July 12, 2017

 This first week has been crazy. I am feeling more comfortable with Spanish, its weird being in the MTC because my high school self is not my most successful self here. The first few days I tried to treat class and this work like I did in high school. I tried to get like competitive and really motivated to do the work for myself and all it did was stress me out and make me feel cut off from others because I wanted to do better than them in the language. I realized that that is not how the lord works and that taking a more selfless approach was the way to go. Its pretty cool but I am having a hard time looking outward but its all good. It is so surreal that I am across the street from BYU and can see the campus from my classroom. Also its so funny to me that my dad walked these same halls and did the same stuff that I did. It is comforting to know that you did this because it helps me believe that I can. The devotionals here have been amazing and all of them have really pierced my heart. Last night we heard about these 3 levels of thought about dealing with the tension between the ideal and real world. It was really cool because it was intellectually stimulating and helped comfort my doubts.

My companion is going to Quito as well and everyone else in my district is going to Argentina.
 I get the release date info on my fourth week. P-day is awesome. Every day since Sunday has been amazing.
I love you guys