This place is crazy...in a good way!

Hi everyone!

Well, I've now been here for a good 3 or so days and so much has been thrown at me!  I walk into class and so much Spanish was thrown at me.  I had no idea what was going on and I still have no idea what is going on LOL!

We taught our first lesson on Friday in SPANISH!  As you can imagine, I had no idea what I was doing or saying, but it was fun.  I'm really working hard at it.  Oh and my companion is great!  He's from Ogden, Utah and he's a funny guy.  A little quiet sometimes, but he works hard!  Now back to Spanish.  A lot of people in my class really understand Spanish and I started to feel really discouraged about everything and felt like I was getting left behind in class.  My teacher, Hermana Johnson, had me read page 10 in "Preach My Gospel" and it really humbled me.  My eyes started to water up a little haha.  I really felt that I need to spend more time studying.  I now wake up every morning at 5:30 and really study hard for about an hour.  I was also made District Leader for my district so that gave me a lot more stress (I'm in charge of 5 companionships).  But I just stay positive in front of everybody!

The MTC is nothing like I thought it would be!  It's actually pretty fun and the food is bueno.  My schedule is this:  I wake up at 5:30 and study for an hour.  I shower quickly.  I have class from 7:00-7:45 and that's just another personal or companion study hour.  We then all go to breakfast for about 30 minutes.  We get back to class at 8:15 and it's straight Spanish until 11:55 and that's when we go to lunch.  After lunch we have free time, so my companion and I have been playing volleyball.  We then have class at 2:00 until 5:00 and that's also just in Spanish.  We then have dinner and then get back to class at 6:00 and that's when we have PCL - Personal, Companion and Language Study all the way until 9pm, then from 9-9:30 we have planning but our day is already planned out so we do a little planning and then as a district we just talk about good times back home!

Some things I forgot to mention - 1st Counselor in the Branch Presidency is Rob Sowby's dad, so we talked a while about Rob and my home ward.  It was great to have that connection.  I also saw Brandon Regehr here working and that was also super awesome!

Keep the prayers coming!  Also, English speaking missionaries with ipads have it so easy.  If I ever hear and English speaking missionary complain I will be so mad.  LOL they have it so easy!

Love,
Elder Hoole