Skeletons of Society

Family.

How goeth life in the secular world? Time doesn't pass, at all here in the MTC, there are no clocks or calendars, so we pretty much have to rely on our internal clocks and the odd watch here and there. And whats with that smoke and stuff in the sky? We assume there is a fire about, but they won't tell us what goes on in the world outside of the MTC. There could be some huge school shooting at BYU and they wouldn't tell us about it.

So.... For once I don't have all that much to say. Nothing all that remarkable has happened, my Spanish is getting better. Now I can generally get the main point of what I'm trying to say across and I can communicate basic ideas and stuff, I still have trouble with conjugation of verbs and whatnot though. Spanish pretty much has no rules and there a bunch of random aspects that don't make much sense at all, you just kinda have to roll with it.

Okay, here's an amusing story. So last week the other Elders in our room, Allbee and Manship, dismantled their bunk bed and put them both on the floor and then we started hanging sheets from the ceiling and we got rather carried away with it. So it was a pretty much a reconstruction of the old Israelite Tabernacle with the different rooms separated by hanging sheets and whatnot. It was pretty funny. Every Friday there is a room check where the custodial staff goes into our rooms, checks them out, and leaves behind a slip of paper saying how well we did. We've pretty much failed it every time, they have a checklist of things that should and should not be done. Like locking the door and leaving the lights off. They have a few random ones like "don't remove the window caulking" and "don't remove the side bed post thing." We haven't yet done this, but we're determined to get a perfect 0 on our room check one of these days, it will be epic.

Unfortunately this all had to go back up, on Sunday we had a couple districts from our Zone leaving. And when such an event occurs we do what I call foolish traditions of our fathers. Every Sunday we're to stay in our normal proselyting clothes until 10:00 rather than getting rid of them right at 9:30 like we do every other night. I hate it, it's stupid, and I show my defiance by not wearing my tie and un-buttoning my collar. Oh yeah, I am such a rebel. Anyway, then we do this other abominable practice called 'the hug line' in which everyone lines up and one end of the line moves down the other and thus ends up in everyone giving a hug to everyone. I hate that too, I'm not much of a touchy-feely person to start off with but hugging 30 or so sweaty, smelly other Elders is nasty. I want to take a shower after these abominable practice but there isn't enough time after that. And our Branch President comes up into the dorms and wanders around talking to everyone who's leaving. So we were in our room, and we hear that the President is going around to all of the rooms, now we still had all the sheets up and the beds down. So in a manner of seconds we quickly reconstructed our room as it was before. It was fast, it would have impressed those NASCAR teams who change tires during the races. Literally 5 seconds after we finished the President, (who's name is President Dickerson by the way) opened the door and came in and asked us if we were going to participate in the stupid hug line. We said yes, and went out. He didn't see a thing. We are amazing.

Another amusing story. So here in the MTC you can get T-shirts that have various countries at states for the missions in them. They're white, with a picture of the flag in the middle and the state motto or country motto or whatever it is, and information such as languages spoken there, population, how many square miles, etc. So Elder Wood wanted us to get Texas T-shirts. I didn't particularly want one but Elder Wood persisted on the grounds that we ought to love our mission areas, I agreed but said that we don't necessarily need some stupid T-shirts to love our mission area. Never the less I was tired of his prattling so I went in with him to fill out a slip for our T-shirts. But unbeknownst to him I didn't select the Texas shirt, I filled out one for a Sweden shirt, and about a week later we got them and Elder was flabbergasted and somewhat outraged that I had a Sweden T-shirt rather than a Texas one. I laughed, Sweden is el mejor. So now I got myself a sweet Sweden T-Shirt. I think I might get Norway and Austria shirts too.

Ummmmm..... I got 6 minutes, I don't know what else to say. Life here is one really long day punctuated by all too short periods of unconsciousness. The routine has gotten so regular that I barely notice the passage of time. Personal Study Time is my favorite time because I can study, by myself, and not to have to talk to anyone. So yeah.... I'm still alive, but for how long? This food is killing me, hopefully I will send my huge letter to ye'all that I finally completed today, it details some of the effects of the nasty food and I'm sure Aidan and Austin will find it hilarious. Happy birthday Alyssa and Aidan, you finally got a Tablet eh? Oh and the mac, har,. Oh and could you send me some face-wash or something? This hand "soap" as they call it in the bathrooms just ain't cutting it. Peace out.

---Elder Rice