Monday, March 2, 2015

Week 6 - MTC


Talofa Everyone!!

Talofa means hello in Samoan, except I'm not sure if it's actually spelled that way. This week I've been trying to learn how to say hello in different languages. 
I've been talking to a bunch of people at meals and in the hallways and I've learned how to say hello and other phrases in Cambodian (elder Slavens taught me), Japanese, Korean, Thai, Samoan, Tongan, Romanian, Italian, Russian, Ukraine, Swedish, Norwegian, and I'm still trying to find as many others as I can before I leave the MTC tomorrow.  I love talking to all the different missionaries and seeing where they're going.  On Sunday (yesterday) I got to usher with Elder Slavens (he volunteered me) and as different missionaries came in to be seated, I was able to say hi in all their different languages that I knew. I felt so cool haha.

When it snowed a little bit this week, all the foreigners were freaking out taking photos with it and what not, it was so funny.  Also this district of foreigners from all parts of the world including China, Korea, Mexico, Argentina and a bunch of other places were taking photos in front of the big MTC map.  So I jumped in to one of the photos of sister missionaries.  Afterwards, the elders in their district wanted me to be in their photo too, so I got in it.  Then one of the Chinese sister missionaries, who didn't know that the elders asked me to be in the picture, yells out "there's a white guy on your back!!!!" - talking about me.  She then saw that I heard her.  She put her hands to her mouth and laughed in the highest pitch -  hahahahah I couldn't stop laughing.

 


So as you may have heard, I have been reassigned to serve in the NEW YORK UTICA Mission. I leave tomorrow from the MTC at 3:30. 3:30am that is. We travel to Detroit and then to Syracuse. I'm so excited and I can hardly wait! It's gonna be super cold and I've been preparing for the hot weather of Brazil.  Luckily my parents and grandparents made sure I got a good jacket, some gloves, and a sweater.

We got to skype Brazilians again this week and we skyped a woman named Elisabeth Americo. She told us about how she's going to Colorado because one of her companions is there.  I was like "who was your companion?!?!" and then she showed a picture of Shelby Smith!  I was like whoa I know her! such a small world.

Well I'm excited to head out to the mission field tomorrow!! I hope you're all doing Well!!!

Elder Waters