Thanks for all the letters and packages this week. I love reading all the emails throughout the week and hopefully, I will have time to respond to all of you today.
This week has been awesome. It is crazy how much better this week was than the last week. The first week was so long and frustrating, but this week just flew by and I had a blast. On Wednesday I had the opportunity to help with the MTC tour which was really awesome. The MTC tours are really fun and I loved talking to all the people. I ran into quite a few people I knew so that was fun. I am pretty sure we will help with the tours once a week till the tours end which I am pretty excited about.
This past week was a blast. It is still a lot of hard work, but also a lot of fun. We got 2 new elders in our district so now there are 15 of us, but they aren't speaking Hmong they are going to speak Laotian. All the elders in my district are super cool guys, but the people in our zone that are on our floor are crazy. It is probably because they have been here 7 weeks. Every morning a guy in my zone, who is going to Vietnam, sings at the top of his lungs a Patriotic song like America the Beautiful to wake us all up which is really hilarious. They are some of the craziest and funny people I have ever met.
This week as a joke I said we should do story time and it kind of caught on as a tradition. Every night we all gather in our residence and we have one elder in our district tell us a story about their past. Either something embarrassing, dumb, funny or a combination of all 3 sometimes. My district is absolutely crazy, but we are all family. Elder Vang and I also gave everyone in our district spirit animals and also thought of animals in movies that fit their personality. Some of them are pretty hilarious.
When I first got here I didn't think I would run into anyone I know, but I have run into quite a few people I know which is fun. My cousin Reese is on the same floor as me, so I see him all the time and Jackson I see every so often at dinner. Me and Jackson are going to go play ball together later today which will be super sick.
One of the guys I have got to know pretty well throughout this week is Elder Tarone. He is from Las Vegas and is a way, cool guy. He is in my room but isn't my companion. He is my companion for everything not gospel related haha. We go on splits together and play basketball together every day which is way fun. There are some pretty competitive sports here. I have really enjoyed the volleyball and basketball. As well, my district played kickball against the Thai district who are in my zone and it was hilarious because it was the most competitive kickball game ever. There was a lot on the line because they couldn't lose to the new elders. There was a lot of trash talking and a lot of cheating by their part, but we still whooped them so it was all good.
The language is coming along. It still is really hard and I am not the fastest learner compared to everyone else, but that is okay. I can almost say my prayers in Hmong which is pretty sick. I found out the other day that we actually have 9 tones instead of 8 which is awesome too (Not) haha. Our first investigator eventually became our teacher which was pretty cool as well as another guy. So we now have 3 teachers. Brother Gardiner, Brother Lee, and Brother Ferguson.
I'll just end by telling a funny story:
I was talking to Elder McArthur while we were eating. Somehow we got to the conversation of who is your favorite sports teams. He said that his favorite football team was the Colts and we instantly bonded over that because that is my favorite team too. He told me a story which I thought was hilarious. He said the day he was getting dropped off at the MTC he went out to eat right before. His family ended up going to Red Robin. He said he was holding his emotions in real well. He then looked up at the TV and saw that ESPN was showing the Colts highlights from the last year. He then started to cry because he realized he wouldn't be able to watch football or watch the Colts play for 2 years. His whole family thought that he was crying because he was going to see his family for 2 years. His family all started crying too and gave him hugs, but that wasn't even why he was crying. I just thought that story was hilarious because I could totally relate.
Anyways I miss you all and hope to hear from you all. I love reading all your emails throughout the week. Also, the picture with the 5 people walking are all the people in my room and the dude with the glasses is Elder Tarone.
Love Elder Rich
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| Austin's roommates. They are all going to Wisconsin together Elders: Tarone, Lamb, Rich, Vang, Seims along with Elder Gibbons ( blonde/glasses pictured below in front of Austin.) |
