Week 1: MTC- First P-Day

Hello my dear beloved girlfriends. Oh wait I mean family! How’s it going?? How are you mom? Feeling okay? I love you! Same with Henry! The MTC was quite a surprise. It’s a lot harder than I expected and it's pretty crazy! Oh well. The language is pretty difficult, but its coming along I think. I'm not gonna bother with correct grammar or any of that stuff in my emails. It will take too long and I have a time limit. It's only the third day of the MTC so I don't have any pictures or very much to tell.

First day- well, pretty crazy. I put my luggage in my room then went to class. I then proceeded to sit in a room with some weird guy in a white shirt speaking Tongan to me with ZERO English whatsoever. I had no idea what to do, luckily the other guys in the room were pretty chill and we kind of worked together to figure out what the teacher was saying. (BTW, the teacher was the weird guy in the white shirt in case you didn't figure it out). That class lasted about 2 hours of nothing but Tongan. After which we had a devotional kind of thing by the MTC president. It was really nice and the spirit here is very strong. The hard part came later when we were talking to fake investigators and trying to listen to what the spirit told us to say. Feeling the spirit is one thing, understanding it and speaking what it wants is a whole 'nother ballpark. Learning the language of the spirit is what I've struggled with, but since it's only the third day I’m not going to beat myself up just yet.

 My companion is a Tongan guy from Salt Lake. He speaks only a little more Tongan than me so I’m gonna keep up as best I can. He always wants to talk to the other Polynesian missionaries, and we tolerate each other. Hopefully I can come to love him and have a great time. My P-day will be Friday so I can usually email then. I will try to read every email you guys send, but I might run out of time so responses might come a week later. I went to the temple this morning. It was a little refreshing because it's all the same, but also confusing because the Provo temple is huge and I have no idea where to go and what to do. I went to the 8:20 session in case any BYU students just "happen" to bump into me.

I love the letters Jake and mom sent me. It feels nice to know I’m not alone. Thanks for that! My comp is Elder M. My district is pretty fun; there are 2 white guys (I’m one of them), my companion, and 3 guys from Taiwan and Malaysia. The 2 from Taiwan don't speak English very well at all, but since we're all learning Tongan, that's okay! I can't really think of anything else to say. Oh wait. Mom, can you order a lava lava off Amazon? An elder told me I could get one there and I really want it. Also the Hi Chews are very popular. If you were felling generous I’d love as many as I can get. That's it, have a good week! I’m excited to hear from you next Friday. 

Love you, 

ELDER STARK OUT