Pecado, Pescado

Hola,

Sounds like you had fun at the Webster reunion. And that's too bad about the monsoon wrecking our yard. Good luck with the house selling, you're right, I don't envy having to help get it ready.

Anyway, another good week in the MTC. The 4th of July was kind of cool. There was a short devotional at 7 pm, and afterwards we all watched the movie "17 Miracles." Right after that (about 10 pm) the President of the MTC got up and told us that we were going to be allowed to "stay up past bedtime" and that there was free ice cream outside so we could watch the fireworks. I can't imagine anywhere else in the world where a few thousand ~19 year olds would be so excited about staying up past bedtime and free ice cream. We all went out to watch and we even started singing some songs while we watched.

That reminds me, I can't remember if I've told you guys this or not, but our zone has created "Christmas Song Saturdays" where we sing Christmas songs all day. Nobody else in the MTC actually participates, but while we were walking to breakfast singing "The First Noel" we heard somebody nearby ask their companion why we were singing that and he told him "don't you remember? It's those guys that sing Christmas songs like every Saturday." We were pretty stoked that somebody remembered us. Our zone likes singing a lot. In fact, that same day, our district decided to spend an hour and a half of our personal language study time by practicing our Spanish pronunciation by singing Christmas sons in Spanish. We found out that when we sing "Angels We Have Heard on High" and Silent Night" at the same time, we end up finishing at the exact same time. They probably aren't actually supposed to be the same length, and we sounded absolutely terrible, but it was way fun. Singing can definitely invite the Spirit. 

Dad, you asked about Santiago and Diego. Well, we've learned a little bit more about investigators work here. All of our investigators are instructors here, and they just come in and act the part of someone that they met on their mission, It feels really realistic though. Santiago and Diego are awesome, but they came with different challenges. Santiago can't really read well and gets confused easily, but I think it actually makes him more fun to teach. We had some really cool teaching experiences with him, and I'm definitely gaining a testimony of the scriptures that say if you'll just open your mouth, it will be given you what to say. For example, in one lesson with him we were taking about the Restoration of the plentitud of the Gospel. I asked if he had any questions and he asked what I meant by "plentitud" (it's sort of and odd word choice, but that's the work Prredicad Mi Evangelio uses). I wasn't sure what to say, but as soon as I started trying to answer has question, an analogy popped into my head. I started talking to him about pizza, and how it's delivered as a whole, but during a party, everyone will come and take a couple slices. I explained that for along time, that was what happened to the gospel. Jesus Christ brought "the whole pizza" but over time different churches came and took the slices they wanted. I then explained that our church had been restored and given the "whole pizza" of the gospel. It was kind of a funny way of putting it, but it was really effective and awesome. Later on when the teacher was giving us feedback on our lesson, he asked if we had planned the pizza analogy beforehand and said that Santiago (he was playing the part of Santiago) really liked it and that we had done a really good ob of teaching to his needs. We obviously have a lot of improving to do, but I'm happy with how things have been going so far. Our other teacher (playing Diego) gave us similar feedback, although we struggle teaching Diego a bit. He understands everything we say but doesn't seem to understand that we want him to actually believe in what we are saying. But this week both of our teachers told Elder Kidman and I that they were impressed with how we're doing and want us to be an example for the rest of the District and show them how we study or... something like that. They were telling us in Spanish and we didn't understand the whole thing. Haha that's one awkward part of the lessons. They intentionally talk faster and use words they know that we don't know, so sometimes it leads to awkward situations. Like in the lesson where I asked how Santiago was doing, he said bad because his wife got diagnosed with arthritis, and then I immediately followed up by asking what he likes to do for fun. Not exactly the best social skills... but once we actually start teaching it goes pretty well. There's actually been several funny things with the language. One of the other Elders in our district accidentally told an investigator he could be forgiven of his fish (pecado=sin, pescado=fish). Another time was when someone asked our teacher if he had a girlfriend. The teacher said he didn't, because he was married, but the Elder didn't understand and asked if he wanted a girlfriend in the future. We all laughed and the teacher said no, he didn't plan on having an affair. Had to be there I guess. We've noticed that for some reason, everything sounds more funny in Spanish.

Anyway, life in the MTC is pretty good. The language is coming along really well, but I know that as soon as I get out of the MTC and into the real world it will feel like I didn't actually learn anything.

Les amo,

Elder Webster