Here's another one for the blog!
It's been a pretty great week here at the MTC.
There hasn't been a lot of incredibly crazy things happen this week, but it has been
entertaining to say the least. My district really likes to have fun. This leads us to take
a lot of time off of our study schedule to "get to know" each others personalities. what
I mean by this is that everyone is so loud during study time that we all have no choice
but to share stories of our glorified pasts, our undeviating opinions, and our incredibly
auspicious expectations for the future. Nevertheless we do learn a lot, and we have
a good time doing it.
It has taken these two weeks, but my body has finally adjusted to the daily assault on
my digestive system. For some reason no one chooses the healthy alternatives that are
offered in the MTC cafeteria. (Apparently a steady diet of chocolate milk and processed
meats is not, in fact, a healthy lifestyle choice.) Regardless of this fact I am getting by
without gaining much weight. I have been running regularly which is a blessing in itself.
Each week I see more and more people that I know here in the MTC! It is crazy! It helps
to make this place more inviting and less like its prisonesque caricature. The Portugese
is once again giving me the "bi-polar" treatment. I can still understand everything that is
said. Yet my lack of ability to verbalize the language is still quite a stumbling block. It
will only come with time though. I time that I wouldn't mind coming any sooner.
Speaking of language barriers, we had a mock investigator last night! It was our teacher
pretending to be a door contact. Oh what fun we had with this investigator, and OH how
many red flags were raised. The first mistake my companions and I made was to walk
right into the classroom that was allegedly this investigators "house". This upset our
investigator, who I will now refer to as Rigo. (This being the completely false name that
our teacher told us). The next thing that got us thouroughly chewed out by Rigo was the
fact that we spoke English in front of him. He found this rude, and felt it less rude to raise
his voice ABOVE that appropriate for the circumstance. The next bad thing occured when
we went to pray. The way he was to pray was diffirent than the way that we pray in our
church (He essentially just bowed really low with his palms up and hands outstrecthed.
when we told him that that is not the way in which we pray he was thoroughly offended.
I didn't know how to appease the situation in any language other than English, so I said
words that may or (most likely) may not have made sense.
This experience opened my eyes to how much I have left to learn and to how difficult being
a missionary really will be. Yet despite these verbal altercations I am still confident in my
ability to learn, grow, and be a good missionary.
I miss all of you guys, and I really hope that you enjoyed reading this, and are doing very
very well. Also it is always nice to receive letters, because I love to hear from you! It is also
imperative that you make me seem popular in front of my district. Mainly so that their ability
to overcome envy is strengthened. They need taken down a few notches! haha
Até mais!
-Elder Dane Eskildsen
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