Anxious to go to Chile!

Sept 9, 2014

Elder Stam, Elder Johnson and Elder ?

My week has been alright. It's all starting to be the same now. We do the exact same thing almost every day, so it's getting pretty boring. I'm supposed to leave the MTC on September 23rd. Which is two weeks from today. I'm so stoked to get out of this place. I'm so ready for Chile now.  I'm still feeling great. Not sick at all still. Which is good.

I got the package of goodies. Thank you haha. And yes I did share with them. And the cream soda was awesome.  Thanks for the note as well. I'll try to send more pictures later today. I don't have very many pictures though because we can only take them on P Day.

Yes I eat chips and salsa almost every day at lunch. They have the most amazing salsa you could ever imagine here. It's crazy. One of our teachers is also going to bring habanero peppers on the last day for anyone that wants to eat them. I'm up for the challenge. It might kill be but it will be memorable haha.  I've heard that the food in Chile is really good, but it's not spicy unfortunately. I love spicy. It'll still be good though.

 There's been a huge debate in our district over BYU and Utah. Of course, me being the district leader, made it final that Utah was better. I love that they're having a good season so far. I can use that against the BYU fans now too.

 In the MTC, we have the same companion. I'm pretty sure I'm companions with him until we get to the mission home in Chile. I have two companions now, because his other companion went home, so we were put in a trio. It's strange, but not too bad.

I was able to say a prayer in Spanish after like three days haha, so prayers are easy to me. It's just the every day talk now that I can't do very well. We've only learned gospel Spanish, so just talking normally is pretty hard. We don't have the vocab yet. I can say "Through the Gospel of Jesus Christ you can be cleaned of your sin and be worthy to enter the kingdom of God", but I can't say fork or spoon in Spanish.

Having fun with his companions!

Love, Elder Stam

District in Mexico City

Elders Stam, Walker and Johnson

Week 3- MTC Hump Day!

Sept 2, 2014- Still no photos of Elder Stam, UGH we need to figure that out asap!

Mother,

The time has absolutely just flown by. It's crazy. Yeah every day all day is study time haha. They haven't taught any culture classes at all. In fact, we haven't heard anything about Chile really. That's okay though. It'll make it more of an adventure when we get there. It should be a lot of fun.

I am doing pretty good. I'm starting to get bored though. We do the exact same thing every day. And we pretty much eat the exact same thing every day too, so I'm starting to get sick of the food. But I still haven't gotten sick, so that's good. Time is a weird game, I could swear we just got here like three days ago, but it feels like I've been here for an extremely long time. And I'm already starting my fourth week in the MTC tomorrow. I have definitely learned a lot, but I'm ready for something new. Chile will be a lot more fun I think. I've been watching the weather too. We get on the computers every night here to do this thing called TALL, which is a language learning thing, and we already check the weather for Santiago. It's been pretty cool there actually. Well, colder than here. It feels a lot like home here though. Elder Johnson is from Kaisville, Utah. Being a district leader has been pretty hard. There's this one kid named Elder Colvin that just doesn't respect me or any of the other missionaries and he's been a real struggle. I'm about ready to punch him. He has major anger issues. But it's alright.

Yes, I have been wearing my retainer. I can't send any more than two pictures an email. I don't have my camera with me, but I'll try and send some pictures later today. I haven't had the opportunity to take very many though, because of the rules here. Maybe you should learn how to play the piano then. It's not that hard. ( I told him I HATE the silent piano)

We don't know when we get to go to the temple until like two days before, so I have no idea when I'll get to go. It'll probably be next P Day though. That'd be really cool! I want to go to as many different temples as I can before I die haha. I am pretty sure that I am still going to be the first one to give you a grandkid.

I started reading the Bible, and it's extremely hard to read. After I finish it, I'm gonna read the Book of Mormon, and after I finish that, I want to read Jesus the Christ.

Wow my fish is still alive?? That's a miracle. Keep him alive as long as possible haha. And I agree, it was nice spending a lot of time with you. I miss the Office haha we have been talking about it a lot here. Well I'll email you again later today possibly.

Love,
Elder Stam

Week Two- Elder Stam is doing great!

Week Two- Aug 26, 2014- Still doing great!

This picture is a road in the MTC that leads to the food place. When it rains the road turns into a river.

Things are going really well at the CCM! It's been another pretty eventful week. My throat started hurting a little bit a few days ago, but other than that I haven't really gotten sick at all! The food just keeps getting better as well. And yes I got my surprise haha thank you very much. I'm pretty sure the donuts are what gave me the sore throat though. As District Leader, I just have to make sure everybody stays on task, and focused. I have to check the mail for everyone because we all share one mail box and only the district leader has the key to it. I also have to conduct all the little meetings we have as a leader and I have to assign people to pray and stuff. And every third week I am in charge of the sacrament preparation. There were 12 missionaries in our district, but one had to go home. So now we only have 11. The one that went home was in our room so I only have two roommates now, and I also have two companions now. My other new companion is Elder Johnson. Both my companions are really nerdy, but that's okay. The Spanish is still going really well, but the learning has slowed down a lot. We get rain here almost every night. In the morning, it is super sunny, but at about afternoon, it gets cloudy and it rains. And it rains super hard. A lot harder than it ever rained in Utah. And the thunder is like someone is shooting a gun in your ear. I've only seen a few missionaries from Murray. I've seen Chris Green, Blake Brockbank, Hayden Mann, and that girl that was in my mission prep class. I don't remember her name though.

That ice bucket thing sounds really weird. Maybe if my companions are up to it, we will find a bucket of ice water and do it ourselves and take photos of it. That'd be really fun.

 A normal day would be waking up at 6:30, getting ready and being at our classroom at 7 to study til 7:45. Then we go to breakfast til 8:25 when gym starts. Gym goes til 9:15. We have half an hour to get ready for class then class starts at 9:45. Class is different every day. We teach an investigator for an hour during class in the morning and in the afternoon. That class goes til 12:45, then we have lunch. After lunch we have two hours of study time, and then class starts again at 3:15. It goes til 6:15 when we go to dinner. After dinner we study the language from 7-8, then we do a technology assisted language learning system on the computer for an hour. After that we have a district discussion about anything til 9:30, where we go to back to our house and study and write in our journals or something like that til 10:30, when we go to bed. That's an average day.

I totally expect my mission to be hard. It's going to be exhausted. In fact, I'm already super exhausted. I'm tired every day. But they really enforce this thing here called exact obedience, where we just obey the rules exactly. It's pretty hard at times but it definitely makes things better and have the spirit more. Everything here is starting to be the exact same though. It's gonna start getting pretty boring. But I will try to keep my head up so I can make the best out of it. I think the language is going to be really hard when we get to Chile because we were talking with one of our teachers, Hermano Sánchez, who is from Mexico City, about the language in Chile and he said that they talk so fast that sometimes he doesn't even understand them. But that's okay. It'll take a lot of work. It will take me several months to get the language down, but it will be worth it. I'll be better an Spanish than Josh or Cody so I'm okay with that. I'll email you again next week.

The house that we stay in while at the MTC. There are only 50 houses, but each house fits 20 people. And the rest have to be in apartments.

Love, Elder Stam

First Week in the MTC!

August 19, 2014

So my P Days are on Tuesday while I'm at the MTC. It's crazy how much has happened. I'm picking up the language really fast. I can already pray, bear my testimony, and have a long conversation in Spanish already. Oh and I was made District Leader. Everyone in my district are amazing people and have super strong testimonies. Two days after we got to the MTC, we had to teach an investigator in Spanish, and it actually went really well. We've already taught him three times, half an hour each, in only Spanish.

The food here is like amazing. Of course. I haven't had any problems with sickness yet. Oh and when it rains here, it rains really hard. There is also a ton of lightning. Some of the loudest thunder I have ever heard. Our teachers are really good teachers and they are teaching us Spanish really well. So far this has been a way fun experience and I'm glad I came. I'll email you again next week!

SLC airport 515am.  Miss this boy!!

Elder Stam

Okay, I have time to email you again. My P Day is on Tuesday while I am in the MTC. I have an hour to write on P Day, which is plenty of time to write everyone. Me and Elder Walker get along great! He's kind of nerdy, but I'm totally okay with that. He keeps me on my toes. And yes, the food is amazing. Most of it is Mexican food, but they do have cereal in the mornings, and they also have toast with peanut butter and Nutella haha. I am taking photos, but the mission president made a rule that you can only take photos on P Day, so I don't have any photos for this email yet. We have about an hour every day to exercise, but mostly we have just been playing basketball and ping pong during this time. I am very happy to be here! There is one elder in my room that was having a lot of struggles, so our district decided to give him a blessing and guess who blessed him? Me! So first blessing, check. There have been a lot of people sick, but I haven't gotten sick. Only one kid in our district has gotten sick. Oh and just in case you didn't get my other email, I was made the District Leader of our district, so go me!

The Spanish is actually coming along really well! It have learned so much in just a week. I can already pray, bear my testimony, and have a conversation with someone in Spanish. On the first Friday, we had to teach our first investigator in Spanish, and it went really well. It was a lot easier than I thought. We've taught him two other times. They were all half an hour long as well. Every Sunday, all the missionaries have to prepare a 5 minute talk for sacrament meeting and 8 of us get randomly called on to give our talk. So you have to be prepared. Not everything is Spanish though. We still have some lessons in English and if we don't understand something, our teachers say it in Spanish. Our teachers are really cool too. There names are Hermano Sanchez and Hermano Martinez.

The MTC is almost like a jail. It is surrounded by a tall wall with barbed wire on the top. It's not a jail to keep the bad in. Its a jail to keep the bad out haha. It's like a paradise here in Mexico. It feels like the United States. Other than the Spanish and food. 

I don't think there is anything that we forgot, or maybe I just haven't realized it yet. Tell me how things are going at home and have fun with all those dogs! I'll send you pictures next week if I can get my camera hooked up to the computer.

Love,

Elder Stam