The First Week

Thanks for all the emails and letters. My P-Day is on Monday so that's when I can read emails, but it's good to get letters in the mail too, so thanks.

So, let's take this chronologically. I got here on Wednesday, said goodbye to you, and was whisked off by, yep, Stephen [his BYU roommate]. He's still here for a few more weeks, learning Finnish, and I haven't really seen him since then. I was actually feeling pretty good for the first hour or so. My district was pretty easy to get along with. My companion showed up a couple hours late; he was doing temple work with his family. After a couple hours things kind of immediately went wrong, as we had to sign into our missionary portal accounts to do an orientation, and for the life of me I couldn't remember my password. I tried different combinations of username and password for an hour, and that didn't work, so I ended up using a teacher's account. On Friday I went to the IT desk and got it all reset, so it's fine now, I just have a new password to my account.

You may have seen on my first letter that we had a weird experience Wednesday night. [We haven't received that letter yet but are looking forward to it!] They brought in an investigator to talk to a group of us, and she had had a rooooough life. You can read more about exactly how tactful the fresh-out-of-the-gate teenagers handled talking to a victim of abuse and other really tough stuff in my letter. Oof.

Went to bed that night not really sad or anything, just kind of stunned.

Thursday was really packed, we had meetings and classes essentially every minute except for meals and bedtime. I'd written you a letter, which you might have received by now, but wasn't able to send it off until Friday.

Friday was also pretty stressful, but a little less busy than the previous day. Friday was my first experience with gym time, and that really helped. I spent nearly all of it on an elliptical machine so that I could be alone with my thoughts without people judging how slow I was actually running. I started to get at least a little more used to the lessons on Friday. We have personal study, breakfast, then companion study, then a four-hour block of lessons in the morning, lunch, and then three more hours in the afternoon. It involves a lot of role-play, during which I discovered I like playing the investigator probably a little too much. It's the improv background. We have dinner, and then there's gym time sometimes, or a devotional, or, in the case of next Tuesday, CHOIR PRACTICE UUUUGGGGGHHH. My companion really wants to do choir and I agreed because he can't do it without me and I didn't want to be as whiny on the outside as I am on the inside. At least it's only for a week.

Saturday was pretty easy. Classes like normal, then a slightly extended gym time during which I played, or attempted to play, soccer.  Sunday was a little harder--essentially being at church from sunrise to sunset and a 24 hour fast on top of it. We took a temple walk, though, and that was good. It was really hot though, and I forgot to take off my suit jacket beforehand. I should have taken pictures.

Today's been going a little better. Had some time to email, went to the temple alone for the first time. I'm going to the gym soon, and then going to get a haircut, which are free, which is nice. Then we have a stress management class and I'm teaching an "investigator" (a member playing an investigator) for half an hour.

Also I forgot to take my camera to the computer lab. I'm in my gym clothes. I only really had a picture of my bed with the lobster I got from Lagoon on it, and a selfie of me and my companion. I'll take a few more pictures this week and then send them over on my next P-day.

One week down, one hundred to go. About 1% done. Or, as I've been thinking about it, 5% on my way to Christmas, at which point I can talk to you all on Skype and I'll only have a year until I have six months left. 2 years is a long time.

Thanks for keeping up with me!

Ethan