Brian Letter 11-23-04

Dear Family,

The MTC is incredible. We had a fireside tonight and our speaker works as an institute teacher at UVSC, and his talk was AMAZING. I haven't felt the Spirit like I did tonight in a long, long time. He talked about gratitude, and I came away with the strongest feelings that God loves us. I have no doubt of that. I realized tonight that I don't express nearly enough how grateful I am for the Gospel in my life and for my family. It's really good to know that we can be together forever, and that's what I am going to teach. I'm not grateful enough for the knowledge that I have, the world needs the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm glad that I have the opportunity and calling to be a full time servant of the Lord. I love the MTC. I am learning so much, and I'm growing so much.

Update - 11/24: I'm doing laundry now. It's my first P-day. It's only 7 am. It's kind of nice to have some time to finally go get some sticky notes and note cards and things. There is honestly only about half an hour of personal time every day. But on the other hand, it's nice to have class tonight. P-Day ends at 6:00 and then we get to learn again. Yay!

I've been here a week, and Spanish is coming along really well. Everyone in my district asks me things when they don't know. I think they think I know everything. Sometimes that gets annoying, like last night when the branch presidency came and some of the elders in my district said that I was better than all of them. I don't mind if they think I'm smart but it's kinda awkward when they say so. I still feel like I'm not picking it up fast enough, and I hate making mistakes.

Oh, I need to mention that my companion is district leader, so I'm assistant DL. We didn't find out until Sunday because our branch president wanted to interview everyone before making a decision. My compañero is pretty cool, he's a lot more reverent than the rest of my district. Some of them get pretty excited sometimes. They're fun, but I'm glad my comp is one of the more subdued elders.

I just inherited a wall full of verbs. Some of the elders that are ready to leave gave us their vocabulary sheets, it's awesome… or I should say, "imponente!" Yah, it's 13 pages. I hope I can learn them all. I hung them over my desk.

My companion likes Hanes socks, and also Foot Locker. But he likes my Florsheim socks more. He wants to buy some from me. If I had a way to replace my socks I would give him some.

Do you still have my journal? I'm pretty sure I left it in the car when you left. Maybe I just lost it here or something. I don't think I have a picture of The Wessman's either. I know Julie gave me one, but I can't find it. I'll look for those again, but if you have them, would you mind sending them to me?

Well I have to go now. I'm out of time again. Have a good day, I hope to hear from y'all soon!
Happy Birthday Michael! ☺

Love,
Elder Brian D. Harris

Ps- I have a pair of slacks with a broken zipper. Should I send them home or try to get them fixed in Venezuela?