Frayed Ends of Sanity

Dear Family

How goeth normal life? It's probably pretty intense, I would guess. Life here is like that movie with Bill Murray where he re-lives the same day over and over again. What's it called? Like Ground-hog day or something? Anyway, that's pretty much what living here is like living the same day over and over and over over and over and over over and over and over over and over and over over and over and over over and over and over over and over and over over and over and over over and over and over over and over and over over and over and over over and over and over over and over and over over and over and over over and over and over again. I could hardly believe that I've been here like a month now and that we have a bit less than a month before we're deployed to the front lines.

I kinda want to get out there already, the MTC is boring. I feel like I could teach pretty good but I don't quite know enough spanish. I'm pretty good but it takes me a minute or two to process what people are saying, so in our mock discussions with "investigators" I hear and understand most of their words but it'll take me a minute to figure out just what it was that they were saying. And sometimes they talk so fast that I don't have time to think about what they were saying. I'll get it eventually, besides, I'll have to re-learn everything out in the field, because the native speakers probably sound a lot different than our computer programs and return missionary teachers. Though I'm getting it, my writing is really screwed up and I starting writing things with Spanish spellings and whatnot, so don't be surprised if my spellings come out a little funny. I did that the other day when in the RC I was telling some guy over a chat what prophets were and I unknowingly typed 'profetas'.

I really don't have a lot to say today, not a lot has happened, or least not that I remember, when you relive the same day over and over and over and over again there's not really a lot that sticks out. Ah, wait, okay. 2 days ago on Tuesday for the devotional we had Elder Richard Hinckley and his wife speak to us. Remember when he spoke to us a few years ago for stake conference? He's still really funny and he shared the same story about the English guy and the whatever church it was that he was a part of and how political their church is etc, etc, etc. So yeah that was pretty cool.

I don't have any funny stories but I will tell some things or some hilarity. Our district is rather terrible when it comes to singing. Of the 10 of us there are about 3 (not including myself) who know how to sing and the rest of us suck real bad. So whenever we sing a hymn it's pretty painful. In the TEC which stands for something about teaching, they have workshops for entire districts with other teachers. There are language workshops, study workshops, planning workshops, and many more but much to the disappointment of our district leader there is no workshop for music. So yeah, we're pretty terrible. One of our teachers, Hermano Hanson was telling us that it was a good idea to sing at the start of a lesson with an investigator. Elder Wood wanted to do that the next time we were in the TEC and having another mock discussion with a teacher playing as an investigator. I expressed my thoughts that it wasn't a good idea, but we ended up doing it anyway, we picked a rather easy song, 'Families can be together forever'. And it was horrible, just like I thought it was gonna be. I actually don't think I sound that bad but I can't read music so I ended up singing the first part along to the chorus while Elder Wood, well I told you about Elder wood's voice, that and he sung very very very quiet. I won't go into the details but it sufficeth me to say that we won't be doing that again any time soon. So yeah, we suck. We're in trouble when it comes to our last week and our district will have to a special musical number in our Zone sacrament meeting.

It suddenly occurred to me that school started again. I didn't realize that till just now, I also just remembered that Austin is starting middle school. Well Austin, I'm gonna tell you straight up that those two years at Dixon were probably the worst two years of my entire life. Middle school sucks, everyone is a jerk and you have no idea what is going on and nor do you know why everyone is mean or so stupid all the time. My advice for you would be to take advantage of your large size and be all intimidating, you're pretty easy to walk all over, so be brutal and don't let anyone try to push you around. Just stand up straight and stare at them with a scary expression on your face that says "I'm going to Kill you." But don't actually get in a fight, that would be bad.

Hmmm..... I've got five minutes left, nothing much to say. Aidan you sound like your doing really good in flag football, crush your enemies, show them no mercy. Any it Sounds like fun, and your birthday too, but the lego clock sounded lame.

Well yeah, thanks for the stuff, oh and by the way you'll get a bill concerning some medical stuff, that's just for some medication to help me sleep, I don't sleep good at all here in these musty dank rooms. So that's what that is, shouldn't be too much. So yeah, that's pretty much all I have to say. Oh wait! Dad when you get around to sending me another letter please include the dialog for the brain sucking joke thing. I love you all.

-Elder Rice