Report from Elder Johnson–MTC Week 1
Hey, Family --- My first day has been awesome and I have loved my time here and the lessons I have learned. 1 day down. 9 weeks to go. I will write a really detailed letter on P-Day (Monday), but right now I am just supposed to tell you that I am alive, I am being fed, and I love it here. Also, I have an awesome companion, Elder Benson. The food is awesome. Albanian is a really cool language. It is so fun! There is no place I would rather be. I love you all! --- Love, Ryan
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Përshëndetje, Familje -- The MTC is AMAZING! I love it so much. It has been amazing, incredible. Where to begin?
Well, my companion (shoku) is awesome. His name is Elder Benson. We have the BEST District. and the best Zone. There are two districts that speak Albanian. We are known as the Albys in our Zone. Elder Benson and I share our room with two other amazing missionaries, Elder Schneider and Elder Gardiner. Literally the best group of friends a guy... (My bad. Elder. That is probably the hardest rule here. Everyone accidentally call us guys, but immediately says, "Sorry, I mean Elders and Sisters") Literally the best group of friends an ELDER could ask for. Very spiritually-minded, ready to learn, and exactly obedient (and not everyone is). I am learning a lot from them. The sisters in our district are cool too. Motra (Albanian for Sister). Motra Dunn, Motra Bland, Motra Miles, Motra Haggard, Motra Suckow. We are all having fun learning the language together. Because our district is so amazing and exactly obedient, we get unlimited email privileges on P-Day. So I can take more than an hour to write. Seriously our zone is the best. The Hungarians, the Dutch (going to Suriname), and the Turks will get here on Wednesday. (And we won't be the newbies anymore. I don't feel like a newbie at all. We actually know what we are doing now. But, the first day, we had an orange dot on our missionary tag, so anyone who passed us said, "Welcome to the MTC!", but now we will be able to say that to the 900+ missionaries coming in on Wednesday.) Our zone leaders (Fischer Elder and Ballard Elder) were awesome, but they got released yesterday, and I bet the new ones are going to be awesome too.
Let's set the record straight. The food IS delicious. Even things that I wouldn't initially choose to eat, are actually amazing. So, I am being fed... probably too much. I'm trying to keep it down to one Orange ice cream bar per day and only two cups of Sprite per day.
One of the coolest parts of the MTC is talking with all the other missionaries. There are so many different languages on all the tags. People are always asking us what language ours is and where we are going, and we are asking everyone else the same thing.
So, the Shqip language is awesome! (That's Albanian for Albanian.) (It sounds like Shcheep.) Our teacher is amazing. I'm saying the word amazing too much.
We love it already. The only difference in the alphabets is that Shqip has a ç (c with a tail) and an ë (e with two dots) and doesn't have a w. It makes so much more sense than our alphabet, but it is still gonna take some getting used to. All the sounds are so cool. My missionary nametag will say Elder Xhansën or Xhonsen, I still haven't decided which. I wish I could show you how to say a bunch of words and pronounce things, but It'll have to wait 'til I can call you. On Friday morning, we taught our first lesson to an investigator, në Shqip. Um, yeah it was hard, but it was good. We are starting to get this language. It is awesome. Our teacher just speaks mostly Shqip. We have to figure out what she is saying. We actually teach ourselves mostly, during our study time. We can now pray, bear testimony, and introduce ourselves as missionaries of the Church all në Shqip. We are working on memorizing our missionary purpose në Shqip now. Also, Shqip literally means Language of the Eagles. Albanians love Eagles more than Americans do, what with the flag and the language. The word of the day yesterday was besim (which means faith.) we used it a ton in our second lesson with the investigator. Our third lesson will be tomorrow, I think. Also, the investigator is actually one of the return missionaries on the prepare to serve website, so that's cool, but I don't think we are supposed to know that yet.
I went to the temple today and will every P-Day. I love it. It is so close. Exercise Time is awesome. Class is awesome. Study is awesome. Everything is awesome. Sunday is especially awesome. Everyone kept saying, Just make it to Sunday. And I was fine before Sunday, but I can definitely see why they say that. Sunday is amazing. We had an awesome choir practice (The choir director is hilarious and choir practice is on Sundays and Tuesdays) and devotional with an amazing speaker. (Devotional is also on Sundays and Tuesdays.) No Apostles yet, but I bet I will get to see one or two by the end of nine weeks here.
The other thing everyone said was to watch the Character of Christ by Elder Bednar. If you can find it online, just wow... mind-blowing. Ok gotta go.
Ok, that's all for now. I've got to go do my laundry. Keep asking questions. I love you all so much! Love, Elder Xhansën
P.S. DearElder letters are awesome. Tell everyone to write using those. That will be alot easier. but also email too. Also, if you could copy this letter and send it back to me as a DearElder, just so I can have it, that would be great. And it would be awesome if you could include pictures in all your emails. Even old pictures. Just any pictures so I can see them. Sound good? good. OK, bye, love you!
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Katie, I love you to death. Thanks for the email. I did get those hidden notes and was thrilled by them. Thanks so much! I miss you all, but I am very happy here. I have an awesome companion. The food is amazing, and I am learning so much. It is so weird that I have already/only been here 5 days. It feels like longer, but also shorter than that. Time is flying already. Wow, we will be so close, yet so far. You cut your hair? Scary... just kidding. Have fun! You are THE BEST! Love, Ryan
My favorite sister, Emily Love you! Thanks so much for the email. And thanks for the questions. I wish I could answer them all right now, but alas, I'm a busy bee at the MTC. Check out my full email to get all the answers. Love, your favorite brother, Ryan
