Greetings from the MTC !! 8-11-09

Hello! So much to tell you about! So basically this week has been quite crazy and hectic and amazing. First I'll tell you about our schedule here at the MTC. So we wake up at 6:30 everyday and half an hour to shower and get ready and stuff and we have to be at class at 7. We're there for 45 mins and then go to breakfast. Then at 8:15 we go back to class. Each class we start with a hymn(en español) and a prayer. I'll tell you more about classes later. But we're there til lunch which is at 12:30 everyday. Lunch lasts 45 mins then back off to class til dinner at 5:30. After dinner is even more class until we finally get back in our rooms at 9:30 just in time for lights out at 10:30. So yeah, we basically live in our classroom and sleep in our regular room. we do however get 50mins of gym each day so thats a nice break from class. That time varies day to day.So class is great, we have two teachers, Hermano Hidalgo and Hermana Cochrane. Hermano Hidalgo is from Mexico and served in Riverside and Hermana Cochrane is from Utah and served in Argentina. So we get to learn from both a native speaker and someone who had to learn Spanish so that's quite helpful. So far we've been studying lesson one from Predicad Mi Evangelio(Preach My Gospel) and been practicing that in English. The teachers switch from Spanish to English throughout class so we're kept on our toes. We study the books(Book of Mormon, Bible, Preach my Gospel) in both English and Spainish though. So we get lots of practice in in both languages so thats good. The Spanish is coming back amazingly so I'm really happy about that. I understand most of what is said during class and can kind of read the stuff in the books well. I just need to look up verbs when I dont know what they mean. Oh, yeah, I can pray in Spanish too so thats good. We only pray in Spanish now. Like I was saying, we're learning how to teach the lessons first in English, so that we can fully understand the doctrine, then we're going to learn them in Spanish. That'll be around week 5 or so and at that time, English "dies" and we can no longer use it in class and stuff. Hopefully my spanish is good enough by that time. I think it will be.Life here is good, its a lot of fun but I've also never learned so much so fast. Meals here are good, theyre basically the same stuff we ate at BYU for 8 months so I'm used to it. I'm not so used to the schedule though haha. Its hard for me to get up and when I do I'm tired throughout the day, but its getting better as I am here longer. And naps arent allowed haha so i just have to suffer through it.My companion is Elder Erickson. He's lived a lot of places throughout his life but most recently lived in Utah but attended two and a half years at Westpoint. So this schedule is cake to him haha. He's a little older (he turns 20 this month). We get along pretty well, no real problems so for that I am thankful. Oh, he is also going to Santiago East.The district I am in is made up of 7 elders and 4 sisters. Two going to Chile, three to panama, five to honduras, and one to virginia. We are an intermediate spanish class so Im glad about that. We are still here for 9 weeks though.I've gotten to see all my friends that are up here! elder Mayberry(Ryan) and Elder Velez(Mauricio) live the floor below me and go to class in the same building and have the same schedule as me so I see them often. Marshall I've seen a few times and talked to, he's doing good and he says his albanian is coming pretty well. We (mi compañero y yo)actually were sitting on a bench today and Elder Klein(Marshall) and his companion came and bore their testimonies to us in albanian so that was cool. Elder Martinez(Chad) is doing well but says the Japanese is quite hard. He already leaves at the end of this month. Elder Brase(Jason) just left this morning for Phoenix so i got to say bye to him and take a picture with him yesterday. He's speaking English sop he was only here for 3 weeks. Elder Anderson leaves on thursday so thats neat too. It feels like the time will never come for me to be able to leave for chile haha. We arent supposed to say first names to eachother, just Elder so and so, and I can't get used to that. I still call ryan ryan cuz thats just too weird if I called him elder mayberry. funny side note, me and ryan have another set of twins in our classes, so one's in mine and the other is in ryan's.Well my time is almost up so I'm gonna wrap it up real fast. Im doing just fine here. I love it. the Spirit is so strong and your testimony grows so much and so fast here its crazy. But yeah, I hope all is well at home! I can only access email once a week but I can read letters any day so choose whichever but I'll respond! I look forward to hearing from you all and best wishes to all of you! Youre in my prayers.Much love,Elder Mayberry