Letter from Elder Waddell 8/25/11

 hola, wow it's been a busy week. It's still the same MTC nothing is getting easier always harder. This Sunday brother Tyler our walking scripture dictionary got reassigned to a different branch but we got somebody really powerful after him. That same day they called me as the District Leader ha. woohoo i get to check mail conduct meetings and make sure nobody wants to kill their companion. a few hours after they told me I had to give a 45 minute lesson to our district so I talked about accountability in PMG. It went pretty well. Monday we had a good lesson with David about the Prophet. for some reason that night and all the next day was just horrible. I was sad the whole time for no reason. I was just struggling with everything. And it's hard here because I can't do anything I used to do for stress like hang out or listen to music or anything ha. So I just stopped what i was doing and had one of the most sincere conversations with Heavenly Father that I've ever had. I didn't know why I was getting depressed I felt inadequate and like I was completely out of my league just in the learning sense I couldn't concentrate and just felt like trash. but there was such a feeling of comfort during and after that prayer it made me feel so much better. Then later that day when I was directing our district devotional review I testified of prayer in a way i wasn't able to before to that degree and everything turned around. don't ask me why or how all I know is that since then I haven't had a desire to do anything but work. anywaysss ha. how is school going now? It takes a while to get responses here and thursday is a horrible day to send a letter it seems so it would be nice if you get a letter from me if you just sent a confirmation dearelder or something so I know things are going through ha. Today I've been trying to get my passport stuff done. It's taken forever but I'm done. We had to leave the mtc to get a money order it was crazy haha i already feel weird in the "real world" there was music playing and people not wearing shirts and ties. They didn't tell us we were supposed to call them to get a ride back so we waited outside of the store for almost two hours before we got worried and called. a guy bought us a snow cone and talked to us about his son that's going to serve soon and a lady gave us candybars and thanked us for serving ha. was it like that for you in Utah dad?? I feel like it won't be in Alaska/Yukon. People were offering us rides and to buy us drinks and stuff it was weird. So i feel bad because i ruined our pday. I'm not sure that we'll even get letters written. I'm pretty positive our laundry won't be done by dinner. It's going right now. But maybe we can take things out early and make it easier ha. The language study is going a little better I think there are just so many tenses and words that mean multiple things ha but spanish is way easy compared to a lot so i've got nothing to complain about. Our roommates left to the Peru MTC but we didn't get new ones so we're on our own for this week at least ha i'm stoked about that. I think/hope we're getting better at teaching. though i fear at least recently i've been completely dominating and not letting elder smith get anything in. like the lesson with David about the law of chastity (scary ha) I talked the entire time except for elder smith giving the prayer. but he didn't mind at all. I'm almost done with the new testament I'm excited to restart the Book of Mormon. I started it in Spanish haha i'm not sure how far i'll get. it's tough to read it in spanish because as missionaries we use formal conjugations like usted y ustedes pero las escrituras usar tu y vosotros. but it's not too bad i just need to expand my vocabulary a little more and i'll be good to go. Every once and a while in a prayer or thinking about something i'll use spanish instead of english on accident so i think that's a good sign ha. so i've got a month down now only 23 to go! and one more here. it's crazy i feel like i've been here a while and not long at the same time. but i think i'll feel like it's been a while when i'm about to leave then i'll freak out ha. oh i forgot to ask you to thank mrs harbour for me for the brownies and mr brown for the note ha. maybe regan can volunteer at the mtc for TRC sometime i think that would be good for her oh and i'm excited for everett to get here next week and john in three!! they're going to looove it here it's awesome. okay i need to switch my laundry and my time is up. I love you all.

All is well in Zion.

             Love,

                  Elder Waddell