WEEK 2

This week has largely been similar to last week. Turns out that the
first investigator you have to teach (in my case, Juan) is usually
just one of the teachers pretending to be an investigator. At our
fourth visit, he had finally begun to read the Book of Mormon, and
soon after that we taught him other laws such as the Word of Wisdom,
tithing and chastity, and he accepted the invitation to be baptized in
two months. Every day with regular classes, I have had lessons on how
to teach people more effectively, and we have studied how to greet
people when knocking on doors and how to teach the first discussion.
My Spanish is starting to get better, but still broken and not very
fluent as my brain takes time to calculate the conjugations of words I
need to use. This week I will be teaching two investigators - one,
Augustin, who is actually my regular teacher masquerading as an
investigator for our class, and another one, Daniel De Moura, who is
from Brazil and studied 4 years of Spanish. He could possibly be a
real investigator (although I can't be sure). During the appointment
yesterday, Daniel told me and Elder Torp that he had an open mind to
learn about Jesus Christ, likes the Mormon culture and might apply to
BYU, but isn't quite sure why we need religion. After all, he was
raised Catholic, and the early Portuguese settlers who brought the
Catholic Church to Brazil also took the native people into slavery.
Why can't science and good ethics be enough, he wonders? After
teaching we left Hermana Valle behind in Building 4 (my companion and
I were not the very last to leave) but thankfully the other sisters
found her and brought her to dinner.

I haven't slept here as well as back at home; waking up feels somewhat
like getting up for seminary because it's still dark and I often wake
up in advance of the alarm, just like in school. The food is very much
like the Cannon Center except that you only have time to get one set
of plates (it often takes 15 minutes in line before you can eat, and
sometimes almost 30). Also, I've been drinking club soda about every
day now that they have that in the fountain drink machines. There is
no soft serve ice cream but there are ice cream bars and sometimes BYU
Creamery ice cream. I have also seen two people I knew from my
seminary class, Amity Poulsen and Ben Bartschi.

I also have some other interesting news. My companion was originally
put in the advanced class, but later someone decided intermediate
might be better for him. However, his bishop and other leaders were
not notified about this so his MTC date stood at 8/10 where it would
have been for the advanced class. They should have moved his MTC date
to 7/20 to allow him time to get through the intermediate track but
this change was never made. As such, he will be leaving the MTC next
Tuesday at 3:30am, and we will be having a "transfer day" then and I
will have a new companion for my last 3 weeks at the MTC, most likely
Elder Martin, Monteiro or Silva. Elder Torp will have to pack his bags
and move out and go to Infield Orientation and Departure Devotional in
a companion exchange while I am still in class/choir. Also, I found
that my companion was born at about exactly the same time I was -
sometime very early in the morning of November 19, 1996 but on the
east coast.

As you can see, the schedule is not that much different from what I
had at BYU - I spend most time at classroom buildings studying and am
only in the dorms for sleeping and changing clothes, although I return
back there about 90 minutes earlier. The temple endowment last week
was in English. Devotional and choir were great this Sunday - the
Nashville Tribute Band came to perform, and the choir got to sing "I
Was Born", "John's Song" (the Baptist) and "When the Son of Man Comes
Again".

I'm glad that you could have fun going to Kanab and hiking! That must
have been a nice break from work and getting ready for school. I can't
believe school is about to start - it doesn't feel like summer is
ending since I'm at the MTC and the days and weeks blur together. I
hope everyone can enjoy their first day of class, and I'm excited to
continue hearing from you through the DearElder letters! 

Talk again next week!

It's likely now that my companion will actually be here all 6 weeks
because of new travel plans he was given. He was actually able to call
home for that reason. I just got back from the Temple.

Dakota and his companion Elder Torp