Week Three - MTC

Alright it has officially been three weeks here at the MTC! Things are going well here I'm kind of getting used to the food, it has stopped destroying my body, maybe It's just my body saying it has given up. so this morning Elderes Vosters y Woodford went to the MTC in Spain for the next six weeks. I was surprised at how hard it was to say goodbye to them after only three weeks. They truly did become like my brothers and it happened in such a short time. Woodford traded us all ties of his and we are all wearing them as we speak in his honor. The one I got is pretty sweet it is pink and white and black and I must say I traded up for it. So TRC Training Resource Center happened for the first time this week and I was terrified to have to talk to native speakers in Spanish. Turns out it was awesome, not a ton of volunteers showed up because this week is Finals but the people I did get to talk to were another Elder in our Zone who was upset afterwards because I know more Spanish than him and he has been here about twice as long as me, I told him not to worry I had a solid base, so thank you family for being Venezuelan. The next kid I talked to was an RM who served in Washington D.C. amongst the El Salvadorians so he talked like one but he loved talking to my companion and I even though we aren't great at the language. Elder Holley is improving we still have a lot of work to do but we are definitely taking strides as far as the Spanish is concerned as well as with everything else. Sunday we had my first district council and I got to represent my district as we went over each Elder and spoke of any troubles they may be having. Girlfriends came up a lot with the entire zone and I realized that I had some problems with that in my district. So, during the meeting I conduct with my District we set a goal to try to keep ourselves less distracted from things outside the mission, pre mission, during mission, and especially post mission. Some of the things we need to work on as a District are, singing less Fergalicious and other assorted songs that don''t invite the spirit, quoting movies that don't invite the spirit, and pining for things we have left behind. I haven''t gotten the chance to sit with Elder Holley to talk about the talking bear and all the pictures of Jessie his girlfriend so I am not sure how that is going to go, hopefully he will see my point. The Hermanas have gotten a little better at treating me with respect and not like they are superior to me because of age but we still butt heads at times when i suggest something they don't like. For example, not hitting on Elders at dinner or making dirty jokes. I have been surprised that the Hermanas have been the ones most guilty of that. Except Hermana Ready, she barely speaks and when she does its usually due to anger because we pulled a joke like hide the mail that she doesn't like. I am also more and more surprised at how hardcore some people take four square in gym. Missionaries take their four square seriously. Our room still smells horribly, that is another thing we need to address because we found the cause, and it''s one of the elders closet, I don't think its necessary to use a name but we will need to have the hygiene talk which probably wont be recieved too well. Sorry that this email is all over things are coming to me out of order and I am just writing it all down. Elder Paulsen has some confidence issues I think and we have been doing our best to help build him up. Apparently he had written home and told his family he had been getting picked on so as a District we have cut back on the hassling him. Sometimes I forget that not everyone had friends who liked to give grief like mine did. So during my District leader interviews I got the chance to sit with him and apologize for any problems we may have caused him and also let him know that he can tell us if anything else should arise. We love him and would hate to make his stay here any harder than it already is. Today I will be part of the biggest Earthquake drill in history Whooo!

Elder Ballard came to speak with us this past Sunday and it was amazing! He spoke to us about the importance of having the spirit when we teach and we got to hear about how preach my gospel was developed! We are so blessed here to have at our disposal latter day Modern revelation. I was reminded how sensitive we must be to the spirit to receive guidance from our Heavenly Father. We plan to apply what we learned to our investigators Anderson y Gabriel. They have been slightly more difficult to teach because they love asking questions because they are RM''s and know what to ask to throw us off kilter. One of them even rejected us as we went to teach him in his ""home'', he opened the door and turned us away because he had to go to ''work''. Valuable experience indeed, I was surprised and even though it was just our teacher it was hard to accept no for an answer so we left him a pamphlet and came back to class. Since then the lessons have gone well, we have committed one to baptism and one of them isnt convinced of the Priesthood power yet he feels its too fantastic to be real. We have been using the ZRT or zone resource teachers to help us practice doctrine as well as the language and I believe that will help a lot. We also have been focusing during study more which is super hard.

I love you all so much I'm out of time I will write you again

Elder Bassett