First Week in the MTC

Family and Friends,

 

I miss you all so so much this week has been THEE hardest weeks of my entire life, I hope that's a good thing but just know that I have a lot of support around me and I'm working hard and putting my faith in Heavenly Father. My daily schedule is so busy. I don't have a time any part of the day where I have a break. I wake up at 6:10 get ready, go to personal study in my class, I spend about 8 hours a day in my class with my district. we have 10 missionaries in my District, we're all going to Chile, 6 Elders and 4 Sisters. After personal study every day we go to breakfast, then we begin our first section of Spanish Study for 3 hours, then we have another hour of language study on our own. Usually I just read my scriptures in Spanish during that time. After that we go to Lunch and then GYMMM wooooooo I flippin love gym so much, it gets me away from all the stresses and it's so much fun. We have an awesome zone, our zone has about 50 missionaries and we all have so much fun together. One thing I have learned while I've been here is that Missionaries are kinda weird.... just kinda.... not really... they are all flippin weird. Except for me. I'm awesome obviously, totally kidding, not really. After gym we go to TALL which is another language study on the computer I really like TALL it helps me so much and its such a great resource. We do that for about an hour then we go to dinner and then we have another 3 hours of Spanish classroom instruction then we go back to our residence at 9:30 and prepare for bed... and we're in bed by 10:30. This past week I get in bed and my head finally gets to slow down but yet I can't stop going over Spanish phrases and mental ideas of what I'm gonna do tomorrow. I'm weird I know.. so Its hard for me to get to sleep right away, I don't ever stop thinking about all of you. I have a book of photos that I look at right before I go to bed and it relaxes me.

 

The first 3 days in the MTC were so hard for me. We have an investigator that we teach. His name is David. The second day we were here we had to teach him a lesson in all Spanish... He doesnt speak any English, so you can understand my stress and frustration when that didn't go very well. Me and my companion, Elder Buter, he's from Arizona, we prayed so hard that night that we could just have the Spirit to help us teach David and that we could have words put into our mouth because we don't speak any Spanish... It went so much better for our second lesson with David, it just goes to show that if you humble yourself before our Savior, He will give you all things. Without His spirit we couldn't have gotten through that lesson and He was helping me with words I had NO clue how to even say, just goes to show the great power of the Lord when your humble yourself.

 

I feel like I need to share this with you, but not go into deep details. This past week I have had so many emotions from trying to learn the language the best I can, to not agreeing with my companion on everything. We have completely different personalities so it's kinda hard but were working on communicating. Anyways, all these emotions have been building up this past week, and the other day I had to let it out, in the middle of class... how embarrassing I know. lol jk. But I feel like I just needed to get all these emotions out and that's exactly what I did. I have some great support around me and I know that God has a plan for me. That night we had Tuesday night devotional and someone from the quorum of the 70 spoke to all 3,100 of us missionaries and he spoke on something that I really needed at that point. He spoke on enduring to the end. We are learning to be such great men and we are maturing so much by having this expierience and we all need to endure to the end. SALVATION IS NOT EASY. And another thing he said was I know that I have all this support at home praying for me to have strength. and I need it so much. I picture all of you every morning/night kneeling down and praying for me to have strength to get through this hard hard time in my life. So please, please pray for me to have strength. I need it. I love you all so much and would love to hear from you. Missionaries love letters, so please send me some by either Dear Elder, or mail. I really like getting mail. I will write back I promise hahaha. My address is:

 

Elder Mason Craig Paxman

MTC Mailbox #118

CHI-ANT 0506

2005 N. 900 E. 

Provo, Utah 84604-1793

 

I would love to hear from all of you, keep me updated on your life and sports Jk but seriously. The food here is SOOO delicious I honestly haven't eaten this much EVER. I have eaten more this week then I have in the past 2 months at home... and I'm being 100% serious about that. Mason Es Muy GORDO.... jk I still have a rocking body.. #GetAtMe anyways I probably forgot some stuff but oh well. Write me, pray for me. Love you all. Love you Mom. I'm okay.

 

-Elder Paxman