Week of Feb. 23

Dear Family, Everything is going good here in the MTC. I finally got my email set up right, its hard to fix things when they put so much security on these computers, they only give you 30 minutes a week to write emails. Everyone was having tons of problems getting into their email. Anyways I got it all figured out and its working fine so far...I think haha. Anyways yeah so I've been here two weeks so far, The español es muy facíl y yo estoy apprendado muy rapido. Mi gramatica no está muy bueno pero yo recuerdo mucho del vocabulario y mis maestros hablen en todo español, pues es facíl a apprender. I have seen Sister Crofts a couple times, she came up to me and introduced herself. I also saw Elder Thompson, he is in one of those waiting to go to Brazil MTC groups, he looks exactly the same as he did when they moved away from here. And I saw one of my friends from school, he is learning lithuanian in the class above me. The floor above us is all eastern Europe classes. So like Lithuanian, Georgian, Slovenian, Hungarian and stuff. They sound really funny when they try and talk, and they have to stay here for 11 weeks instead of 8 HAHA. The food here is really hard on your digestion. Teresa was right, its like the same foods as the Cannon center, but like one grade crappier. It makes you fart all day, and plugs you up like no other. Each day we have to study 1 hour personal, 1 hour companion, and 1 hour of language. So pretty much the only three places we ever are is our classroom, the cafeteria, our residence hall, and the gym for one our a day. Speaking of gym, I sprained my ankle the other day, but it is gonna be fine. Just got a little swollen. Anyways my companion is really cool, hes from chicago, and hes going to San Jose - Spanish speaking. Our class pretty much all have the same experience of spanish skills, so we all can talk to some degree. Like I told you, they made me the District Leader, so I have to like do interviews every week, distribute mail, handle concerns, go to extra meetings, and ask people to pray and stuff. Our district has 8 people, 4 Elders, 4 Hermanas. We all get along allright, sometimes one of the Hermanas gets on our nerves, because she can be hecka annoying...but we don't have any real complaints. Our main teacher is Hermana Decena, she is from Dallas, and originally from Mexico, so we get the accent quite a bit. Our other teacher is a strait up Utah mormon with a wierd sense of humor, and a monotonous voice, but I try and pay attention to him anyways. We have to do teaching assignments every week with volunteer investigators, but so far it has all been in English, (except for the introductions and stuff.) So its pretty easy, its like teaching the same stuff that I've known since primary. Our Branch presidency is a little wierd, but they are still cool. The first councelor is named Brother Gubler, and he has a really wierd smile (which he keeps on all the time) that creeps me out sometimes, but he really knows about all kinds of intense gospel stuff. I started keeping a list of all the wierd and awkward situations that We've/I've had (If you hear me talking in the plural, its because all four of the elders in my district [indluding me] all hang out together and go everwhere together.) Probably the wierdest one that We've had yet was we were in the Main hallways sitting on the couches teaching each other in spanish and stuff, and this group of missionaries comes up to us who are all going to Georgia (the state - english speaking). The whole group is like asking us to take pictures and stuff, execpt for one elder. This elder comes up to us and talks for about 5-10 minutes about how much he hates his mission, and he doesnt think god had anything to do with his call, and he should have gone spanish speaking, and his whole district was like "common elder cheer up quit being such a poor sport" and stuff, but he could not be consoled, it was really wierd, because it definitely did not sound like a missionary. Then we all took pictures for them, and one of the sisters asked my companion (Elder Spencer) if he would take like 10 pictures and he was like "I'll try" and there were like 15 cameras, so by the time we got done, they had been posing in front of the mirror for like 3 minutes. Anyways that sister after the pictures looked on her camera, and my companion only took 2 pictures, and she got really mad and she was like "I can't believe you only took two pictures, they aren't even good", and my comp said, "Oh I'm sorry, I didnt mean to take bad pictures" and he was totally sincere, and then he was like you probably will forget about it later anyways, and she was like "No I won't!" and then after like 5 minutes when their district was leaving she came up to elder spencer and weas like, "You need to learn how to do things how people ask you to, next time a girl gives you specific instructions for something you better do it!" And then stormed off. All of us were just like, "What the heck?...." But anyways yeah there are a lot of wierd people in the MTC, I think Teresa can attest to that. Anyways I got lucky, my district is great. Its really cool, here, and It definitely has a much more spiritual atmosphere. My next letters probably won't be this long, but I will still write every week. Yes www.dearelder.com does work, it works great, we get them the same day, and get to read them because they arent on the computer. so use it please. And also I KNEW you were gonna forget my suit pants. I wouldnt mind having the shoes too. Also I have no idea where the DRIVING RECORD is that I need, but the police record is allready turned in to the travel office. Please make sure to monitor my bank accounts! Thanks for the help, you can probably go to the DMV and ask for one somehow. Anyways my time is almost up, I'll ttyl, Love , Joseph DeVictoria. ps. tell teresa to update my facebook with my address and blog and dearelder. I get like hardly any letters lol. I LOVE EDDIE!!!!!!!!!!!