Famille et amis-
We only have thirteen days left! Not that we're counting. But two weeks from yesterday, we'll be leaving Provo and flying to Paris.
Dang, I had better learn French.
Missionaries almost always leave the MTC on Mondays and Tuesdays, which makes room for the new missionaries that come in on Wednesday. On every floor in the residences, there is a giveaway box, where any missionary can put items that they don't want anymore. Once it's in the giveaway box, it's up for grabs for any missionary who wants to take it. Since everyone leaves on the same days, by Tuesday morning, the giveaway boxes are generally overflowing with food, shoes, clothes, ties, books, and anything else that didn't make the weight limit in their luggage. If you know where to go, someone could probably make a living out of scavenging the giveaway boxes and selling all the nice things. It's often good to look in the boxes near the residences of the missionaries going to Africa or South America because often, they don't need shoes, jackets or suits in their missions and they just give them away.
This week, however, was an especially good week for the giveaway boxes. Not only were there jackets, shoes and food, but there was a roll of plastic wrap.
Alright, I'll give you a minute to just catch your breath. Yes, I'm serious. Somebody really was giving away a roll of plastic wrap.
So what does one do with a roll of plastic wrap? Well you wrap things, of course.
I started with wrapping Elder Oliverson's shoes while he was in the shower. At this point, no one knew that I had a roll of plastic wrap, so they had no idea what was coming. After he found his shoes all wrapped up and we had a good laugh about it, I recruited him to the cause. We started with Elder Barr's watch. He decided to take a ridiculously long shower that day, so we had plenty of time to wrap his things. After his watch was successfully wrapped into a ball of plastic the size of a softball, we decided that we couldn't stop there. So, we proceeded to wrap up his pillow, hide it back under his sheets, and wait for him to go to bed that night. Elder Barr eventually found it as he was climbing into bed. He picked it up, exclaimed "What the?!" and then took it, and threw it on the ground. We laughed about that and then Elder Barr remembered that he had to brush his teeth. So, Elder Oliverson and I saw another chance to strike. We put a wall of plastic wrap across his bed so that he would have to hit it as he jumped in bed. We heard him coming back in the room, so we hurriedly turned off the lights so he wouldn't see it and got into bed.
It worked perfectly. Not only did Elder Barr not see the wall of plastic, but he jumped right into it and gave a little scream like he had just walked into a gigantic spider web. We all laughed about that for a good 10 minutes. But, we still have a good-sized roll of plastic wrap. Who will the next victim be? I guess we'll have to wait and see.
As you can tell, we get a little creative with what we do for fun.
We think we finally got the native French missionaries to like us. Now they don't turn around and walk in the opposite direction when they see us coming. Instead, they come over and we usually have a nice little chat in French. This week, we were talking about what American movies they liked the most. One of the Elders responded with The Avengers because he likes Thor and Captain America. His companion started telling us that the French aren't sure why there isn't a Captain France. He reasoned that a Captain France could be an awesome superhero. They told us that if they made Captain France, he would hold a baguette in one hand, a bottle of wine in the other, and would be wearing a beret on his head. That way, Captain France would be able to beat people up with his bread, throw his beret as a Frisbee to scare people, and pour wine on the ground so that people would slip.
I think it's pretty easy to see why Marvel decided not to include Captain France.
The MTC was probably the best place to be for the announcement of the lowering of the mission ages this last Saturday. All 2,300 of us were gathered together to watch conference in the auditorium. When President Monson announced that the ages would be lowered, almost every single person started cheering and clapping out of excitement for so many new missionaries, and the cheering didn't die down for quite a while. Many also started crying, because so many siblings and friends would be able to come soon. There's a lot of excitement here about all the changes.
There's been some more funny mix-ups with the language today but this time, it wasn't my companion and I telling our investigator we can gamble on Sundays. This week, while Elder Price and Elder Oliverson were practicing street contacting with our teacher, the person on the street asked if they were Jehovah's Witnesses. Thinking he was asking if they were witnesses of Jesus Christ, the Elders emphatically responded with, "Yeah, that's us! Exactly!" Our teacher started laughing.
If you count the drunk guy in San Francisco, that's the second time people have thought we belong to a different church.
Remember last week when Elder Price found a spoon in his pocket? Well, it happened again, but it was a goldfish cracker this time. We haven't even seen any goldfish crackers in the MTC. How did it get there? We have no idea.
Elder Barr's aunt is awesome. Since this is his last three weeks in the MTC, she sends him a meal every single night. That's right, an entire meal. For our entire district. Every single night. Sometimes, it takes three boxes to send the whole meal. On Friday, we had sushi and seaweed and yesterday we had a homemade pecan pie. Saturday night, she sent a complete French meal to us. Since she's from France, she made all of it herself as well. She included baguettes, cheeses, salads, cucumber-things, pear tomatoes, and some Orangina. We're getting some Middle Eastern food tonight. She is so nice.
Elder Ardeche and Elder Kabongo continue to tell us French jokes and things not to say in French. Almost every sentence ends with , "Iz a joke! Iz a joke! See dis face? I alway be serious. Ha, no iz me. Iz a joke!"
And that's life in the MTC.
Thanks for checking in on me! I'll talk to you again next week!
Elder Wilson
