First Week In the MTC

Hello everyone!

I'm a little over a week deep in the MTC (Missionary Training Center) and things are going great!

Wednesday I flew into SLC and entered the MTC. After getting my missionary name tag and a bunch of other stuff I dropped my stuff off in my room and was taken to a building where a lady spoke straight Swedish to me... pretty daunting, but also pretty sweet that one day I will be able to understand Svenska (Swedish). We had an activity where we (several dozen missionaries) were in a room with someone who was interested in the gospel (many were actors but some were really good so I didn't know if they were actually just investigators). I met my companion, Aldste Winkel. He's from Lindon, Utah and is a cool guy for sure. He's always cracking jokes and making me and the other two elders I live with laugh. I love my companion and the other dudes I'm with.

Honestly I don't remember Thursday and Friday and Saturday. They kinda blended into one so I'll just share some highlights.

Friday we had to teach a lesson to an investigator (someone who is interested in our church) who's name is Rickard. He only speaks Swedish to us and we have to teach in only Swedish. Pretty crazy  just 2 days in we have to teach a lesson in the language! We taught him 5 times since I've been here. It was a motivating experience when we taught him on Saturday because after we covered all the content we had to teach him about, he and I started to talk in Swedish, off script. I was able to remember things I had learned in the 2 or 3 days of class before and ask him about his belief in God and about his life and what he wanted his life to be like. I was super stoked about that.

I spend all my time with my companion, Aldste Winkel, of course, but also two other elders who room with us. One is Aldste Lewis, he's from Idaho and Aldste Simmons who is from Wyoming. They both just graduated high school a few weeks back haha crazy that they went right outta high school. The four of us get along super well. We call each other broders, which is "brothers" in Swedish.

After Sunday, time starts to fly by. We get on a regular schedule and I can't believe it's already Thursday. 

Things are great here. I just ran into Elder Bean!! Today is his first full day at the MTC so use DearElder.com and send him some love. (www.dearelder.com is a free service that prints out your letter and delivers it to the missionary. Rylan's code is July 18 SWE-STO Unit # 259)

Love you guys! Love it here! Less than 5 weeks and I'll be in Sweden!

Sincerely, 

Aldste Gordon