Have you ever seen the Mormon Message called "Lessons I Learned as a Boy" narrated by Gordon B. Hinckley? Of course you have. Everyone has seen that one. If not, go look it up right now.
Done? Okay, good.
The Mormon Message is about two boys who put coins in a farmer's shoe. They go away and hide, and watch the farmer find the coins. Then the farmer prays and cries and everyone is happy. But that's not the important part. The important part is the older boy in the video with the little hat on. That's my companion, Elder Barr. So I'm kind of famous by association, right? You can call me the companion to that guy in the Mormon Message. Okay, you don't have to give me that. But apparently Elder Barr's family has been in a lot of Mormon Messages. I guess his parents and siblings are in one called "The Christmas Spirit." And his sister has a band, and his parents are bodybuilders or something like that.
But enough about him.
Before I go on, I'll rewind two weeks to the second day in the MTC. You know that feeling when you're asleep and you feel like you're falling when you wake up? Well, so do I. Sometime during the night two Thursdays ago, I decided to roll off my bed to get a drink. The problem was, I had forgotten that I sleep on the top of a bunk bed now, so I couldn't exactly do that. I think I woke up sometime in between the beginning of falling and falling on my shoulder. I kind of laid on the floor in pain for a few minutes, then decided to get in bed and lay awake the rest of the night. But it really wasn't THAT bad. I was wondering why the other Elders in the room didn't say anything. I figured they either slept through it, didn't really care, or just laughed to themselves and went back to sleep. But when I got out of the shower the next morning, Elder Price said something along the lines of, "Elder Wilson, did you ... fall out of bed last night?" I guess they all woke up when I hit the floor. We thought it was funny afterwards though. Needless to say, I try to sleep on the other side of the bed now.
I think there's two black guys in the entire MTC, and they're both in my district. They're named Elder Wallace and Elder Louis from California and Boston. They add the flavor to the district. It's like the pepper to our salt. Anyway, they beat box and sing all day, so they're like our radio. Sometimes they beat box and sing Journey while we walk through the MTC campus and by the time we get to the other side, I think we have everyone in the MTC singing the same song. That's why we add the flavor to the MTC. Somehow, Elder Wallace and Elder Louis get everyone in the showers to harmonize together to a Disney song. The MTC does weird things to you I suppose.
Every night when we come home, our whole residence hall smells like Hot Pockets. They sell them in the vending machines, and for some twisted reason, everyone in here feels like they need to have one every night. Hopefully that tradition stops sometime soon.
It's funny that we all think Fast Sunday is a break. It's nice to have a day that we ONLY have church, a two hour mission conference, a fireside, scripture study, and where we don't eat any food until 6. What a relaxing day. But that's what happens when you spend 12 hours in a 10 x 10 classroom every other day of the week except P-Day.
Elder Barr and I committed our investigator to baptism during the fourth lesson. We have two new investigators now, named Marie and Jean-Michael.
Laundry is the most awful part of the MTC. Try throwing 200 missionaries in a room with 75 washers, crank up the heat to 85 degrees or so, and then tell the missionaries that the only thing standing between them and their one source of communication with their family is doing the laundry. It's kind of like dropping a few hundred dollar bills in the middle of Disneyland. Everyone fights for the machines. People start coming at 4:45 in the morning to do laundry. Party.
Underneath all the MTC desks, Elders write their names, missions and dates of service. It's like a whole MTC history on the bottom of every desk. The Elder before me went to the France Lyon mission.
Keep the flavor and stay chouette.
Elder Wilson
My MTC district: l-r, Elder Oliverson, Elder Price, Me, Elder Barr, Elder Louis and Elder Wallace. Front, Sister Hill and Sister Rhondeau
The obligatory map pointing photo!
All of my study materials.
Two of my good friends. Elder McDonald (l), my roommate at BYU who is going to Armenia and Elder Bryant (r), my friend from BYU, going to Italy.
