Week 4

Hello everybody!!

Today's email might be a little shorter, because I don't have that much to talk about. The MTC is still great, Spanish is still rough, and I’m still just living the best life that I can!! This week was a little harder than the last couple but not for any particular reasons. I think they're just really pushing the Spanish lessons to try and keep us growing and developing. Hermano Nixon says my pronunciation is getting a lot better than it was so that's a win. I learned that in Spanish all of the letters make the exact same sounds no matter where they are in the word. For some reason that just didn't click for me before, and it's really helped me. I also cannot roll my r's at all. I've been practicing placing my tongue in the right place like crazy but it almost sounds like I’m saying an L sound if that makes sense. So when I say ferrocarril it sounds like fellocallil, but I’m working on it and it will come. The gift of tongues is real and I know that if I continue to learn Spanish keeping in mind those I will be teaching then I can receive what I need to help me.

What else can I tell you guys about? This week my class on Saturday was going to be at its usual time of 6:15 but Hermano Bryan decided to go and visit one of his converts from his mission up in Logan. This person is an inspiration to everyone who meets him, he is the only member of his family that is a member of the church and is in a battle with cancer right now. All of us were ok with him going and visiting him. The problem later came when Hermano Nixon was placed as the replacement teacher. Hermano Nixon wasn't planning on teaching Saturday night so he planned a date. He emailed my district and told us about the situation and we all went down to work and reschedule the class. So in class, we all told him he needs to go on his date, even though it's not with Hermana Howells( one of our other teachers, it's a running joke that we think they should get together, but that is a story for another time). Anyway it was pretty nice because first of all we got to talk in English witch was a blessing in and of itself, but also we were trying to get information out of him and he just had a nice little smile on his face. It was great, but my district for some reason decided yep 6:30, or right when we wake up, was the absolute best time to have class. We ended up having class at 6:45 which, phew I thought I was going to have to immediately go to class but thank goodness for those extra 15 minutes. That was sarcasm btw. All the girls hated all the boys who suggested it ha-ha, but it ended up fine. I wasn't able to see Jacey off to Provo though, so that was kinda a bummer.

Sooooo... I accidentally sent the email without reading it, or finishing it for that matter.  So here is part 2 haha.

I made a lot of goals this week but one big one was to make sure I had a positive mindset going into each day. So I said that's something I could do. Then on Monday I realized that I didn't actually have any plan about how to do that. I ended up with a bunch of little things that I do each day that help me stay motivated, and in a positive, happy mindset.  One of my favorite things is every day when I'm writing in my journal, I write down 2-3 things that I found "magical" or just kinda things that went well or were kinda cool about that day. It's kinda a weird list, but I want to share the things I wrote down for a few reasons. 1) To share what I thought was cool or magical this week, and 2) To keep me actually writing things down, because when I have to share them in my email every week, I’ll have some things written down. It's to make sure I do it every day. So here's the list for this week.

Nice pens, Thunder storms, a good story, lightning, sprinklers in the wind, friends, people who try, intentions, cold blankets, warm blankets, blankets in general, Creamies, blood, thumbs that don't hurt, smells, shredded cheese, making someone laugh when they are kind mad, cool crystals, a good strike on a ball, bucket lists, and sketchy roads.

So there's a couple weird things in there but don't worry about it. You don't have to find them special. The weather this week was sooo awesome, thunderstorms are sweet!! Playing soccer in a thunderstorm, after you have run through the sprinklers, indeed does "hit differently."

I'm still extremely grateful for the people that I talk to each week, and sorry that I didn't respond that much, I’ll do better next week. Thanks for emailing me this week! I hope you keep it up ha-ha. Next week I'm going to try and send my testimony in Spanish without the help from Spanish dict. So everybody that speaks Spanish, your job is to only laugh for 3 minutes that's all you get. Then you have to say "ok so maybe don't say that."

I love you all!!

te amo

-Max