MTC: Week 1

Hey mom (and rest of family), 

Things are honestly awesome here at the MTC.  It's super busy, but in the best way.  It doesn't even feel like hard work, because it's all so much fun.  We've done so much it's hard to believe it's only been a week.  Gosh, there's so much to talk about I literally can't get it all.  So there are 5 elders (no sisters) in the Armenian-learning group, all of which are going to Armenia except me.  So I'm in a trio with Elders Clark and Schaumann, who are both awesome.  Elder Schaumann came to the MTC already speaking a ton of Armenian, apparently he already put hundreds of hours into it.  So he's been super helpful in learning the language.  Actually, he's a master at basically everything, he was a piano major at BYU and he's been playing the piano beautifully at devotionals.  Then there are two other Elders in my district, who are the only Georgian speakers (going to Georgia).  They're really cool too

I'm shocked at how huge it is here!  There were over 600 new missionaries that came in on the Wednesday that I arrived. I've seen Elder Smith, Elder Cluff, and an Elder who I worked with at the Gilbert Temple.  I still don't know my way around everything, but I'll get it eventually, and thankfully Elder Clark really knows his way around.  

Classes have been fantastic!  Armenian is so fun (and I'm finally starting to realize just how hard it is.  They conjugate their nouns into like 6 different cases depending on whether it's the subject, direct object, indirect object, possessive, etc. of the sentence. Like what the heck).  But it's been great, and I can tell you for sure that the gift of tongues is real.  Considering I've been here only a week I'm shocked at how much I can say.  I'm slow at it still, but I can introduce myself, pray, testify, share a scripture, extend an invitation, and just talk about a bunch of random things.  Our classes are in the building for all the eastern-ish languages. It's so cool, you'll just be walking down the hall and meet people speaking Russion, German, going to Ukraine, etc. So cool

Anyway, there's tons of stuff I'm leaving out, but hopefully I can share it with you eventually.  Maybe there'll be a time later today that I can call you.  And I'll get pictures over to you too

Bye for now,

Elder Clayton

(Email 1 Cont.)

So that big map picture has all the district members in it.

From left to right: Me, Schaumann, Clark, Gervasi, Price, Bergeson (Georgian speaking), and Springer (Georgian speaking)

Also I am the district technology specialist.  Elder Springer was the district leader, but now he's the zone leader and Elder Gervasi is the district leader.

And it snowed a little bit! It's not too terribly cold yet but I can tell it will be soon.

The food is fantastic.  Lots of unique options every day

I'll keep telling you things as I think of them! Happy Thanksgiving!