Hat Trick By the Elder From Whoville

This week the MTC Presidency showed us a few Olympic videos, one of Micheal Phelps and the other was a runner. In both videos, they looked like they had no chance of winning, but they ended up finishing strong and won their race. So, the presidency here was teaching us we need to finish strong, because most missionaries start lacking towards the end of the MTC. Our district finished memorizing the references for each of the gospel principles. Then I marked all of these in my scriptures, so I can easily find them while I'm teaching. This week my companion and I had the opportunity to teach someone over skype in Spanish and that was a pretty neat experience. The service this week was helping clean, load, and put away all the dishes in the cafeteria, and it was good to see what the workers here do because it gives us a better appreciation for doing it every day for us. My  in depth personal study of the Book of Mormon and Bible is going great. I'm learning so much and some of the prophecies like in Nephi 13 and 14 are so amazing about the colonization of the Americas and the American Revolution. The day before Preparation Day, which we call PDay eve, we planned out our formation in soccer since we challenged another district.  So today we played them on full size goals and we won 7 to 4. It was so much fun and it made me miss playing on all my teams back at home, me and this other guy got a hat trick. I scored 2 upper 90s and a PK. Then after that we played basketball and that's a bunch of fun too. Anyways, so I told my district I'm from Pflugerville and now they love to make fun of it, they think its like Whoville from Dr. Seuss, so they sometimes just start rhyming when they talk to me. Each week goes by faster and faster and It feels so good to know I'm almost in Chihuahua, doing the real work. The pictures this week are from my temple trip, since I don't think there's anything new to take pictures of here in the MTC 

Elder Talbot

Ten Plates of Chicken, For the Record

These weeks are flying by, which is good because this place is starting to make everyone sick. Anyways, so on Saturday I had 10 plates of chicken, and I was talking to the cooks here and yea I beat the record here so that was pretty sick. I also finished the Book of Mormon, so I'm ready to read it again as well as the New Testament,  but more in depth this time. On Tuesday we got to watch the BYU devotional in which President Nelson gave a long talk about the 5 truths we all need to remember and it was super good. On Thursday, we had our first lesson with volunteers, and that went well, but they talked so fast it was so hard to keep up with what they were saying. But, it was a good experience to see what it is actually going to be like when I leave the MTC. Today we played a basketball game as a district for an hour and then a soccer game and that was a ton of fun. The soccer fields are always super wet so there's always puddles everywhere, so that adds quite a bit of excitement. Everything is pretty routine here so each week it seems like there's less and less to write about. But I did have a pretty good story this week. I was studying on my bed when someone knocks on my door and tells that the phone is for me. And that it was the executive secretary. So I talk to him and he says that he has been receiving reports from 2 girls that I have been staring at them to the point where it makes them feel uncomfortable. So I was just thinking no way this is so weird, and then he told me that I needed to go to the District leaders house to resolve the problem immediately. So I go over there and my District leader tells me that he just got off the phone with the same guy and he told him that I was going to have a meeting with the MTC President tomorrow about it. So by then everyone was gathered around listening on what was happening. Turns out it was one of the guys from the district who had changed his voice and acted like the executive secretary over the phone. So it was all a joke and everybody was yelling haha I guess they wanted to get back at me for the previous prank. But they executed it really well, so that was a good time. Next week is supposed to be all Spanish. So that is going to be interesting for sure, but I'm looking forward to it.

Answer to Prayer

I started off this week with a pretty amazing and unexpected experience. So I had lost my camera and I had looked pretty hard for it. During my personal study of the Book of Mormon, I was reading 3 Nephi and I got to 3 Nephi 18: 20 and it said, And Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, which is right, believing that ye shall receive, behold it shall be given you. So after I read that, I prayed that I would receive my camera and then about 5 minutes later someone from my district came up to me holding my camera. Turns out someone had found and it looked through the pictures and zoomed in on the name of the first person on my camera roll, but it was someone from my district. So then they found him and then he brought it to me. But that was definitely the fastest answered prayer I have ever had. 

We got to watch President Nelsons 95th Birthday celebration and there was way too many songs in that program, but it was still neat. We got a new teacher this week because Hermano Rocil was only our teacher for 2 weeks and we miss him quite a bit. I finished memorizing all the principles for all the lessons in English and Spanish as well as Moroni 10:3-5. 

I had 7 pieces of pizza one night and then 7 green salsa chicken enchiladas another and then 3 cheeseburgers and 3 fish another, and then 6 empanadas for the next meal, so yea that was a bunch of food, and plates. I really enjoy counting how many people look at my plates as I walk to go put my tray away. We had a devotional by Gary E Stevenson from the quorum of the 12 apostles about missionary work. This devotional was streamed to all the MTCs and the message was very inspiring. 

Me and my companion pulled a huge prank on our district with our teacher. So we told her to tell them that we were going to take a test and if anyone within the district failed, we would all have to stay another 6 weeks. So they were freaking out about that. Then once our teacher told them that it was a joke, they wanted to keep the joke up with our district leader and his companion, since one of them was sick so they didnt know about it. So when we saw them at the meals, we told them that we got the test results back, and we are on track to stay another 6 weeks. We kept it going until dinner and we were acting like we were arguing about it with another. So then our district leader and his companion were getting all mad, and then we finally told them we were just kidding and they couldnt believe it. Anyways, today was Pday and we had the opportunity to attend the Mexico City Temple. That was a great experience as well and I took a quick nap on the way home. Thats all for this week. Adios

Soccer and "How much can you bench, Bro?"

Hola! I missed my first e-mail for week 1. So here´s my experience so far since I left. I got dropped off at the airport and said goodbye to my wonderful family. After a 30 minute delay and a short nap, I boarded my flight to Mexico City. I found these weird exercises in one of the magazines that you can apparently do on the plane, but I just slept instead. I landed and then we hopped on a bus to get to the airport. I went through immigration customs and then I found the guy that lead me to a train, to take me to the right terminal, to hop on the bus, to go to the MTC. We arrived at the MTC and did all the paperwork and I had to get a surprisingly painful Tetnis Shot. I dropped off my luggage that my mom found on the side of the street, with broken wheels. And then we went to ¨dinner.¨ We arrived late so there was no pizza, so we got to eat corndogs and fruit yum. Then we went to the Tuesday night devotional, which ended up being another sleeping period for me haha but that one was unintentional. Then I went to my house and met my roommates and companion named Elder Wall. He´s a farmer boy from Arizona. However, my roommates were a bit more interesting and that´s all I´m going to say about that one. The next few days were pretty rough just trying to adjust to everything, but since then it´s been getting better and better each day. My district is 8C and consists of 12 Guys and 0 Girls. We had our first interviews with our branch President. Going to sleep and waking up is very interesting here in Mexico. If there aren´t sirens going off or cars honking nonstop, then something really strange must be going on. The MTC here is caged off and is built like a neighborhood, so it´s very different from the one in Provo. Everyday except Sunday and Pday feel exactly the same. The schedule here looks like this. Wake up at 6:30, then you get  to exercise, whether that´s sports or lifting weights until 7:30. Then you go back and get ready for the day. Go to breakfast at 8. Then you go to class and study Spanish and the Gospel until lunch. Then you go back to class and study again. After you´re done studying, you gotta study again. Occasionally, there´s a devotional or something else to go to at night, otherwise you just have dinner and then go back to class and or personal studying until 9:00 P.M. Then you get to go home and fall asleep before 10:30 P.M. So this is actually the most sleep Iv´e gotten since I can remember, but I think I´m still trying to catch from the seminary days. My instructors are Hermano Rocil in the mornings, and Hermana Lopez in the afternoon and they are amazing teachers. I´m learning so much about Spanish and becoming a missionary every day. All the natives here have trouble pronouncing my last name, so I´m hoping they get it right before I leave. Anyways, so I had my first mini PDay on Saturday and had a really powerful devotional about the Book of Mormon. One thing I didn't realize about becoming a missionary was how much of it is just memorization. Whether it´s Spanish, The Missionary Purpose, The First Vision, The Baptismal Invitation, Preach My Gospel Lesson Principles, and Moroni 10:3-5 which is what I´m currently working on. Memorizing in Spanish is so much harder, so I have been memorizing in English and then Spanish and it definitely makes it easier for me. So something funny happened while I was in the cafeteria one time. I was going to put away my 7 plates that were stacked up on my tray and this dude looks at the plates and then looks at me and says ¨How much do you bench Bro?¨ Every meal, every day, is a buffet and it´s definitely the most food I´ve ever consumed in a 2 week period. My district thinks it´s insane how much food I can eat at one time. Anyways, for one of the days during our gym time we played soccer as a district and that was bunch of fun, and I can´t wait to play in Chihuahua. So in my district, I´m known as the guy that´s always studying something and so my District Leader didn´t make me pass off one of the assignments because he just knew I already had it down. So now I can start slacking...syyyyyke. So today was our first real Pday and we played soccer and they kept making me switch teams when one team started losing too badly. After that we played basketball and that felt more like a real evenly matched game, so that was fun, and also because we played full court and we kept score:). That´s all for these first two weeks. Adios!