Elder Owen Stark's Mission : Week 5: MTC- Welcome to 'Murica

Malo e lelei hoko famili!

Today I decided I’d try to mention some of the funny stuff that happens here. Usually at night we stay up talking and laughing our heads off, so there's always that. Before they left, the elders going to Fiji pulled a prank on someone. They woke him up and told him it was morning and he needed to get ready. They all were fake getting dressed and stuff. The sleepy elder then woke up and got in the shower and came out in missionary attire and then discovered it was 1am. It was great! Also my district has turned into a shaving cream battlefield. We get free left over shaving cream from the residence we clean, and then we sabotage each other after class. It's almost impossible to take a shower or use the toilet without some crazy Asian spraying shaving cream all over you. (The toilet is annoying because you have to take a shower usually to clean it up). When the guys from Taiwan get you, they sometimes yell, "Welcome to Taiwan!" in response of course I get to say "Welcome to 'Murica!!!" Yeah, so that's fun.

So since last week I’ve been doing fairly well with my Tongan. I can speak the whole lesson without notes or anything, and I can understand a little and answer questions and stuff decently. That’s a blessing I’m sure because languages are a pain in the butt!! Today I have a thing called TRC. That means Training Resource Center. What they do is they bring in people who speak your language and you teach a short 20-minute lesson or whatever. Well so I’ve done that twice and my companion and I did fairly well the second time. Now, as in today, I Skype someone in Tonga right now, like a native Tongan. It’s a 40 minute lesson and I’m pretty scared because I barely understand the teacher who speaks really slow and simply so we can understand. I’m not ready for the full force of Tonga, anyways so wish me luck!!

We had a new set of Elders going to Fiji come in. they are pretty cool, one of them is all the way from India! Did you know they send missionaries to India? I had no clue. Anyways yeah he's pretty cool. He went through the temple for the first time today. Luckily he speaks English pretty well, so he understood it, I think. I'm not his companion though, so I don't really need to worry or anything. I’ll send an email with some pictures and I’ll write the stories behind them. Other than that this week went by pretty fast. On Tuesday we had Elder Richard J. Maynes of the Presidency of the Seventy. He had some good points and answered a question of mine I prayed for.

I love all you guys!! Have a great week