On Jul 10, 2014, at 1:15 PM, Spencer Brady wrote:
Dear all,Wow. I think my first day here had to have the longest day of my entire life. And it doesnt feel like its only been a week here. Time is strange in the CCM (MTC). It feels like a month has passed since I left. We are sooooo BUSY! I love it though. I really do. Please forward this to anyone and everyone.Theres only about 40 missionaries here. My companion is great! Smallish wrestler from Las Vegas with latin blood. Nice kid. His mom is Mexican, so his spanich is so much better than mine. Which is nice, cause he's always willing to teach me. I share a room with Elder Breshears, our district leader, and the biggest gringo from Idaho you'll ever meet. Way funny. His spanish is so terrible, poor guy. He'll come along though. Very funny guy. We keep a list of tthings he'll say we call "breshisms" in our room. Things like; Mucho Lucko! Conjuhardo! and Buenski!. Elder Austil is his companion. Smart kid. real nice too. My companion's name is Elder Orchard. I'm really startin to love these guys! Theres a polynesian fella with us, Elder Kini Kini, I call him Johny Lingo, and he calls me Brady Bunch.During gym we play Yltimate! the games get serious! no, we just have a lot of fun. And when were done, were drenched with sweat. SO HOT HERE! And ive never experienced humidity like this. My towel is perpetually wet. The staff is great! theyre all dominican, and they are all so darn funny. Hermano Nunez, one of the teachers, plays Ultimate with us and when we're losing, he "Opens the Gate" so he calls it. Im convinced its some kind of access to an astril place of power from on high, cause when he opens the first gate, he goes crazy with the frisby!Whent to the temple today. So beautiful. The outside is a lot more reddish than any picture you see. It's so unique. There's a little guy about 12 or so, super black, son of our cook shirley, he is so funny! and mean! What a little twerp sometimes, but we love him! Met a bossy little girl while walking around the temple who didnt want us to leave, so she gave us some of her "snow" which was just bits of styrofoam she was playing with. She was So cute!The food here is great! they feed us well. People werent kidding though... Rice and beans with some kind of meat EVERYDAY! Not bad though, its good food. They decorated the cafateria with a ton of red, white and blue for the Fourth of July! so awesome of them.The language is coming well. Theyve crammed so much stuff into my head, its crazy. Last night we tought our progressive invesatigator (Hermano Ramirez) for 50 minutes. EN ESPANOL!!!! it went really well too... were learning very fast, and are certainly blessed with the gift of tongues.Sometimes it gets really hard, but the next moment after you're discouraged, the Lord answers your prayer with great encouragement. This is one of the hardest things ive ever done, and i know it will only get harder. But im glad im here. And i know it will be worth it.With Love,Elder Brady