Here's part of Elder Crockett's first letter home:
The first week here has been nothing I
expected but really really good. I guess I never really thought what to expect
of the MTC but its really fun. We started on Wednesday when I got here just
jumping straight into our teacher only speaking spanish for several hours
straight and surprisingly there was very little I didn't understand. We had a
testimony meeting with just our district in english and that was really cool to
see why everyone was here getting ready to go out on a mission. Our district is
12 elders, half of us are going to Tijuana, 3 are going to Tacoma Washington, 2
to Mexico City East, and one to San Antonio. All of the guys are really cool and
I'm learning lots from all of them. My companion, Elder Solorzano is from San
Diego and is pretty good at spanish. His parents spoke spanish to him growing up
but he was always too stubborn to respond in English so he understands
everything but doesn't know a lot of the words he needs to speak spanish. So far
we have taught 3 lessons to our "investigador" Carly, and they have all gone
pretty well concidering that we have to teach it all in Spanish. Its really cool
to see the progress that we have all made in just one week and how much
influence and help Heavenly Father gives us when we ask for his help and are
trying to learn something to serve him. Out of our district, I think that our
companionship has the language down the best. Elder Solorzano has a really good
accent and sounds like a mexican, and I somehow remember (not somehow, its the
Lord helping me) lots of vocab from high school.
So far here I've seen Micah, Caleb Stepanik
from the Andover ward, Jessica Brox (a girl I worked at valleyfair with), Zach
Sabin (the guy from my ward going to Indianapolis), and Trevor Shaffer. It was
really fun to see people I knew and to get a chance to talk to them for a little
bit.
While the MTC is fun most of the time, its
really draining because I wake up at 6:10 everyday (so that I can beat the rush
of elders trying to shower, especially since there are only 2 showers that put
out hot water and even those turn ice cold whenever someone flushes a toilet),
have class all day long and then go to sleep at 10:30. Our personal study and
language study was really hard at first because there is absolutely no
supervision and its 12 guys in a small room, which pretty much equals zero
focus. Despite those study times being unproductive the first couple of days, we
are improving........
One thing that I've really been thinking about
since I got here was exact obedience. I had never before really felt a desire to
follow all the little rules at school and such, but I've really been thinking
about it and wanting to follow every rule exactly. I think this is because I've
realized how much help I want to be able to get from Heavenly Father, and I know
I can only recieve all the help He is willing to give me if I follow all of the
rules that he has set out. In 1st Samuel 15:22 (i think that is the reference)
it says "obedience is always better than sacrifice." I've been thinking about
Micah's letter and how he talked about when break the rules, even if they are
little ones, that we don't love God as much as we should. I've really been
trying to follow everything that I know I need to be doing, and as I have been
trying to do it I know that I'm being blessed because I have been able to learn
and remember things so much quicker here in regards to the language and
scriptures than I ever have before.
(p.s from Jacqueline- I added the photos he sent to the side bar)
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