Halfway Through the MTC!

(I asked Elder C to send me a photo of himself today on his P-day...seeing this face made me so happy!)

Hello all!

Well, it seems like just yesterday that it was Day 2 of the MTC, but my companions and I are now more than halfway done with our training here in Provo! We are really loving it here, and I keep running into my friends I met at BYU! I even ran into an Elder whom I knew when I lived in Singapore, Elder Alec Moore! (If you didn't know, I lived in Singapore for 3 years. Pretty cool, huh?!)

Thank you to everyone who writes me! Sheriece, Pearson, and Addison keep sending me hilariously awesome things in the mail, and I just love to get those letters! Thanks for the synopsis of Harry Potter, Pearson, keep it up!

At the request of my dearly beloved mother, I will include a short schedule of a regular day here in the MTC. We get up each morning around 6:20, which always seems pretty early and right in the middle of strange dreams. We eat every day at 8:00 for breakfast, 1:00 for lunch and 6:00 for dinner - but thanks to all the care packages from the missionaries' families (McKelle and David, your brownies were unreal; Maddy, the kettle corn was deeply appreciated), we always seem to be eating. Yikes. 

The food comes from the BYU cafeterias, so it's just the Canon Center food! Sometimes the meals are really gross, but what can you do other than eat cereal at every meal. It's awesome. One morning, my district destroyed an entire column of Colossal Berry Crunch (cptn crunch berries). I ate 6 bowls. Everyone else ate 5. It was amazing. Glorious day in here.

For the hour of gym each day we usually play basketball and intense four square. Don't believe me? Go play four square with some 18 and 19 year olds who have been cooped up all day and see how competitive it gets! Sometimes we play soccer at intramural fields.

Our teachers are Brother Simon and Brother Horman. They teach us Malay and teaching skills in between our meals, or we fill our time with personal study or companionship study for lessons. My Malay is coming along...I mean I can communicate most of the things I want to say, or find a way to say it with my limited vocabulary ahhaah! It's just hard to really create sentences at the speeds that the natives do and to understand at that fast speed as well! 

The Church just published the Book of Mormon in August into Malay! August 1.  It's called 'Kitab Mormon' because there is no possessive or 'the' in Malay hahah. But, yeah, they used to use the Indonesian (Bahasa) Kitab Mormon because they are 85% the same.

In terms of spiritual things, everything in here is centered around Jesus Christ. You have to remember why we are learning the Malay language, then suddenly everything seems much easier. We have devos (devotionals) every Sunday and Tuesday. The Tuesday ones are always great! Guess who spoke at the devotional on Tuesday night?!?! Elder David S. Baxter! From our stake conference!

Life is cruising in the MTC! I can't wait to see Sister (Cepta) Coleman in the MTC! I learned how to say Hello and Goodbye in Russian from some other missionaries just to talk to her! Ah! I hope she's on West Campus with me! West Campus is in BYU apartment housing and is just fantastic. It doesn't feel like a prison, like the Main Campus MTC supposedly

does! Hahaha! Too great!

Love you all!

Godspeed,

Elder Coleman

PS (to his three sisters)

McKelle: "I miss you so much! I wish you could come to Utah and ambush me at the temple! Haha"

Jessica: "Go listen to Viva Alive for me and dance and laugh and pretend I'm there! I love you and miss you so much, Jess!

And Maddy: "I'm gonna see you so soon! I can't wait! I love you and can't wait to see you almost every day speaking Russian! Dasvitanya!"

Brother Horman, one of our teachers