Massive Tyrannosaurus Croissant

 Hola Amigos! 

Fair warning: this email is probably going to be massive. These four weeks have FLOWN by so I haven't written an email since I got to the Missionary Training Center (that's the actual meaning of MTC, but I liked the title of this email better) and I am now paying for it because I've come to realize there's just no way to write about everything that's happened while I've been here. But I'm gunna try to cover a lot of it anyways, so I'll just title some stuff and you can read what you want, or you can come back to the email throughout the week and finish it someday. Idunno man I just work here. BUT NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT MY FAILURE TO WRITE IN THE PAST YOU WANNA HEAR ABOUT ELDER JOHNSON SO LETS DO THIS 

DISTRICT:

My district is awesome. We have 8 Elders and 8 Hermanas, all from totally different places in the world with totally different personalities and talents, but we all are here for the same purpose and that makes it easy to love each other a lot. Even the Canadians. (Jaja just kidding Canadians are cool) But seriously, it's been a huge blessing to have such cool people to be with here. From district prayers together on our knees, to Elder Butler force feeding his hijo Elder Alvarado his fruits and veggies every day and all the elders helping Hermana Scott get over her Dr pepper addiction by destroying or hiding her drinks in various ways, we do our best to be family for each other. Also my companion got called as district leader. At first he was more stressed about it but he seriously is the best dude for the job. I think he got assigned because the Lord was like "Yeah, right now you don't think you can do this but actually I'm gunna show you that you can" And now he's a beast at it so it all works out. Dad's are like that sometimes, even our Heavenly Dad. He likes to give us hard stuff since we so often forget how buff we are as spiritual children of the Creator of the Universe.

VALENTINIRTHDAY:

My first full week in the MTC it was the week of my birthday AND valentines day. (hence the name of this section) For some reason I subconsciously thought leaving home meant adios to everybody, and I just wasn't really expecting much after I left, but turns out I still got emails from people. That was awesome. And the week of my birthday I got enough junk food sent from my friends, family, and even some people in my district to feed an army. Or one Brandon for a few days. Gosh dang you guys know me too well. Valentines day was also the day of our weekly devotional where one of the general authorities of the church comes and speaks to us. There also happens to be an MTC choir that practice and perform during devotional night, and my companion and I made it our goal to get every elder to sing in choir (because our dads both said it was awesome when they served missions) But PSYCHE not only did every elder come to sing in choir on valentines day our ENTIRE 16 person district ended up coming. Elder Berry was a very happy district leader that night. We sang "there is a green hill far away" with hundreds of missionaries, and it flooded the meeting with the spirit. I also gave a plastic red flower to the conductor as a valentines day present and he wore it in his front pocket while he directed the choir which made me feel awesome. And THEN the speaker ended up being Elder Jeffery R Holland's son. And BETTER YET turns out the speaker was supposed to be Jeffery R Holland in the first place, and he had written a talk to give to us, but was sick, so he sent his son to give his talk for him and share the same message. It was super cool because Elder Holland hasn't written down his talks for the MTC in all the decades he's been giving talks at the MTC, he just speaks from the spirit, but he just happened to decide to write down this one and happened to be sick the day he was supposed to deliver it. We got to hear an apostle's word's delivered by way of MIRACLE. Life don't get much better than that. Best valentines day gift ever: God's love.

Dad joke moment for you since you've made it this far: There's an elder Cottem in our district, so anytime I get the opportunity to say GOTTEM, Instead I yell COTTEM hahaha so funny 

 SPANISH:

It's goin purty dang good. 6 hours a day for 4 weeks oughta do that. I have enough vocab to survive, and im comfortable enough with what I have that sometimes after a conversation I remember everything that was said but I don't remember if it was in spanish or english. It's starting to get a little confusing using two languages all the time. Theres been a lot of funny moments with Spanish though because It's a continuous game of charades to figure out what the heck we're trying to say, because in class we're using only spanish to say things in spanish THAT WE DON'T KNOW HOW TO SAY IN SPANISH. Like one time I tried to say "put your shoulder to the wheel" to suggest as a hymn, but I don't know how to say shoulder or wheel in spanish so I just said "vamos usted braza a el circular" (go and get your arm to the circular) Or whenever we slide our chairs around in class, instead of saying skirt skirt we say falda falda (cuz that's the Spanish word for the clothes kind of skirt jaja) Now for the final week in the MTC we've accepted the SYL challenge (speak your language) so we're only allowed to speak Spanish the entire week, except for calling family or when we need to talk to someone who doesn't speak Spanish or somethin. So yeah we all really miss English right now. It's gotten to the point we're trying to transcribe our shower songs to Spanish so we can still yell in the showers. "VAMOS AQUI Y RECIBIR USTEDES AMOORRR" (Our rendition of come and get your love) 

 IT SNOWED:

After class one evening during the second or third week, we came outside to find it was dumping big fat snowflakes all over the place. It was pretty dang magical. It was the first time it's snowed since we were here. Everybody was super happy. But my companion was probably the most excited of all because he grew up in Utah with the snow and loves it, and thought he wouldn't see it for two years since he's serving in Honduras. Yet here we are and it's dumping thick constant clouds of snow in this lamplit walk back to our apartments. We slid down the sidewalk and chucked snow all over the place, and Elder Berry yelled I LOVE JESUS and yelled at other people about how much Jesus loves them because there's snow. Then he wrote "Jesus Loves You" in the snow. (I'll put that in the pictures) Heck yeah he does. I bet God knew how happy some snow would make all his missionaries here. Okay this has been quite a bit already so I'm gunna wrap this up. Along with the fun stuff and growth stuff, my favorite thing I'm learning right now is how freaking cool the gospel is. As I review these truths I've gotten to grow up with, but now I'm trying to study and explain them on their most basic level (because spanish) I feel like saying wow to a whole lot of things even though I've already known them. Because dang, God is our Heavenly father and he loves us. He is all knowing and all powerful and a perfect glorified being, but out of all the names he could have us call him, he asks that we call him Father. We are worth everything to him so much that the only thing we understand that's close enough to how he feels is how a parent feels about their child. Jesus Christ, the son of God, has suffered everything you have suffered and overcame sorrow and death, so that we, through him, can also receive redemption from sin and death and have joy in this life, and eternal life with God in the life hereafter. That's something worth leaving my home for 2 years and learning spanish to teach others about. 

 HASTA LUEGO MI AMIGOS 

 PHOTOS: https://photos.app.goo.gl/pf1TgJAc3XnuoSQy6