The Battle of the Bulge

Familia,
Howdy! What's up? All's well here. We've taught our last lesson in English, so now everything will be in espanol. I'm nervous about it, but mostly I'm really excited. It's going to be a good test of how well I can speak Spanish, and how well I can conduct the spirit speaking Spanish through me. I'm jealous, the spirit is fluent in so many languages and I'm barely fluent in English-let alone ones like Arabic or Cambodian. I saw a Preach My Gospel in those 2 languages, and they're written with a bunch of lines and dots; I'm not going to whine about Spanish anymore.
On Wednesday, we'll have been here for 5 weeks, which leaves 4 more to go before I get to see the real world again! Not that I'm not enjoying it here, but I can't wait to get outta here and get to LA. I've always wondered what other missionaries did to be more "righteous" than me and got a cooler mission, but Los Angeles will be awesome and the people I will be teaching will provide me with so many opportunities to teach, testify, and baptise. By the way, why is it that no general authorities, like the apostles, 12, or 70, served on the homefront (USA)? Looks like I won't be able to be prophet then. :(
Gina, thanks for putting that blog up. That will be cool once I leave here and do something more than sit in class all day. Mom said you're keeping the funniest stuff to yourselves...How selfish! That's like making a whole pot of Ramens then only drinking the juice. It's just not right, it's practically a sin to not eat the noodles. Do you see where I'm going with this? Good.
So I've been playing more hoop now, cuz I need to burn a few (2,384,475) calories. That's a bit harder to dominate at. There are a few really tall elders, and most of them played basketball in high school. I still do well tho, 1 or 2, maybe 3 points out of 7 each game. I've realized why I can dominate 4 square. Most of the kids play 4 square cuz they didn't get into a bball game. Not all tho. There are a few of us that are serious 4 square-ers, and can get some good games in. Umphress, Elder I mean, is getting pretty decent at it, which means I'll have to knock him out ASAP. The last game I played, I hit a nasty left hander at Elder Cooper, and got him out, so he had to go chase it. When he brought it back it was flat. My massive leftie popped it. Luckily we still have the old ball, the old lopsided greenone that is so fun to play with, cuz you can't tell which way it's going to go. I was surprised when the next day they had a brand new one for us already. I didn't get to play with it tho, I was playing basketball that period.
I'm really glad I can memorize stuff really easily. Pres. Monson said during one of his talks that if we memorize a scripture a day we will develop a photographic memory. I'm going to do it since I'm 4 weeks behind, and because on Saturday nights we have 4.15 hourse of MDT time. I memorized 6 scriptures in Spanish and English to get a start, and while doing my 1 scripture in Spanish and English a day. I"m going to work on memorizing as much of the BoM as I can. I had the first 2 chapters memorized during seminary last year cuz Bro. Bennett, my teacher, didn't think I could. Ok, so anyway we have 8.30 hours of study time on Saturday nights, with only dinner in between them so we get out of lunch at 12:15, then we have an instructor from 12:15-2:30, then an hour of PST and CST before dinner. Then at 5:15-9:00 is all MDT time. That's ridiculously long. I worked on my TRC scenario this week, so I memorized a million vocab words talking about food or relating to food in any way, plus my scriptures. That kills about an hour...I've been reading the Old Testament since I finished the BoM last week. Hra. Gallacher challenged us to read it once while we were here, and I finished like 2 weeks after that. No one else has finished yet. Reading it that quickly was actually a pretty good thing. When you finish it that quicklye, you get a good overall understanding of the people, what happened where and when, and a good general understanding of it. So the next time I finish it, I will know what's going on, and can concentrate on doctrine and not trying to figure out what's going on.
So I got a letter from S*******. She digs me, and I don't know why, I haven't worked it with her forever, quite the opposite. Ha, just kidding, she doesn't dig me like that anymore, but it was great to hear from her.
Ok Gina, here are your answers. Yes, we use TALL, doesn't work as well as just memorizing for me. Kool exit sounds tho. TRC is wracking, but I really enjoy it. A couple weeks ago, we were teaching this old guy who used to be Mayan, then the Catholics baptized them, and a while later, he joined the church. His wife died recently, and it was very definitely divinely guided, because we were teaching the plan of salvation. He has such a strong testimony, that we were there till like 9:45, 30 minutes longer than normal. Totally worth it tho. We haven't got to teach him again yet tho, but I really want to. We go Friday night at 7 or 8, so if you're going to volunteer, that's when I'm there. Branch is way cool, my district isn't. Everyone in our zone is going Spanish speaking. I dig my teachers. Hro. Brown is a stud, he teaches so well and he's cool about it too. He's not uber-overbearing. We have fun, but still learn a lot. Hra. Gallacher is the other teacher. I wish we could get a different one instead of her, but then I would wish we had her again. She is way cute and it's hard to concentrate when she is teaching. And she sings like an angel. Bad news. It's ok, I still learn a ton from her. We have the best teachers I swear. There is another very good teacher, but he is too serious, that wouldn't fly with me for very long. Our class is in 18M and 5M is too far out of the way for me to pat it, sorry. Now that there is no snow, we clean toilets too, the chemicals smell so bad. Gross. I clean without gloves, more blessings that way...Just kidding.
What is this summer job in Switz? that would be so kool. What will you be doing, and how did you go about getting the interview? That's what I want to do when I get home, just float around the world working in a bunch of different places so I can keep traveling. That's a ways away thos. P.S. Si, yo tengo un libro de himnos en espanol, no necesitas comprarme.
Mom-just use my money to buy a camera, and get me a cool one. Don't send me your old one. If you can, and it's not more expensive, get it in black or green or something. Or maybe if it's only $20 more or something. But just use my dough for some (or all) of it, and get me a sweet one. I don't want an eyesore to drag around. Gratz on passing your math test. I take it you're not taking an English class. Have someone explain to-too-two to you. He he I'm funny.
That's too bad about the fence and the snow. Too bad I won't be there to help repair it. Tell Papa Smurf that the bonus points would be great and he should use my money to get them...
It's a good thing I'm young and can lose 10 lbs. a week by just eating 1 plate and 2 glasses of juice. If I couldn't lose it that quick, I would be so rolly polly right now. My weight fluctuates so much, cuz I will balloon up, then start eating less and drop it, then reward myself with 3 plates a meal then pop right back up. I've noticed that I'm a pleasure eater. I can be not hungry and put down 3 plates of good food no problem, not counting the gallon of Fresca and orange juice I wash it down with. And on the other hand, my liver and kidneys will gang up on my pancreas and eat it cuz I'm so hungry, but if there is no good food I won't mind not eating. Unfortunately (and fortunately) all the food is great here. I think there has been only 3-4 meals where there was nothing good. Ok, I'm running out of room. TTYL.

Elder Odin
P.S. I think Ramses would be an awesome name for a youngling of mine.