Woohoo what a week! Before I forget I am going to mention I can read emails whenever I want but can only reply on P Day so email whenever you want to. It has been super long but it has also been super good! The MTC has been a party so far and all the missionaries are so great. Everybody has bonded really well and it is honestly like a giant scout camp right now lol. The flights went really well and I had a couple other missionaries on both of them which was very nice because I was able to get to know some people right off the bat. Because we had time to kill after our flight to Atlanta, we decided to walk to the gate for our next flight but it turns out the Atlanta airport is actually massive and we had to go from the A gates to the F gates and lucky us that is the entire length of the airport! It seriously took us a solid 20 minutes to get there and we were walking on the moving sidewalks so we were going super fast. Should have taken the tram I guess. The flight to Manchester was around 7.5 hours long and I slept for maybe a combined 45 minutes so it was pretty long but all is well! When we got to Manchester we had another cross airport trek that was about the same distance but we got to do it with our bags this time! We then had a 45 minute bus ride to the MTC. By then it was like 9 in the morning here so we had a full day ahead of us! By the end of Wednesday I had been awake for around 32 hours and I started to fall asleep as soon as I sat down.
The day I got here the MTC was completely empty so all the missionaries here arrived the same day as me and that has been pretty fun. We have kids from Wales, Italy, England, Scotland, South Africa, Australia, Germany, and the Netherlands. I am probably missing a few as well. One of the flights from Utah got stuck in Chicago overnight so I did not have a companion for the first day. My companion is Elder Kelleher and he is from Herriman! A good guy for sure! In my room we also have Elder Johnson and Elder Odle. Elder Johnson has so much energy and enthusiasm it is exhausting to be honest. The best way to describe it is for me to tell you that he was a theater kid in high school.
I was also made the district leader so that is something! It is really easy and all I do is tell people to pray and lead the music when we start class. I also need to go to leadership meetings on Sunday mornings. In my district I have the 3 other Elders in my room along with Elders Wheeler, Thacker, Stock, who are all from Utah, and Elder Palmer who is from Nashville. We also have two sisters, Sister Takairangi, who is from the Cook Islands, and Sister Nelson, who is from Utah as well.
Wow there is so much to say! We went to the temple today which was cool. It was nice to see a new temple as I had only gone to the Draper temple before. Driving on the opposite side of the road is spooky and all the Americans were screaming in the van because we thought we were going to crash. The Europeans are hilarious, especially the kid from Scotland and the kid from the Netherlands. Almost all the Europeans know more than one language and one kid is even learning his 5th. He knows English, French, Spanish, and French and is learning Greek. He is in the MTC for 9 weeks. The Europeans who speak English as a second language say things in such a different way and it is so much fun listening to them speak.
Funny Story! One day as we were getting the stuff for sports, Elder Hogg, the Scottish guy, had a volleyball and Elder Beech, the South African, asked him, "Is that a netball?" Because of his accent Elder Hogg and I both thought that he said, "Is that a nipple?" and we both started staring at his shirt. After we realized what Elder Beech actually said we started laughing so hard it was difficult to breath! I find it twice as funny though because Elder Hogg says nipple like, "nepple," because of his accent. Something happens almost everyday that makes me laugh to the point of my face hurting. It is a constant party! Elder Hogg is like a walking quote machine though. Almost everything he says sticks around for like 3 days.
We also have been teaching our investigator Nathan, who is of course just one of our teachers, and it has gone well! It is a little weird the first few times but I think I have gotten a pretty good idea of how things go. I am just super relieved that I do not need to do it in another language.
Sunday was probably the most spiritual day of my whole life. I almost cried like 4 times. We had a testimony meeting that was incredible. It is awesome hearing the stories of all the missionaries who are from Europe because many of them are converts of only one or two years. We also had a giant FHE that night in which we watched an MTC devotional Elder Holland gave in 2009 which was incredibly powerful. He is an incredible man and speaker. We then watched a presentation one of the seventy gave to the new mission presidents and there were 2 videos shown in that which made I think everybody cry. To finish it off we sang a couple hymns and part of the way through a sister slammed her hymn book shut and started crying.
Well a lot of stuff! This was super long! Talk to you all next week!
Love, Elder Lott
Love, Elder Lott
 |
| Preston, England MTC |
 |
| Elder Lott and Elder Kelleher |
 |
| The pond outside the MTC |
No comments:
Post a Comment