Well, the first week really went by slow, but it is really starting to pick up! I can't believe that tomorrow at 1:00pm, I will have been here for two weeks! Its crazy. I have been learning a ton, and the language is coming along great! We have been teaching a fake investigator, all in Bahasa Indonesia, but we always have notes with vocab. Yesterday we taught her completely without notes! It was insane. But it taught us a lot, and we are growing each day.
One thing I really like about the MTC is Gym time. We sit down all day, and study, study, study, so it is really nice to play a brutal game of basketball to release some tension and anger... Just kidding, but it is really fun!
Just so you know Mom, I have been getting your letters and Dad's. They are so nice to receive! So keep them coming! And thank you a ton for the package, it was perfect.
Also, thank you Leslie, for the doughnuts, Karen, for the cookies and WD-40, Grandma James, for the Rice Krispies Treats, Spencer for the shoes, (they fit perfectly) and for everything else people send to me! It is so nice to get things!
Mom, thank you for telling me about Hanna. I was so sad that I wasn't able to be there to see it off to him, but thank you for organizing it so he could get those things. I'm sure it was a very great experience.
The food here is good, but I eat WAY too much, and the fried food and such is getting really old. Our District is talking about going on a diet from all the food that makes us sick, but our Indonesian teacher said it would probably be the cleanest, best quality food we will have for two years, so we might as well enjoy it! Our teachers have been telling us a lot about Indonesia, and it is getting us very excited! One thing that I am definately looking forward too is the cheap items I can buy. Apparently, Gucci, Armani, and many other fine clothing brands make their fabric there, and we will be able to buy custom fitted, real Armani and Gucci suits for about $120!!! And many other things like that will be available for purchase! I sure hope these seven weeks go by fast, because I can't wait to go out!
Our day to day life is becoming pretty much the same now that we are all settled into the MTC. I am starting to get adjusted to waking up at 6:30 a.m., and sleeping at 10:30 a.m. The only exception is Saturdays, where each district has to clean for an hour at different times of the day. Our district was by far the luckiest, since we do service at 6:00 a.m., and have to wake up around 5:30am. Lucky right?? (can you hear the sarcasm?) We mostly just clean toilets, mop the floor, and clean many other things. But I am really enjoying my district, so it's not too bad. We are, in fact, such good friends that we have a rather nasty reputation for being the loudest, most obnoxious group in the MTC. But we are getting along much better than some other groups, so it's worth it.
We have devotionals on Tuesday nights and firesides on Sunday nights, which are my favorite, because the speakers are incredible. Last Tuesday a member of the Seventy came, who gave a great talk, and I have heard that apostles come as well sometimes. We also watch movies after the firesides on Sunday, and even though they are sometimes pretty cheezy, they are nice to watch.
It is incredible how much you can learn in only a few weeks when you focus really hard. I can now understand some conversations if they are spoken very slow, and if I really concentrate. Indonesian is actually not too bad to learn, it is mostly vocabulary that takes time to memorize. You can quite literally speak like a caveman, which is improper, but everyone understands. So I could say "you give me apple?" or "you happy?" and it is okay! There are also not nearly as many grammar rules and exceptions, as in English, so it can be learned fairly easily.
I thank you all for the support, and I am so glad to be here. I wish I could write more, but our time is limited, and I have to get going!
Love you all,
Elder James
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