8-31-14 Visit from travelers

Hello Parents,

My name is Sue Wynn and my family and I are from Provo Utah. We are on vacation in Costa Rica right now and met your son at church this morning. We took a picture to share with you!

He looks very good and happy and it was fun to talk with him. He was very friendly with us and with all the people there and looks like an excellent missionary.  It was so nice to meet him. There were a lot of missionaries at church so it looks like he is part of a nice group of Elders and Sisters.

My husband served his mission in Costa Rica 30 years ago and is still so fond of the country and the people here. They are so humble and nice. It looks like an amazing place to serve a mission. I think your son is very happy here. Our son is serving in Japan right now so it was fun to see these Elders this morning.

 It is amazing how the gospel and church is the same everywhere around the world. It brings a feeling of peace and comfort when you meet the members & missionaries when you are traveling. It was so fun to talk to your son.  He seems like a happy Elder!

Have a happy Sunday!
Sincerely,
Sue Wynn

8-25-14 First letter from Costa Rica

Ahh hello world.

Im typing you all from a internet cafe in the central of San Roque. it has air conditioning in here, i think i might try to type slowly so i can stay here longer. you are all probably curious about what costa rica is like and whats happened, so ill start with a day to day basis and then add on the extra details after.

so i took the flight out of provo monday morning, taking delta airlines to georgia atlanta in coach, and then for some reason 10 out of the 28 people got free first class on the second flight, from georgia to costa rica. so i was lucky enough to get that flight, first class is reaaaalllyy nice, except the food is probably microwaved, that discovery ruined my day for a 10 seconds =P i should have taken the free blanket with me from the airplane, since you really dont have any bedding here, but ill describe that latter.

i took some pictures while in the airplane since the sky was soo awesome. if i ever get rich i want to fly in airplanes just so i can see the sky and the sunsets.

arrived in costa rica, and no the humidity didn't hit me like a wall. probably because i hit half of the humidity in georgia and the other half in costa rica. honestly, it just felt nice to breathe, probably because i was at sea level though, not the humidity. we arrived at night and so i couldnt see much of the city. but the one thing i will tell you all, is that costa rica isn't some super poor place like i thought it was. its nicer than that, but ill explain later. driving here is scary, and that is in turn due to the countries famous phrase

'pura vida' in spanish means pure life. for the people here, you can say pura vida for kinda like a whats up, or a, im doing good type phrase. thats the connotation of it, but for the past 50 years of costa rica its taken the meaning, and i cant think of any other way to describe it in english, but do what you want. if it doesnt hurt you, then its fine if i do it. that being said the driving and the roads are scary here. stops signs dont mean stop, as they are only slight suggestions, so everyone drives full speed past them and arround corners. about 1 in every 10 or 20 cars is a motorcycle or dirt bike, and so they just drive around every other vehicle in the road. at a 4 way stop for example, if the east west is backed up through the intersection and you want to go north west, you park in the middle of the road trying to cut people of. a good defensive driver here is one that drives fast and cuts people off well. its weird a know, but if you are curtious for others, you well get in a car crash immediately. an example of pura vida is if you leave your bike outside over night, and i still it, its not my fault that it was stolen, its yours because you left it out overnight. that being said, every house, building, window or anything public is barred of with thick 1 inch rails , gates, or chunks of sheet metal. 

so we met with president and the APs and secretaries first day filling out paperwork and then we were assigned our companions at a lunch. For that lunch we had chocolate chip pancakes, eggs, and gallo pinto. So i dont get to eat gallo pinto very much, but maybe thats just my area. gallo pinto is essentially the left over rice and black beans from the days before stirred together and they throw on extra butter and this stuff thats kinda a mix between butter and sour cream to give it flavour. ill talk more about food later.

So my first zone is guanacaste, so we took a bus to liberia, which is about 4 to 5 hours away from the mission office. one of those tickets is 8,000 colones. so the money system here is simple, you just have to wrap your head around it. to convert to dollars, times the colones by 2, and take off three zeros. so for example,the ticket was 8,000 colones, so 16,000 and without 3 zeros its 16. so 16 dollars. the conversion ratio here is about 1=550, but we just say 1=500. the easiest way to do it is count everything by mils (1 mil = 1000 colones) and double it. so a meal costing 2 mil is 4 dollars.

so we arrive at guanacaste, and i have my new companion Elder Soy. he is from guatamala and only speaks spanish, and only a few words in english. so its always speaking spanish and trying to figure out what he says. ok lesson for you all about some spanish words here. mae and mob both have the connotation of bro, webon is kind of like a more negative connotation of bro, pura vida means whats up, buenas is how you greet everyone, derived from (BUENOS dias, BUENAS tardes, and BUENAS noche) he knows some english words, but he always uses those slang words, or not good english words. whenever he is talking to some of the other missionaries, he always says 'whats up my nigga.' i tried to explain to him that wasnt a good thing to say, but he does it anyways.

 besides that he is a great companion. he is very social and so lessons are great with the people. i can't talk or understand very much, so i mostly just bear my testimony at the end of the lesson. because we can't communicate, we cant practice very in depth for companion study either. he also likes to dink around so any spanish i want to learn is by my self. ive asked him to correct me if i say something gramatically wrong, but he understands enough english that he can comprehend what im saying, even if its bad grammer and doesn't correct me. meh ill get use to it. the way i think of it, a baby can learn a ton of english between 2 and 4 years old, and so for my, i just need to keep hearing people talk and practicing myself and ill get the hang of it eventually. The problem is no one annunciates their words here. its kind of like in english when someone says whats up, they normally say wassup. or if your saying good night, normally just night, it sounds like a soft n and ite. that being said spanish here is hard to understand, especially Elder Soy, because nothing is annunciated, and they talk super fast. if they talk slow, which occassionally some people do, i can understand about 60 to 80 percent, but if they talk normal speed i can only understand about 30 to 70 percent. that 70 percent sounds good, but i miss out big chunks, so i still am lost with what they are saying, even if i know half of the words they are using. 

The people here. There are Costa Ricans, nicaraguans, and others. nicaraguans are super dark and almost look like a african/latin mix. costa ricans are lighter skinned, and id say they would look like a tan american, except for they all have dirtier faces, and have dark eyes. everyone here has dark eyes, so id doesnt matter if i would be tan, because i have green/blue eyes, i instantly as classified as a gringo. everyonce and a while i get called a cracker. the people here super straight forward with what they think and do. if you look weird they will call you out on the street and say it. its super useful in lessons though. when you are asking people questions, they will be completely honest with you.

we dont eat a lot of food here. we have about 1 to 2 eggs a day, if that for breakfast, and only bread if we have the money to spend. there are fresh bakeries all over the place we can buy bread for about $1.50, and its great for a meal. we get about $400 every money, or 200 mil, which is more than i thought. i only got a partial since i wasnt here for all of august, but next month ill get the 200 mil. some things are super cheap here, but we are using my full $400 we send to the mission every month. out of the 200 mil, about 50 goes for the apparentment, by the way we are getting a new one next week, it is crazy nice, and about 40 mil for a cocinera who makes us lunch every day except for mondays. lunch here always has white rice and black beans for about 2/3 of the plate. luckily, it tastes good. the other 1/3 of the plate and possibly side is some random other thing. normally its platanos which are like a fried banana of a sort. they really dont have any flavor and so they are kinda hard to choke down. A  lot of the people here have a little bag about 4 ounces with this stuff thats inbetween vanilla frosting and milk. its super plain and kinda nasty, i dont like it, but people use it on anything that doesnt have flavor. for example, elder soy uses it on his platanos. meh i dont understand. they have salads, and so far i havent had to put fry sauce on a salad. they give you these really bitter limons and you squeeze them on the salad, but they really really taste bitter. a lot of people down here like bitter things, like little candy containers full of limon flavored sugar or something, and its nasty to take.  i havent had any meat or chicken since ive been here, but ill keep you posted. in guanacaste, no one every makes us dinner, and we cant go to members houses for meals here, so we just pretty much have 1 or 2 eggs in the morning, maybe 8 inches by 2 inches by 1 inch or bread if we have the extra cash, lunch which is filling, and no dinner. maybe it will change in the new appartment,

The biggest shock is that the country here isnt as tropical rainforest as everyone thinks. there are still palm trees and stuff, and its super hot, but not like tropical rainforest. the closest way i can think to explain it would be california in the gettos in summer. guanacaste is super super hot, on the top left corner of costa rica. the whole west cost is super touristy, even though the east cost has the cruise ships. it rained a ton and super hard in san jose, but here in san rocque ( guanacaste is the zone, liberia is the area, and san roque is the city, i think) it never rains. so its just super hot all day every day. sun rises at about 6am and closes at about 6 pm,

we end up with about 3 to 5 lessons a day, and so far we havent talked to anyone new. one thing i will say though is costa rica has the highest baptism count in latin america. out of the 250 missionaries we have, we have about 125 baptisms a month. so the average is 1 baptism per companionship per month. we'll see how that goes. we have these things here called LPAs which basically means a random person you talk to, share a gospel message, and ask for any references. the standard of excellence here is 20 lpas a day, but me and my companion only get about 8 so far. Soy has been doing really well lately though, this is his 2nd time in this area, and the last couple months he averaged 3 to 5 baptisms a month. 

Our area has one chapel, a really nice chapel, and 2 branches that go in it. each branch having anywhere from 75 to 150 people who attend. The goal for san roque is to get a stake, not sure the qualifications for that, but i do know we need more members and more tithing money to support it.

so i do get to use my parkour skills here. all the time people are playing soccer on the streets and us as missionaries will join them for 5 to 15 minutes. its super hot afterwards as there are almost never any clouds on san roque, and all the time they will ask us to do a trick. elder soy can juggle for 50 plus times and do the trick where you are juggling with your foot and swing your foot all the way around the ball and keep juggling. whenever they ask me to do something, i just do a backflip and they all go wild. some of the kids here call me el gringo. good times. so i do an average of three flips a day, normally only a back or a side flip, but its still fun.

there are a lot of american stuff here. we have mcdonalds, kfc, and papa johns, which are the normal 5 to 12 dollars for meals, but the other stores like walmart are in san jose and the bigger cities. so liberia doesnt have much american stuffs. i like the stuffs here though, so its not really a problem. clothing is super cheap here. i dont really want to buy any trinkets here, only clothes, so im planning on buying a jersey from every area im at, plus more. at san jose, prices are cheap so you can get a jersey top from almost any team in the world and a couple of the teams in costa rica for 3 mil or 6 dollars for a normal, and 10 mil or 20 bucks for a really nice one. the majority of mine will be the cheap ones, but ill want some nice jerseys to. food is also a hit or a miss. you can get a full sized burger with fries for 2 mil, 4 bucks, but other things cost like 4 mil, or 8 bucks, to buy a big bag of cereal, ya things are offset here.

country still is beautiful though, sorry i couldnt find my charger till this morning so i didnt get very many pictures, but ill try to get some more for next week.  the first couple pictures of the plane ride, so beatiful, and the others are of the bus ride to liberia. it was really jungly, so thats what half of costa rica is like, but i dont have any of san rocque, that will be next week.

san rocque doesnt really have any of the freekishly big bugs like you see on google. there are random stray dogs EVERYWHERE, like 1 for every 8 houses, but not many. we dont have cocroaches or other bugs in our house, but thats because we are in this miny appartment complex thing. the majority oft he jungly forest and exotic animals are near the panama border, which is deathly hot. if i get sent there, ill be sure to show you all the crazy animals. here though, no big animals, just lots of puny ants.

houses are really small. probably 10 feet tall by 30 by 30 at max, with a yard about the same depth behind them. everyone has a television, normally a nice one, and lots of people have phones. id say about half are smart phones, half are brick phones. ive only seen 3 houses have a computer, and those were laptops. not a lot of internet here, only place you can get it is like here, in the internet cafes.

umm what else. its not like adams mission in mexico, there are no fields to work on or anything. its all just dirt rodes and houses, and so no manual labor is required. even if there were fields here, the pura vida lifestyle makes everyone super lazy to do anything. i really am curious what these people do here if they aren't working. 

so im probably forgetting a lot of stuff to talk about since there is so much to mention, so if i have forgotten anything major or you want to know more about something, let me know and ill mention it in the next letter. 

holding up great though, spanish is coming slowly, and im learning and understanding a little bit more every day. ps don't send packages unless you want to spend a lot of money. you have to detail everything in the package when shipping to costa rica and if its medicinal or hygenic stuff, normally they take it out. food to they normally take out. also fed ex doesnt work here, and it costs about $50 to send, so ya id say dont send any packages. if you really want, instead give mom some cash to put on here card so i can use it here to buy some dinner or something, other ways i can hold up.

lifes great, missionary work is different, but ill get use to it. 

Nos Vemos

Elder Campbell

beautiful views on the plane coming over

President Chad Read Wilkinson and his wife Allison Marie

There were 26 missionaries who arrived in Costa Rica together

first apartment

8-13-14 Last letter from MTC

To the World

     Well, seeing as this will be my last P-day here at the MTC, I'll have this letter be devoted to recapping my MTC experience. For sure the biggest thing i would say is that it wasn't what i thought it would be. I'm not quiet sure what i was expecting but it shocked me for the first few weeks getting use to it. 

      The schedule got pretty easy fairly fast. Waking up at 6:30 every morning wasn't to hard and by the end of week 1 i was waking up around 6:20-6:30 on my own without the alarm. Quiet time by 10:15 was also pretty standard, as that was just dedicated to writing in our journals or doing hygienic stuffs. Needless to say i was suppose to get 8 hours of sleep every night, but id say a good 3 of the 5 1/2 weeks that i'll be here i was sick, so it was more like 6 hours of sleep. I wonder what Costa Rica sleeping conditions will be like. I know we do have fans to keep us cool, but who knows, maybe we'll have hammocks down there because of the heat. That would be pretty awesome actually!

     The 3 classes a day got pretty easy fairly fast as well. Generally one of the 3 classes was designated to our study cycle ( for those of you who don't know it basically goes an hour of personal study, hour of companion study, and then an hour of language study.) During that time was normally when i did my tabbing for my scriptures or looked up Mormon messages.PS, on that topic, sort of, i found another really really good general conference talk. Look up The First Great Commandment by Holland given in Oct of 2012. That's a goody! 

     On average i'd say i probably studied 30-60 words a day, depending on my mood and what was being taught during class. Some days i would get super lazy and not study and of my flashcards, so then next day i would just down 80+ flash cards before i got to bed. Gift of tongues is pretty intense, because i can flip back to almost all of my flashcards I've used while I've been here and i can still remember what they mean. Thanks for AP classes in high school, that really trained me well for memorizing. If anyone is reading this and is debating between AP and concurrent, ya concurrent gives you basically the same credits, but they teach it differently meaning its less memorizing and testing and more like a, you showed up to class, here's your grade, doesn't matter if you learned anything or not. AP makes you do good in the curriculum and thereby prepares you better for college and studying in general, so i'd say AP classes all the way. Take it with a grain of salt to though, your listening to the person who took 5 AP tests his senior year and still was super bored, i probably should have taken 8 tests or something to keep my relatively sane XD

     Food is decent. I just got use to trying every meal and if it didn't taste good i would get a bowl of cereal and a salad. Not excited for Costa Rica salad though. For those of you who don't know, many areas in Costa Rica use ketchup + mayo (fry sauce) in their salads as dressing. I guess if you look at it its just similar to a stronger version of thousand island, but it still sounds nasty.) The only thing that kept me sane during the weeks here food wise was the cereal, Padre Juan's every other Monday, and going out to eat on P-days. Generally it was either DP Cheesesteaks, Burger Supreme (rip off of Astro Burger), or snacks at Sub-Zero or Jamba Juice. Without those p-day reminders of what real food tasted like, i might have gotten skinny. That being said i'm not sure how much i weigh, i don't get my scale until Sunday, but i'll let you know in the next letter how much weight I've gained/lost since I've been here. I don't feel much heavier, but i do always feel sluggish, so maybe i have gotten fatter. The world may never know.

     I wish there was a way for some people to experience the MTC without going on a full time mission though. MTC has completely changed my view on life, the gospel, and people and I've only been here 5 weeks. If i was to go home now, my life would be changed drastically, and i haven't even gotten close to finishing my mission. I can almost comprehend now the reason why people praise missions so much.

     That being said one of the biggest things I've learned here, we'll started to learn here, is that everyone is different. That's the only phrasing that makes sense to me, so ill try to explain it to you. I always thought of others in a way that was similar to "he is better at this than me" or "he just doesn't have that trait" which is kind of true. I never really looked at people as being different, only as them being better or worse at the traits i already had. Kinda self center now that i look at it, but hey i practically grew up being an only child with siblings, so i never had the experience to think of it any other way. I'm starting to grasp the concept that everyone is just different, not better or worse, just different. Some people in my district just really don't have a long lasting desire to focus or work hard. during study times they will just sit or do nothing productive, which was always hard for me to comprehend since i wanted to do so much in my limited space. One gospel-learned principle i've started to understand though is that everyone is different.

     It doesn't really matter whether we were given 10 talents or 1 talent. What matters is that you are using it. I've learned what i lack and what I've been blessed with while i'm here, and simply putting it i'd say i lack social skills, but I've been blessed with an ability to learn (Shout of to my parents for really helping me develop that one) It was always hard trying to comprehend why everyone couldn't work as hard as i was, but I've started to learn that it doesn't matter. In the eyes of our Padre Celestial, all that matters is that we are trying our best. For my good friend Elder Whitlock who has the attention span of, well, Elder Whitlock, he may not work long, but he really does put forth a lot of effort to try to understand Spanish, and most the time i just don't notice it. Everyone in the world is different, and so we shouldn't judge people based on how they respond to a situation contrary to how you would respond. In the words of President Uchtdorf, "Don't judge me because I sin differently than you." I'm so grateful I've learned that lesson, and i don't know if any other kind of setting could have taught me that without learning painful lesson's in the process. So thank you MTC, you do work miracles.

     Lastly, i'm trying to look up some personal study on how i can try to better improve myself, and a lot of stuff i can find information on, but this last one the church doesn't offer to much advise on. That being said i figured i could run it by the rest of you and see if you had any ides. The church talks a lot on being humble, but doesn't really give any direct guidance for being defensive. Probably because it fits into other categories (humility, anger management, patience, etc...) but that being said i'm really looking for things specific to being defensive. Since my resources are limited to basically LDS.org, Mormon.org, and the scriptures, i don't have the ability to search elsewhere. In a nut shell, what I've come up with so far is 1 Nephi 16: 1-2.

"1 And now it came to pass that after I, Nephi, made an end of speaking to my brethren, behold they said unto me: Thou hast declared unto us hard things, more than we are able to bear.

 2 And it came to pass that I said unto them that I knew that I had spoken hard things against the wicked, according to the truth; and the righteous have I justified, and testified that they should be lifted up at the last day; wherefore, the guilty taketh the truth tobe hard, for it cutteth them to the very center."

     That is definitely true, and that's something i can work on, but if any of you have any personal favorite talks on how to hold your piece when people offend you or how to not be defensive towards people, by all means send me an email or a DearElder this week. This last week at the MTC ill have LOTS of free time, so if you send me a DearElder full of your opinions on the topic or a talk given by someone (most likely this topic will be by people who are life counselors or etc. compared to apostles due to the specifics.) But ya if anyone knows of anything that talks about that, let me know, and that would be fantastic! I love learning from as many perspectives as i can.

That being said MTC has been great, and next time i write you i'll be in Costa Rica!

Until then,

Pura Vida

Hasta Luego

Elder Campbell

Family

     Glad that Mom and Dad were able to have dinner with the Shallenberger's, they really are awesome people. I never really got to know them too well as they are more of managers in the MTC setting than they are presidents, but that is just because they don't have to ask us to do anything. In the mission field i'll probably be getting assignments or asked to try other stuff out by my mission president, but here Pres. Shallenberger just presides in meetings, gives an occasional lesson in priesthood, and does interviews occasionally in person, but normally through his counselors. So that being said i never got to be to close to him, but from what i have seen, he is a fireball and is such a great person. It is really hard to describe his personality, but he is just on top of everything and crazy enthusiastic. Don't know how else i can say it.

Glad to here the wedding is finally over, and congrats to CJ and Megan for finally being on their honeymoon. Sounds like a lot of crazy stuff happened during the time you were all in Georgia, i guess weddings never do go perfectly as planned. I always here of flights getting delayed and what not, such as you guy's story, sounded miserable by the way. I hope my flight will go relatively as  scheduled. 

That being said, here is my schedule for leaving the MTC. I get all my passport and visa stuffs either Sunday night or Monday morning, and wake up at 4:35 am to get ready. The last Friday and Saturday i have here will be devoted to cleaning and packing, so Monday should basically just be moving around and waiting for deadlines. We board Delta Air Lines with 28 others going to Costa Rica, and from what i've heard thats a big group of newbies for a mission, but don't listen to me, i don't know anything about the norm. Flight is at 9:44 am and we arrive at Atlanta Georgia at 3:31 pm their time ( i believe.) That being said, i have a call card with 150 minutes on it so ill call home sometime between 7-10 am, and i don't know how long ill actually be able to have to talk.  I only get three calls for the 150 minutes total so i dont want to try to call each person individually. So if anyone wants to say high, arrange with mom and dad to be at their house at that time for when i do call. I'll try to call the home phone, so be prepared to answer with whoever may be on the other side of the line. 

3 hour layover once i arrive in Georgia, ill be sitting there from 3:31 pm to 6:02 pm. Then we hop on another Delta Air Lines flight to San Jose, Costa Rica, and we should arrive at 8:03 pm, which is on the same time zone as Utah, so i shouldn't have any jet lag. That's the plan anyways. From what I've heard, as soon as i land we'll be doing a session at the temple, if not we'll do it the next day along with all my paper work and what not that needs to be taken care of down there. After that, it's time to play ball and ill finally be in Costa Rica to start. 

Health is back up to par, today was the first day i didn't take any Dayquil, and i feel mostly fine. Probably gonna get a parasite my first month in Costa Rica since my immune system is down, but hey might as well get it over with as soon as possible right? Ya still not sure about that...

Grammar rules are finally done being taught here, as we have gone over all the tenses and grammar rules for Spanish, now all that is left is memorizing the however many nouns and verbs there are in the language. Needless to say im not fluent with the grammar, so ill still be practicing a lot, but it makes myself feel better saying i'm done learning the basics of spanish. Out of my two teachers here at the MTC, Brother Thorsen served his mission in Costa Rica 4 years ago so he has helped us learn a lot of the slang words and other things that we might not pick up since they are strictly Costa Rican.

You get use to listening to any kind of music that is on LDS.org, but i have realized what music i miss the most. Lots of genres i just accept not being able to listen to, but some songs still play in my head when i wake up, probably outlining what i really would define as my favorite genre of music. That being said its alternative, thanks brothers for that one, and the songs that i miss the most are 1-Chocolate by snow patrol 2-How to be dead by snow patrol 3-generate by collective soul 4-wasted by cartel 5-anything two door cinema club. Ill wake up with those songs playing in my head all the time, but at least they are mellow songs so i don't feel to bad about thinking about them. 

I also miss Spore. There was an Elder here who like me was a nerd back in the old days, and so we would always talk games we use to play or deep doctrine topics. One of which was talking about being kings and priests in the afterlife and the idea of creating our own worlds. The first thing that popped into my head was Spore and i've been craving playing it ever since. Oh and i also miss gamecube games like super mario sunshine, and windwaker. Sorry 360 and wii, looks like you don't have a place in my heart =P

Hopefully the family read the world letter which addressed the defensive topic. Especially immediate family members, you all are amazing to listen to with all your different thoughts and resources you know, so if you do know any person who has written books with good chapters or talks or what not, let me know what you have to say concerning that topic! I really respect all your guy's abilities of gathering information, probably where i get it myself, so share the love and give me all you got!

Well, next letter will be full of Costa Rican news and pictures, so i'll talk to you then!

Elder Campbell

Elder Campbell is one fabulous Elder and missionary!  We loved being able to serve together with him.  Great to see you Scott and Ronda.

Love you,

Steve and Roxanne

8-6-14

To the World

Hola! Week four has finally come to an end. I remember at first when all the zone leaders said that the time would fly by and by week two i still thought they were joking. Things are finally starting to speed up though, and i've only got 2 more weeks left in the MTC! I was made District leader this past week (10 people including myself), so that's new, but thats about it. I only really have to get mail every morning and night, and direct about 3 meetings during the week, but its just as easy as not having the calling. As nothing  else really epic has happened since my last email, ill instead share with you all the things i've learned over the past 4 weeks.

First off since we sing a hym for the beginning of every class, which is 3 times a day, you learn which songs are fun to sing and which aren't. They are all great songs that bring the spirit, but after singing about almost every song in the hymnos, you realize most songs are above your vocal range. PS its not just a rumor, songs sung in Spanish sound a lot better than songs sung in English. Every time we have a devotional on Sunday or Tuesday it sounds really weird since it's always in English for the big meetings. Devotionals are great by the way, ill talk about that later. Anyways, favorite song to sing right now is probably High on the Mountain Top. Two reasons for that. 1-being that i can sing all the song normally and then i also have all the harmony memorized which songs pretty cool to sing. Singing is actually fun when you can comfortably hit all the pitches. Normally, singing stinks because you can only comfortably hit maybe half the notes in a song and the rest you quietly hit the same note but an octave down or so. We also get to listen to the Motab or whatever other music they have on LDS.org to listen to. Favorite song to hear that's well done Dear to the Heart of the Shepherd. My favorite version online is probably the one sung by the priesthood session, whenever the congregation versions pop up i normally skip them, not to fun to listen to. Too many types of voices, and youth XD

Speaking of music, i'm really starting to miss it. I've adjusted to not doing parkour, but music is a different thing. I tend to do about an average of one sideflip every P-Day just to stay sane, but every time we hop on a bus to go somewhere that's not on West Campus they are playing some toons. Or like today when we go into Sub-Zero to get some ice cream we here a new Imagine Dragons song playing. Thanks world, now i know they either came out with a new song or probably a new album i don't get to here, of course you couldn't wait till i left the MTC to release the album! People these days...

I've also watched most all of the Mormon messages.  I'd say my favorite two are the '13 Earthly Father, Heavenly Father and '13 A Secure Anchor. That's all i'm gonna say about those two, good times.

Some other things i've learned here, this is where the letter gets a bit deeper, is the personality traits  that i have strongly developed growing up, those i need to work on, and the ones others have that ill go into depth later.

For me, these are all the negative things i've discovered. We'll, im not saying that in a demeaning tone, but more like i realize i do them and so i'm trying to fix them for my benefit in the future.
1. I get defensive, even if my mind thinks im just justifying itself. Ha, that is being defensive, my mind just doesn't believe it though. Out of the Elders here, Elder Ferrin and Elder Kirk, are really sarcastic people. Most the time they are making jokes, many of which are crude and  can make people feel uncomfortable, but almost all of us just get use to it. Or if someone does something embarrassing, they lets everyone know by essentially shouting it out, often weeks later bringing back embarrasing moments for people.  That being said, often i'll do something dumb and one of them will say something, and i try to defend myself and he just keeps egging me on. Almost immediately after its over i realize i shouldn't have said some stuff, or it seemed like i was being a little angry to others or on a bad mood the way i reacted. That being said i'm trying to just take it in, and not say anything in return. Lately its just gotten to the point where when they make fun of me or says something to embarrass me in front of the Hermanas and i just say OK or ignore it.

2. With that in mind, i tend to be a little socially shy in large groups. At times i can get pumped up and i feel like i'm having a really good time, but most of the time i'm really trying to focus on my personal study or the class and everyone is making jokes, and i'm the only one not adding onto the side conversation or what not. Meh i wouldn't really call it a bad thing, as i'd rather focus on work during class time and play later, but it's not like i can do anything about the rest of them, so i'll just keep letting it happen. It explains why i didn't have to many close friends in high school, as it was more like a lot of mediocre friends that i only hung out with at school. But hey i'm still fine with that so i won't really be trying to change that anytime soon. That being said that transitions perfectly into what i have realized i do well.

For the first week i was here, i thought i was near the bottom of the class when it came to my language ability, but it's changed now, There were plenty of people who had taken 4-5 years of Spanish or took it in College for part of a degree, and its surprising how much i came to expect out of people when they said they went to college. Everyone maid college out to sound like it was crazy and it beat you up, but for the same people that said they got A's in spanish in college, they are the same ones now that are struggling behind in the language and the lessons here. I'm not saying that i'm expecting College to be easy, i'm still probably gonna get slapped in the face when i get there, but i really think grades still aren't a good determination of how well you can really work. Most the people in our district (10 people) can focus for an hour, but have to have the concepts explained to them again and again or are unmotivated to learn for themselves. That being said, i'll start sharing what i've learned about my self

1. When i want and have the desire to, i can focus really well and really hard. I tend to stay about a week or two ahead of everyone else with the language, and not because i'm trying to, but i just always ask questions and when the teacher explains a quick scenario, i figure out the whole concept for myself within a few minutes after. That being said its like public school again, where it takes 7 hours for school, but you really only need 3. For the classes, if we are talking about spiritual stuff or how to teach people, by all means i don't want that to slow down and i'm not quicker than the others on that, but for the Spanish yes. Anywhere from 1-3 of the classes are focused on the Idioma and i really only need the first 30 minutes, the rest of the time i'm listening and answering questions but practicing writing sentences for my own understanding.

I also don't understand why people don't do the homework. Occasionally for hard topics in the idioma they will assign a short, maybe 5 minute homework assignment in one of the books (normally its all done in class) and the answers are in the back of the book if you don't understand. Every time i'm the only one who does it, and coincidentally the only one who understands the topic 30 minutes later. Hmm wonder why... I've learned another pet peve im trying to work on. All the time people will complain about not understanding a topic or something and during their free time, instead of trying to study it or figure it out they will throw a racquetball against a wall for two hours or take a nap. I've probably done that a lot when i was still living back home, and probably still do now occasionally, but i hope i can fix that before the mission is over.

2. I'm really fast at memorizing things. There are a lot of things we've had to learn in Spanish, and then later memorize them so we can use them in lessons or so. So i'm gonna type the first few things we learned the first week or two in spanish, since i'm better than at english, but without the accents because the computers here are obnoxious at typing those. So first off there is the Missionary Purpose 1. "Invitar a las personas a venir a Cristo al ayurdarlas a que reciban el Evangelio resturadio mediante fe en Jesucristo y su expiacion, el arrepentimiento, el bautismo, la reception del don del espiritu santo, y el perserverar hasta el fin." 2. Invitation to baptism. "Seguira el ejemplo de Jesucristo al ser bautizado por alguien que posea la autoridad del sacerdocio de Dios? El fecha tendremos un servicio bautismal. Se preperara para ser bautizado ese dia?" and 3. James 1:5 "Y si alguno de vosotros tiene falta de sabiduria, pidala a Dios. quien da a todos abundatamente y sin reproche, y le sera dada.

Anyways thats just three basic ones we had to learn in the first week, and its taken some people until now to memorize them. Reason i mention those is because each one has taken me maybe 20 minutes tops to memorize it in english and spanish, and now im memorizing about another 2-3 scriptures a week, and i can still remember them all. Generally it takes me less than 5 minutes for short scriptures, and 20 for long ones. I've memorized the following in english in spanish. Moroni 10:3-5. Ether 12:27, Moroni 3:19. JSH 1: 16-19, Alma 7: 11-14, D&C 4, and a whole bunch more.

My class mates are starting to get mad at me for how much im learning, especially since i can blow through memorizing scriptures in a matter of minutes. I also tend to ask a question every once and a while in class for clarification, or just a random grammar principle im learning for myself , and everyone glares at me. Occasionally i'll ask a class mates if they know how to do or say something, and almost always their reaction was "Why would you ask me, I don't know Spanish and  you know everything anyways." I've probably got that response from about 6 of the 9 people in my district, so i'm gonna take that as they aren't too happy with me.

Don't mean to bother them, im just curious and want to work hard with the language, but hey i guess thats just the way i am.  I won't share any other things i've learned since im running out of time, but possibly later.

My testimony has grown really really strong lately, and what i want to mention today is my prayers. Saying them in spanish really makes me focus on not saying just filler sentences or giving gratitude for the usual stuff, but what im really thinking and feeling. Very often i have 10-15 minute prayers at night most of which are filled with me being grateful for how blessed i've been growing up with my family, my life, and my personal qualities that i'm so grateful to have. I really do notice now how spoiled i use to be and am really grateful now for how well im picking up everything and the experiences here at the MTC.

Thats about all my spiritual stuff for today.

I don't have much to say otherwise, except to mention the eclairs that were sent to me. Thank you soo much! Except for the fact that there was a little baggy of ice under neath them to try and keep them refrigerated. It even had another bag around everything so it wouldn't soak the rest of the box of the ice melted. Anyways, turns out the ice did melt, got the eclairs soggy, and soaked the bottom of the entire box. Luckily all that got really got wet was the shirt and the other sealed granola box, and everything else was sealed so it was fine. Looking on the bright side, there was about a total of 1 1/2 good eclair bits that weren't soaked so i did still get to taste some eclairs. Thanks!

Anyways my hour is about up, loving the mission field, loving the teaching experiences to. Lessons with investigators are getting progressively better and better, and now that we've been teaching so long, every once and a while with an investigator they actually ask hard questions or we have to teach things that aren't so simple or redundant anymore. Good times.

Costa Rica in two weeks, can't wait to head out, i'm really getting excited to hit the real world.

Ill upload some pictures of my tabbed scriptures as well, but otherwise.

Hasta Luego

Elder Campbell.

PS if you don't like the long letter, don't read it all, but my P-day is my day to vent, so what ever comes out is whats gonna be on this letter =P