Buenos Tardes!

Hola familia, 

It has been another great, busy, fast week. I cant believe the CCM experience is almost over. So I did get my travel plans, we leave pretty early on Monday morning around 6ish I believe. I will double check and email you again for sure. So the call will be pretty early, probably in the 5:00 hour. The bad news is that Elder Farnsworth never got his visa so he has to stay at the MTC another week, and then wait for either his visa or a reassignment. So I have to leave my companion, which sucks. I'm gonna miss that little kid. Haha. We fly through Dallas so I could also call on the layover, we have a 2 hour one. Let me know what you guys think.

This week has been really good, learning tons. I have really grown to love our teachers here. All the teachers here have to be students at BYU and RM's. So all our teachers are like 24 and they are all awesome. The Spanish is sure coming along, but the testimony is growing much faster, which is awesome. It really is going to be sad to leave here even though I am so sick of it, because it is just such a great place for spiritual growth. It is finally hitting me that I am going to Mexico. I feel like I have been stuck in the CCM (we say the concentration camp for missionaries) forever. I forget there is still a real world going on out there. But I am so excited to leave! We have committed both our "investigators" to baptism so that's exciting. Haha, now I want to teach real investigators! 

Mother, I got the package, and loved it! It was perfect, everything I could have wanted right now. Gracias. 

Sounds like the wedding planning is coming along great! Loved the pic! Good luck with the shower. 

It is definitely getting cold here as well, makes me kind of glad I am going to a warm mission.

So yes I did get an MTC haircut, and it turned out pretty good, much better than others. Other than the high arches over the ears. But whatever.

We had another great devotional last night, where Elder Clarke from the 70 talked to us about the importance of obedience, opening your mouth and talking to everybody, and how our families are going to be immensely blessed if we are obedient missionaries. I really loved it, it hit me hard, and I hope you guys are seeing blessings in your lives. 

I didn't write down everything I need to say this week, so I can't remember much else, but mother I'm sure your just waiting for this email to come in so ask me anything I forget. Thanks everyone for the dear elders, I am sure going to miss them once I am in Mexico. 

I guess I will talk to you guys on Monday, and the next email will come from MEXICO! Love you all

Love, Elder Elgan

4 Weeks at the MTC!

 Elders' Farnsworth, Burgsma, Pendleton, Elgan

Yes!

Hey everyone!

I cant believe another week has gone by. I guess time flies when you are kept busy. I'm sure you guys are feeling that way as well with everything that is going on at home. Haha so sorry I can't be there to make the treats for Kayla's shower, if I could I would. haha. So thats so exciting that everybody knows about Brandi's bun in the oven! I can't believe there is gonna be another lil one when I get home, and whatever it is it is going to be 1 when I get home! Thats just gonna be weird. But so exciting!

So I did see Conner yesterday, which was lucky. Turns out he is over at West Campus, and he was up at the main campus yesterday at dinner because someone in his district needed an x ray. So it was really lucky I ran into him, but i did and I talked to him for a while and he seems to be doing really good! Hopefully Barbi hears from him today. 

Um so you were wondering what a normal Sunday would be like in the MTC, it is just a lot of studying mixed with sacrament and preisthood meeting. There is a devotional every Sunday night and then we can watch films. They show different films in lots of different rooms, and they are all really great. The best one that they show every Sunday is Character of Christ by Bednar. I bet Josh watched it on his mission (if he had given it by then which I am pretty sure he had) he gave it to the MTC one Christmas day. It is awesome. Mom you would really appreciate parts of it being Relief Society president. So you should somehow find it and watch it! Last sunday we watched The Ministry of President Monson. We watched that before on conference weekend but it was 10x better this time. I could somehow watch it over and over. All it really makes me want to do in life is start a Humanitarian Agency and do humanitarian work for the rest of my life. I would love it. haha.

So I am now the District leader of my district. Its about time they realized I am the best. geeze. haha jkjkjk um you were wondering a little more about my district. There are the 8 of us and Me, Elder Farnsworth, Dansie, and Berg are going to Mexico City East, and Elder Pendelton, Burgsma, Morris, and Gardner are going to Monterrey East. However I know of at least 12 others in the MTC going to Mexico City East. There are now only 2 districts in our zone, and we are the oldest which is weird. 

So about some of the things you noticed, the date on those pics, I didnt take those someone sent them to me so no worries, and no it is very against the rules to wear sunglasses here. haha Partly just because we pretty much have the strictest Branch President in the MTC. haha oh but we love him-not at all. 

But as far as the MTC goes I am not going to fight it because I wouldnt need them that much anyway. 

Thats awesome Regan got her mission call, tell her I say congrats.

Crazy Shawn is home, times flies, tell him I say hi when you go up Sunday!

I still dont have any details about the 30th. I should get them next week. 

Life in the CCM is still really good, all the days are more or less the same, not too many exciting things happening, or to take pics of. But our teaching is going pretty good. We have really great lessons, and not so great lessons. We are learning lots of spanish, but I am at the point where I dont think I can really learn too much more without just immersing myself in Mexico. I really just want to go. I love it here, but I know I am going to love it there way more, and we can actually teach real people, not fake investigators. 

So if you are going to send a package tomorrow, the only things I can think of that I dont have are my Preisthood line of Authority, and a concecrated oil vile. No idea if I spelled that word right. But if you cant get those things thats ok. I cant really think of anything else I need, I am doing pretty good. 

I loved all the letters you guys have sent this past week, they are awesome. There will definitely be some handwrittens this week. 

Well I guess my spritutal though of the week would be that Repentance is not just for sin- we need to constantly be in the repentance process striving to make ourselves better. And for those priesthood holders- Authority is ordained, but power is earned. Earn it! 

Sorry if my email is confusing and not organized but I just make a bunch of notes throughout the week of things you guys say and that I need to talk about, so I just go off of that, so it is definitely not the most organized. Haha. But it has been great hearing from you all! I love you all, and I look forward to hearing more from you all! Crazy I only have one more P-day then I'm out of here! 

Love, Elder Elgan

Vegas!?

Sent:Wed Sep 11 10:28:42 UTC 2013
Subject: Hola!

Hey everybody! 

I cant believe another week has gone by, sounds like the weeks have been going by fast for you guys, but i guarantee they are going by faster for me. We are already on week 4, more than halfway. Crazy. Only 2 more p days!

 So Lotoja sounded overall pretty good! Good job Dad, Josh, and Jeff! Mother, i hope your foot is getting better, I bet that is just super annoying. Sorry to hear about that. 

So i guess the most eventful thing of this last week was on Monday we took a little side trip to Vegas. We woke up at 3:00 in the morning and me and 1 other in my elder in my district went. We were with 8 other elders all going to Mexico City East, except for 1. One of the Elders was a friend of Katie Elgans. So we flew down there and got picked up by a grumpy senior missionary. He drove us to a Del Taco, which is the only thing acceptable for missionaries?, but then we went to the institute building there. Turns out this guy served a mission in the Mexico City East mission so for a couple of hours we just sat there and talked about the mission. He gave us some good information, and some that was just useless because he is just weird. haha but some of the stuff i remember is that the only way to send letters is pouch mail, because envelopes are illegal? You will have to check into that. He said not not ever plan on sending or recieving packages because it is just too hard but the only reason I think he said this was because he thinks missionaries should even write their families because we are not there for them we are there for the Lord, so i dont no if i should really believe him about that, you will proabably just have to talk to the blotters. Um we will probalbly get $100 a month, the new big mexico city mtc is about 45 minutes away from the temple, which is further than I thought. But the mission home is on temple square. He said we probably wont get more than 30 minutes to email each week? But how does he really know. He said not to eat at restaurants with less than three walls, or on the street. He said good food comes with a good mission. Ya right. He told us where to get good groceries, and what stores have american goods. He said kidney stones are common from the water, so we will just drink bottled water. Something else interesting is that he said 70% of mexicans dont speak spanish as their first language. They all speak some ancient aztec language? So he said not to worry because most wont be speaking much better spanish than you. I dont know why but i dont believe him about that. But anyways then we headed to the Mexican consulate in Vegas to get our fingerprints and pictures taken. We got our visas. Yay. We then went back to the institute and listened to the guy talk about the old testament for about 3 hours. Worst thing ever. Haha it was so over my head. But eventually we came home and had a pretty big delay because of really bad storms in vegas but we made it home about 11:00. 

So our teaching is going pretty good, we are currently teaching 2 "investigators." As well as our facebook and skype lessons which are just with random members every once in a while. I definitely have my up and down days with spanish. Some days i will be able to teach a lesson with no major problems, and explain everything pretty decently, and other days i can barely think of the word Hola. Haha. But it is coming along really good. We got our new teacher, Hermana Mckay, and she is a lot different. She says spanish is our lowest priority in the MTC and she doesnt teach much spanish, just mainly doctorine, which is good sometimes, but bad at others. But our other teacher Hermano Wagner teaches us lots so thats good. Hermana Mckay taught at the Mexico City MTC over the summer and said she loved it there. She said her first night there she witnessed a homocide on a walk to walmart, but no other main problems than that. Haha.

We got a new district last week, and they are all pretty cool, even though i dont know them very well yet. Next week we will be the oldest district in the zone, which is crazy because I swear we just got here. 

So I should be set to go to Mexico on the 30th. Something else that I cant remember if i mentioned, is that they gave you a little card signed by Pres. Monson that says your a missionary or whatever and it says that my mission is over on Aug 3, 2015. So I dont know if that is just a random date, or if that will be close because that is definitley earlier than i was expecting. But I will be calling from the airport on the 30th. (Unless the day changes). I can buy a calling card here at the MTC which is just what I can probably do. Lots of families send their missionary a pre loaded pay as you go phone that you can just get rid of after or whatever? But whatever works. 

So i saw conner today! I didnt host becasuse wednesdays are our p days, and we are at the temple when the host meeting is going on. But we ate our lunch outside where the new missionaries come in and I saw him, and talked to him for a little bit. We didnt get to say too much,  but i know that I will be seeing him around. I cant believe he just got here and yet he still leaves before me. Ahh. 

So I dont really have any pictures to send, because quite frankly, there is nothing to take pictures of. Haha I really have hardly taken any because all we do is sit in our desks, sit in the cafeteria, and lay in our beds. But maybe this week i will take pictures of our room, classroom, and what not just so you can see what the CCM (mtc in spanish) is all about. 

I'm loving the dear elders, and all of the other letters you guys have been sending. I love hearing from everybody. 

Well I am going to go change my laundry now, so mother I will be back on in a little bit if you wanna ask me or tell me anything! 

Adios!

Love, Elder Elgan

week 2

Sent:Wed Sep 4 10:20:57 UTC 2013
Subject: Hello!

Hey guys!

Well another week has gone by, and it seems like I was just emailing you guys yesterday. Times flies. It has been a really great week though! Lots of Spanish and studying. Something cool i found out is that we are the very first district of missionaries (at least in Spanish that is) to be communicating with members around the world through skype and facebook. They call is the pilot district-we are testing it all out. It is pretty cool, we have had a lot of conversations with members mainly from our teachers missions, through their facebooks. We also skype them which is also kind of fun but at times it is a little awkward. We have now taught 3 different mock investigators a number of lessons, and are starting a new one tomorrow. 

I loving getting all of your dear elder letters they make the night just great! haha I got your package, I think the day of, if not the morning after you sent it. Gracias! it is much appreciated. I decided i can probably live without you sending me my sanuks though... but yes i meant the ones with the laces. I will let you know if i change my mind, and no i dont need my prana shorts but thanks!

So i guess i didnt give too many details about the MTC itself. So there is the main campus, which is pretty much just a mini college campus, and the west campus, which is pretty new. The west campus is the one where missionaries live in the old student housing. Apparently the west campus is awful, missionaries do not want to be at that campus, but we never see them. The main campus is just a bunch of Dorm buildings, classroom buildings, and other amenity buildings. In my room there is me, elder farnsworth, elder dansie, and elder berg. The other 4 in our district are in the room next to us. We have our classroom as well that we are always in, it is basically just our districts room, so that is where we do all the studying, have our lessons, and we just leave everything there. Our teacher has been Hermana Luna, but just this week BYU is starting and her schedule conflicted with teaching us so we have to get a new one. We are all pretty bummed because we all love Herman Luna, she was way cool. 

Um we had another devotional last night and Elder Evans of the seventy talked to us. It was really good, not as good as Elder Andersen but still really good. 

So i have been learning a little bit more about Mexico City, we have talked to some people that have been there. Apparently they dont really street contact or knock doors there now, because they find it a lot more effective to work with members and less actives instead which i thought was interesting. Within the next few weeks i will probably be flying down to Las Vegas to get my visa. Most mexico missionaries have to but some only have to go to SLC so we will have to see how that goes. 

Sounds like a lot of eventful things have been happening back at home. Thats crazy that Josh and Kayla are engaged! Even though they pretty much already have been for the last little while. haha Mother, sorry to hear about your toe, gotta watch out for those logs, haha but im sure Ellie appreciated the effort. An office remodel sounds like fun, that will be nice to have-don't pick anything too ugly :) haha jkjk 

Good luck with Lotoja Father and Joshua! I'm sure you guys are gonna do awesome- you always do. You will have to let me know how that turns out. 

I dont have any very exciting pictures at the MTC, but I will send one or two a little later, because I forgot my camera right now but i will go back and get it and send some. 

But overall i have been having an amazing time! It is cool to be in so many experiences each day in which you can feel the spirit so strong. The blessings of serving a mission are definitely real! I don't know if you guys have noticed any but i sure have for me. The gift of tongues is defintiely real, it is a pretty cool thing to be teaching somebody in a language you hardly know, and just have the words you want to say come to you. However i really just want to teach a lesson in english so bad. haha I envy the english speaking missionaries right now-they have it easy. haha It is very frustrating to know exactly what you want to say, but not being able to say it. But it will come if you have faith, and i know that. 

Well if you guys have any more questions, ask i cant think of any more to say but i'm sure there is. Just dear elder me and i can hand write letters back this week most likely.

I love and miss you all,

Elder Elgan