First P-Day in MTC (08/21)

Hello Family, it's my first P-day (every tuesday) I am doing very well here at the MTC, and I wanted to answer your questions mom that you sent my through dearelder (and yes anissa is does work just fine)

When is your P-day? 

Tuesdays all days

Who is my companion? 

My companion's name is Elder Manuirirangi Edwards and he is a Maori from New Zealand, he speaks english and he is also learning Chinese (my room is all learning mandarin)

How many people in my district? 

11, I have also been called as the district leader for my Districts which is 39E... my branch president is President Baker.

How is the Mandarin going? 

It's going well actually, right from the get-go you are immersed in it and the teachers are not allowed to speak in English, most everyone in my class is non-native except one, so we're on the same basic level of Mandarin, so it's been all good.

Are you having trouble getting up?

 No not at all, actually I have been getting up at 6 instead of 6:30 just so I can get in the showers before everyone else, it's pretty crazy, someone pulled a prank and took all the curtains on the showers over the weekend, so I've been going on the 2nd floor (i'm in the first floor of the Pratt Building, 14M) to take my showers since they have curtains up there.

My mailing address is as follows:

Elder Nathan Sanchez

Provo MTC Mission

MTC Box #90

CA-SJO

2005 N 900 E

Provo, UTAH 84604-1793

Do I need anything?

Well yes, I do. I need more brown socks,  also that backpack would be great to have. Also you need to buy another SD card and send it to me, and I will send you the one I have in my camera and that's how I will handle pictures.

I didn't forget anything I don't think.. so there's that.

The MTC is really great, and the food is really good. The first few days are the hardest but every missionary said it gets better after your first sunday, and how true that is. There's one other missionary here that's going to California San Jose as well, but he isn't in my district. I depart from the MTC on Oct 31.

Let me tell you about class times, usually there are 2 classes a day which are both 3 hours long and taught by the same teacher Brother Anderson or as well call him An Lao Shi (Teacher An) and he mixes basic mandarin and teaching techniques within these classes. We have been teaching an "investigator" in a "lesson" and her name is Lin Jie Mei... she is a real person, but not a real investigator, but she might as well be because the lesson seems real and the spirit is real as well. Yesterday we had our 3rd lesson with Lin Jie Mei and it was the first good lesson we had with her... it was really hard to understand the Mandarin the first two lessons which made it very hard for me and Elder Edwards to get through it, but yesterday after reviewing vocab and phrases a lot over the weekend I finally was able to understand about 60% of what she was saying, and we got her to commit to reading and for us to teach her the first lesson which is The Restoration on Wednesday. Afterwards Elder Edwards was ecstatic, saying "YOU'RE A CHAMPION ELDER SANCHEZ" in his Kiwi Accent... Elder Edwards is having a lot of trouble with pronunciation and is pretty frustrated with that, but he is definitely getting better... I would ask that you pray for him in that aspect, and as for me, pray that I may be able to keep my hard work up so that I may be proficient by the time I get out of here...

Today is P-day so we basically just do laundry... later on we go to the Provo temple as a district and I'm really looking forward to that... let me tell you about me and my wonderful district...

Elder Edwards-- awesome guy, kiwi accent new zealander!!!!! he will be serving back in new zealand mandarin speaking

Elder Vandiford-- spiritual giant from Ohio, he's a really nice guy he's going to TaiChung Taiwan to serve

Elder Wolf-- He's from Springville Utah and he's having a lot of trouble with the language, but he's working hard and it's great to see him progress, also serving in Tai Chung

Elder Cutler-- also from springville, utah was in elder wolf's ward... he is also going to Taichung Taiwan

Elder Kim-- He's a Korean, from the US but lived in Thailand with his family-- going to Taichung as well!

Elder Cranford-- He's from somewhere in Utah I forgot where but he's a nice guy--- he's going to Singapore, I told him to say hi to the Mains' for me.

Elder Passey-- he's from a lot of different places in Utah, going to Singapore as well.

Elder Cheng-- the only native in the district-- he's from Hong Kong (xianggang) and he's going to NY, NY South mission, he's going to love it!!!

Elder Gummow-- he's the best! he's pretty fun guy to be around, he's from northern Utah and he's going to Taiwan Taichung

Elder Wesemann- he's from Kuluo reduo (Colorado) and he's going to Taiwan Taichung (also has a Twin brother serving at the same exact time going to Taiwan Taipei)

Anyway I need to wrap this email up, I receive DearElders a lot faster than if you email back (I only get 30 minutes to write you guys a week for emails) so send responses through dearelder please!!! if you send it by 1:30 PM today EST I will get it by dinner and I just wanted to let everyone know that i'm doing great and that I will talk to you next week, love you guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOVE YOU MOM, DAD, JESSICA

LOVE YOU ANISSA DONALD BETHANY CONNOR

LOVE YOU LISA DEVON LILY

talk to you guys next tuesday..

make sure you write back on dear elder, and carbon copy it into an email just in case ;)... 1 minute and 51 seconds left BYE