life or other biblical videos, but i didn't know they had recorded basically his whole life into little 2 minute video bits from birth to death and they are super cool to watch.

MTC is fine, but i just want to actually get out to Costa Rica and start doing the real deal. Practice is nice and super effective, but this place is starting to get pretty old.

Until next time,

-Elder Campbell

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Hola Familia

So weird to hear that the house has changed. I was trying to picture how it looks now, but i just can't imagine what the den and my room look like being clean and actually serving a purpose besides sleep and stalling on the computer. I'm starting to miss animals quite a bit actually. Occasionally i see some old peeps driving down the road holding their pug while it sticks it head out of the window, but that's about all the animal exposure i get here. 

It's nice to hear how much the gospel is trying to spread back home with the family history challenge and the ward inactive invitations. I never really understood how fast paced missionary work was with its investigators, but now that i'm here it feels like missionary work is like a bullet train. Glad i had all the brothers to help me lower my expectations and prepare me to work with whatever the lord give's me.

Turns out MTC west is the lower quality campus compared to the main thing, which helps with a lot of the bad rumors about the MTC. This cafeteria doesn't have enough food and junk food to make me fat, and everyone speaks the same language since its MTC west, so communicating is easy.  

Can't think of much else to say, I guess i miss Parkour more then anything else right now, but i still find my chances to sneak side flips in every once and while. Yupp, thats about it on my mind.

Hasta Luego

Elder Campbell

7-16-14 Mason's First Letter from the MTC

Elder Mason Scott Campbell

Missionary Photo

To The World:

Hello all. Sorry i couldn't respond earlier. Turns out my P-days are on Wednesday and not Monday so i didn't get to reply back to anyone for a good week after I arrived here. Life's been pretty good so far in the MTC. It isn't as bad as i thought it would be, but then again i am in the new MTC Campus which is only for the Spanish missionaries, so that's fun. Waking up at 6:30 isn't really as bad as i thought. We get an hour to prep in the morning before breakfast and our classes start, so there is a lot of time to sit around, or study depending on who you talk to.

 My dorm room has two bedrooms in it with two sets of companions. In the larger dorm room on the right is Elder Ferrin and Elder Kirk. Ferrin is from some middle of nowhere town called Far West next to Plain City, Utah (not a joke by the way, actually called Plain City.) He is a stereotypical farmer/redneck and is a party to be with. Elder Kirk looks like the old school version of dad with the fro and all, or Napolean Dynomite with a shorter cut. Fun to talk to, and always entertaining. On the left side of the hallway in our dorm room is my bedroom, which for some reason is about 40% smaller than Elder Ferrin and Kirk's bedroom. Ridiculous i know. My companion is Elder Haslem and he is from Cedar City, Utah. And no Ryan and Charie, he doesn't know the Brown family. He is actually really quiet and doesn't talk very much. Not very motivated to do anything or do extra time to better study for something, but he knows a decent amount of Spanish so at least our lessons go well, mostly.

Speaking of lessons, picking up Spanish is coming really quick here. They didn't put me in a fast track program here seeing as there is only the group of newbies, and the group of people who have taken about 6+ years of spanish and are already fluent who will only stay for 2 weeks at the MTC. For me and the rest of us recruits, we start in the beginners class and learn the basics on up. I used to always joke around with people when they heard i was speaking Spanish that ya i took 2 years in high school but it would only get me through the first day or two in the MTC. Actually no, taking two years has helped a tooooonnn in learning my spanish. In our district, made up of 6 guys and 4 girls, only 1 person had never taken any Spanish before and the rest of us are picking it up pretty fast. They really do throw missionaries out in the ocean when learning a language and expect them to swim. I got here Wednesday night, and by Friday morning we had to teach our first lesson to an investigator using only Spanish and no English at all. Surprisingly, i was able to do it, and i just had to drag my companion with me through the lessons, as I do everything else. I expected my companion to not do anything and be pretty bad, which was partially true, since he doesn't want to do anything, but he at least does what the teacher tells him to do, sometimes, and tries to memorize things. 

It's hard getting use to staying at the same pace as everybody else though. We are frequently in class and given assignments to memorize something like the invitation to baptize or the missionary purpose in Spanish, and regardless if its all new words or not, i tend to pick it up in about 2 minutes tops. Everyone else though takes the entire night's worth of personal study and the next morning going over it, and still struggle with it. So, i know for a fact that the gift of tongues is true, because holy crap i can understand Spanish so well. By day three in the MTC i can already bear my testimony fluently in Spanish and speak whatever comes to mind, not the basics phrases they teach you to say. I can also pray in Spanish, and as long as they talk slow, i can understand almost everyone people say. Its also cool because these past couple days i've started getting to the point where if they are talking in english, i can translate it to spanish while there talking. 

Glad the language is working well for me, because now i can focus on other stuff, like focusing more on the gospel and my ongoing personal conversion process. They have a devotional every Sunday and every Tuesday night by some famous church person or general authority, but for the month of July all the GAs are off for vacations so i don't think ill get anyone famous until August. Oh ya PS i leave August 18 for the MTC and ill be returning home from my mission on June 21, 2016, so i still get my whole summer to party and work, thats exciting!

Speaking of exciting, but not really at all actually. I've been sick this whole week. I had a mild head cold the Monday before i went to the MTC and it was starting to get painful on Wednesday when i arrived. Wednesday morning i awoke to find out that my ear hurt and so we put some silver in my ear to hopefully help it, but nope, just made it worse. Turns out i had an ear infection in my left ear that only has gotten worse over the week. Friday morning i awoke to find out my right ear had an ear infection as well. Yay, exciting first week of MTC. So basically from thursday morning at all, i couldn't hear at all out of my left ear, i could barely hear tuesday morning, and it hurt, and my right ear hurt as well. Soo its been really hard to focus on MTC and everything when my entire head hurts constantly... both sides... luckily i went to the doctor on friday and he gave me 3 different meds which i have been using, and so far my ears have been getting better. 

Haven't seen too many familiar faces here. I only saw one friend i knew from high school and that was Trae Hansey, but he is in the main MTC so i only saw him once and waved to him from across the stadium for the Sunday devotional and then he vanished. I did meet Pres. Shallenberger though, who knows a lot more about me then i do him. The Pres and his wife kept saying they were so excited to meet and and they were so glad i was in their district, but i still don't know them very well so i'm still in this relatively awkward stage with them.

Food is pretty good here at the west campus. We have breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day, and you can eat as much as you want while you are in the cafeteria. Sometimes the meals are pretty good, other times they aren't really bad meals, its just i'm not a fan of the taste. Every day is a new meal item, and they always have a salad and cereal bar, which are both very convenient to have for food. So during the day i'm well fed, but i'm starving at night and in the afternoon between lunch and dinner. I don't remember who said it was better to have 6 small meals compared to 3 big meals a day, but who ever it was, you're making the MTC experience very since im always starving. Hopefully ill be able to break that habit soon, but in the meantime i keep buying bags of chips or E.L. Fudge cookies at the creamery since i need something to eat at night. 

MTC experience is very different from the actual mission field though. Timing is all different from when you can and can't do stuff. We have an hour and a half of gym time every day which i didn't expect, so i definitely under packed a lot of athletic clothing and regular attire. 

Loving the MTC though, learning Spanish is fun, and i'll get use to my boring companion eventually... i hope. 

Talk to you soon, ill keep you posted.

Elder Campbell

PS. From here on out, if anyone wants to talk to me, send an email through DearElder.com. Its much more useful then the email which i have to go all the way to main campus to print of to read. For DearElder.com, you just gotta know my name, Elder Campbell, my relative departure date which is August 18, and my unit number which is 827. Thanks again!