MTC Week 2

Hey Everyone!

Week 2 at the MTC was awesome! This week was great!

Last tuesday after emailing you all, that night we had a devotional and Elder M. Russell Ballard spoke to us and shared many tips on missionary work.

On Wednesday in the morning was our service day and we took out garbages and stuff. On Wednesdays is when most of the new missionaries come here. The new people have an orange sticker on their nametag, and it's funny because everyone says "Welcome to the MTC" when they see anyone. You end up hearing it like a hundred times on your first day, its so funny, everyone does it to be annoying. My companion Elder Giron turned his nametag backwards and was asking people where to get it engraved to be funny. It was funny to see people's reactions because they were so confused. 

Most of our days here are mostly class time which gets very repetitive and there's not too much to talk about. We often teach some practice investigators, and we always improve a lot each time.

Saturday morning was our other service day, and my companion was sick almost all day, so we got a lot of time to do personal study and stuff.

Sundays at the MTC are pretty awesome. For sacrament meeting, me, Elder Giron, and two elders from the other district in our branch did a musical number where I played "A poor wayfaring man of grief" on the piano while they sang, it was pretty cool. Then we all had interviews and stuff. Me and Elder Giron went to the departure devotional, because he left on monday. That night was another devotional, this guy gave a talk that was so funny. He said he was at the church at the drinking fountains and a little kid was next to him, and everytime the kid was trying to get a drink he would let go of his button and squirt the kid in the face like 7 times. It was hilarious and he compared it to Satan always pushing our buttons and never stopping.

Monday morning my companion Elder Giron left on his mission to Mendoza, Argentina. He's probably still traveling, he said there's like 25 hours total. Now I'm in a "tripanionship" with Elder Grider and Elder Bailey. Elder Grider is the District Leader now. We're going to be here the full 6 weeks.

This morning we went to the temple at 6 AM again. It's pretty cool to go early like that and be with our whole district. Then we eat breakfast at the temple and its pretty fun.

Me and Elder Milne were comparing pedrigree charts this morning and we saw that we are both related to Sanford Porter so I think we're 5th cousins or something.

I've already seen a few people I know here and it's kind of weird. I met Christopher Reed one day when he came into our class. I also saw Jackie Whiting, Katie Cooper, Taylor Sutton, and another person who went to Queen Creek High School. I met a guy going to my same mission from Gilbert AZ. I think his name was like Elder Jaramillo or something like that. He's leaving this week because he is in the Advanced Spanish.

So it's awesome to hear how good it's going for you guys. To answer some of your questions, yes, my Spanish is going good, I'm learning a lot. It's awesome to hear that Caleb won the District Spelling Bee, make sure he wins the regional one too. There are 10 people in my district after Elder Giron left, and my zone has 26 people.

I have mentioned to people that I program apps and stuff and also that I play the piano. I played a special musical number as I mentioned earlier, and I hope I can do some more. It's not too cold here most of the time and we aren't outside too often anyways. I can't think of anything else I need. I guess some more ties would be good. I already uploaded some pictures to skydrive if you want to see them. I'll send another email with a few more pictures after this!

I hope you are all having a great time! This is an awesome place!

-Elder Severtson

First Week at the MTC

The mission is going awesome so far. My first week here at the MTC was great! We've already taught several "investigators", which are just people that pretend to be investigators. I've already seen lots of improvements in my teaching and Spanish.

My district is awesome! We have 11 people: 4 companionships of Elders and a trio of sisters. I don't know if you guys already got the letter I sent home on Friday... if not you'll probably get it soon. My companion is Elder Giron and we share a room with Elder Bailey and Elder Grider. Elder Giron is going to Argentina too, but a different mission. I put other information about that in the letter I sent. We all get along great.

This morning our whole zone got up at 5:00 AM to go to the temple at 6:00. It was an awesome experience. Hardly anyone was there because we woke up early, and then afterwards we ate at the temple cafeteria. Speaking about food, the food here is alright, just depends on what it is really.

I've been writing in my journal every night so that is going well. Each day feels long because we do so much and have lots of personal or classroom study time.

So, from the airport I was able to find everything alright. Ended up on the plane sitting by some other elders going to Argentina, but different missions. The flight was good and the shuttle was pretty easy to find so I didn't have any problems. I ended up getting here around noon and we went pretty much straight to class. Spanish is coming along well, I've already noticed I'm able to speak alot better and faster than before and I'm learning alot. I've already memorized the missionary purpose and the first vision in Spanish, and I want to eventually memorize other things like the Articles of Faith, that would really help with learning the Gospel Words.

I like teaching the investigators, each itme we do, we find something we can do better at and fix it next time. Alot of my district can speak faster Spanish than me, but I guess that's good because then I can just learn better. When people speak Spanish fast, I can understand most of what they are saying, it's still kind of hard to reply though.

So, I have told my district I can play piano and stuff, but we have a few piano players so I haven't had the chance to yet. That stinks about the app being rejected but it's easy to fix. Just delete the button in both of the .storyboard files, delete it in the LoginViewController.h button, and delete all references to it in the LoginViewController.m file and I think it should be good. Have you checked if the tower defense game I made was accepted yet? Just curious, but I guess it doesn't really matter.

So, anyways, everything is going good, we all get along well, I'm learning a lot of Spanish, and I even took a few pictures. I'm doing laundry right now so I'll be on for a litle bit if you want to know about anything else.

This morning they told us that the FBI Clearances are taking too long so they're having a bunch of us redo it. They took a bunch of us to the police station to get fingerprinted, and I think they're expediting this one or something. They said it shouldn't delay our missions or anything so that's good. I met a few other elders going to the same misison as me, and one was from Gilbert, AZ which was cool. I think that's all, so I'll send you more stuff next week unless you email me back right now

I love it here so much! Here are some pictures:

I'll see if I have time to borrow someone's sdcard with the pictures of our whole zone we took at the temple.

I just emailed Bentley and Cal. I think I'm almost out of email time, so maybe I'll be able to send you pictures of our zone at the temple next time! I'll take pictures next time. Last time we thought they said not to take pictures or something, but then changed their mind or something. I'll be sure to bring my camera next time though.

Anyways, I think we're off to lunch now.

Love you,

-Elder Severtson

Welcome

Welcome to my missionary blog! My name is Porter Severtson. While I am serving in the Argentina Buenos Aires South mission, my dad will post pictures and letters that I send home on here. I leave for 2 years starting in 10 days on January 14th, 2015. I am very excited for the opportunity to go and serve the Lord and to learn to speak Spanish!