First Letter from Alex

Wow! Is the first thing I will say. Second, Alex hand wrote this letter and since his handwriting leaves much to be desired, Michael and I translated it and typed it up to be posted here. Also just so you know, before Alex left he and I discussed this blog and it's purpose and that I would post his letters here and if there was anything he did not want me to post to let me know. This is an account of his first three days in the MTC.

Now my notes before the letter, since this is my blog too. I had no idea what to expect as a first letter. But I am glad that he is holding nothing back (that I can tell). The night before Alex left, a friend of mine described her son's first letters and I was like "really?!" Very similar to what Alex has written...I am glad that he is keeping it real.

So here it is:

Dear Mom and Dad,

Our Branch President’s wife told us that we should write our mothers. But I know that everyone is going to read it so I might as well address it to the whole family as well. We are to write about our first day here in the MTC. Well it was pretty crazy. I was brought in a whirlwind of “take this, go here, take that, go here!” It was confusing but I’m fine now. I’ve got a load of paper and books. Anyway this letter shall be short as I only have five minutes to write it, thus explaining my handwriting which is worse than usual.

So the MTC is really dark and filthy, when I finally got to my room it had that terrible old smell, but more juicy and moldy. I am terrified to actually put my clothes in these nasty drawers and cabinets. Oh and it turns out that I actually do need some hangers, so please send about 10. Oh and I could use a water bottle, you know the green one? I think it still atop my bookshelf thing in my room. Oh and I need one more t-shirt, preferably my Scotland one.

So the room, yeah it’s pretty nasty, worse than a cheap hotel. The bathrooms are abominable, you can clearly tell the last time someone had a nosebleed in one of the sinks and the toilets…I won’t even go there. Other than that it is not so bad. Everyone is really friendly, sometimes too friendly. It turns out that the room I’m in was the “party room”. Not too long ago when some elder,, now gone had it all to himself would always get tons of food that his family would send to him.

So my companion is Elder Wood, a quiet kid, quieter than me. He’s from San Diego and there’s a funny story about that, I won’t share it until I email you on my p-day so you can actually read it. The other Elders who share my room are nice guys, I forgot their names at the moment, heck, I don’t remember anyone’s name but my own and my companions. Well we got to know our district and zone. I have been designated as the senior companion of myself and Elder Wood. Anyway this one Elder, one of my roommates is perfectly at home in this dank environment. He is always eating doughnuts and he just leaves them sitting out by the window or in front of the mirrors and they go bad but he still eats them after several hours.

Well this new page is being written at the end of day two. This letter was supposed to be finished and sent yesterday but I didn’t finish it because I am really quite long winded. So when you finally get this I hope you all haven’t thought that I have forgotten about you. There simply isn’t time to do much of anything. My p-days are on Thursdays and this Thursday didn’t count so it will be awhile before you actually get an email from me.

Like I said today is the end of day 2 and I have already felt like I have been here a week. I am just not used to being awake for such long periods of time. Well the food here is rather sub-par as was expected, like cafeteria food you will find anywhere else. But it is not very good. It tastes okay, okay enough to eat, but after an hour you feel the effects and I always feel sick an hour or so after eating.

Well I was going to end but seeing as though I have a whole other page to go through. Well now it is Friday night. It’s been a long day. My mood swings between eccentric and upbeat to apathetic and angry. My companions are sometimes great and sometimes I wish they would die horrible deaths.

Learning Spanish has its ups and downs. Yesterday we were suppose to start praying in Spanish. Well I was called upon by my district leader to give the closing prayer at the end of the class session. I totally butchered it, stumbled over those stupid words with too many vowels “ agradecemos” in something (could not read Alex’s writing). Halfway through I gave up and switched to English, the other Elders were snickering during the whole thing. I was feeling rather low and ashamed that I couldn’t remember everything. After I finished it took all of my effort to maintain my composure and I was angry. Not at them, well may just a little, but more with myself for not even saying the whole thing in Spanish. But the guy who was our teacher for that day, Brother Someone kind of told them off afterwards. But even so I was still very unhappy. Some of them came and apologized to me later, which I was grateful for, but dang it!! I hate Spanish!

I am pretty good with pronunciation but I can’t remember the grammar to save my life. Since then, all of today, when we started getting language training my German is all coming back to me. I gave three public prayers today. One was in Spanish, the other came out in a hodge podge of Spanish, English and German. As under stress my brain more readily pulls out German words rather than Spanish, much to the confusement of the other Elder’s.

Well once again, it is time for lights out so I think I will end here. Please don’t send me any food. I appreciate the hot fries, but I just don’t have time to eat outside of meal times. Today I got a package from Grandma and Grandpa with chips and salsa, which was nice, but I don’t know what I am going to do with it.

Anyway I don’t miss any of you yet, but I am still alive.

Elder Rice

*please send 10 hangers and my Scotland shirt.