June 3rd, 2008

Jordan's first week in the MTC:

Hey family how is it going? The rules are I am only allowed to email to family so you will have to forward this on to everyone else. So the first full day was like the longest day of my life at the MTC we had about 8 hours of language study plus meetings and orientations, but it has gotten much better since then. The language learning is going well I am doing pretty well with learning the vocab the grammar is giving me a little bit of trouble though, haha I had to relearn in English what the subject, direct object and indirect object of a sentence is so we could do some stuff in Czech with it. It feels great to learn a new language it is frustrating at times but I like it. At times I am jealous of the English speaking missionaries because they get to be out teaching to the people a lot sooner than us. This last week we have been spending a lot of time practicing teaching the first lesson which is good, it makes it a lot easier when you have a companion to flow with. I never realised how much information Preach my gospel has besides the lessons to help you with the teaching process. You guys should definetly like switch off every home evening and have somebody just teach one point of a lesson in preach my gospel in their own words. So on saturday i was able to say my first prayer in Czech with out any notes which was really cool, right now I am working on bearing a simple testimony in Czech. The food is pretty good here I can see why alot of people gain weight but I only get one serving I hold back from getting seconds :) my companion was quite the wrestler in high school so he does a good job of keeping me in shape. Every night we do pull ups since there is a pull up bar on our floor and we have started doing push ups too. Gym is pretty fun we play basketball and it is quite the cardio work out which is good for me. Another good thing for keeping me in shape is that we live on the 4th floor of our residence hall and our classroom is on the 3rd floor so there is definitely a lot of climbing stairs. I was definitely homesick the first couple of days but it has gotten better its nice with how busy they keep us during the day you dont have much time for it. This last Sunday we had a mission conference which is kind of like a stake conference which was good and then afterward we had a fast and testimony meeting with my branch which was good. There were a lot of good testimony's from some older elders and sisters who had changed their lives around and came. We have had firesides galore and they are all really uplifting and get you ready to work. I have seen both Mac and James, Mac left yesterday for Detroit and since James is here for 12 weeks we leave the same day of July 28th. A good quote I heard I cant remember from who is "we leave our families for two years so others can be with theirs for eternity". We have a good group of us learning Czech we all work hard and get along well. This morning we had the opportunity to go to the Provo Temple which we get to do every P day, it was awesome i wish we got to go more but once a week is still well. Afterward we hit up the temple cafeteria for breakfast which was very good I think it is something we will do every time. Thank you all for all the many letters and packages I love them all they help so much in staying strong you guys are awesome I love you all and I have written some letters ill send later today. Keep on being good and let me know what all is going on.
Love
Jordan AKA STARSI HATCH