The August 14 letter home.

My schedule is variable but basically it's:

6:30 wake up

7:00 food

Then Personal study, Spanish, coaching

12:00 Food

More personal study, comp study

2:00 gym

3:30 TALL (computer language program)

4:30 Coaching or language

5:30 Food

6:00 Class, progressive investigator meetings

9:00-9:30 Get home, decompress

Journal, talking

10:30 Bed

Repeat ad naseum.

On Sundays, we have church with our branch (currently two other districts) at 9:15, we're not doing the Lorenzo Snow lessons, the way it works is first we meet with our respective Elders Quorums or relief societies, which right now is three districts. Then we have district meetings, which are basically like Sunday School, and then we combine for Sacrament meeting. Every week, everyone is required to write a talk on a specific subject. Then in Sacrament meeting, they select 6 missionaries to share their 5-minute talks. I got picked last week, and gave a 5-minute talk in Spanish on the subject of personal apostasy. Whoo!

~Food is interesting to say the least! It's Mexican cafeteria food, and it averages out to average, meaning that some days it's incredible, oftentimes not, usually just fine. I am feeling the blessings of the Lord in my bowels because a lot of the guys in my district load up on beans and have terrible bathroom runs, which I have mostly avoided. Breakfast is always cereal- I don't trust anything else. Lunch is usually some form of meat, plus always rice and beans, so I make tacos. The other day there was some meat I didn't recognize, and when I asked the cafeteria ladies what it was they didn't know the English word. It looked like pork, so I asked, "¿Es la carne snorksnork snork?" and just made a bunch of pig sounds. They cracked up and confirmed that it was pork. Breaking language barriers!

Missionary choirs are organized by branches and ours hasn't formed yet because we're a new branch and pretty small. It is SUPER hard to harmonize in Spanish though, because I can't keep track of the new words too! Called to Serve (Llegar a Servir) has four verses in Spanish for some reason!

No GAs yet, but we're hoping. Yesterday was the first live-streamed missionary devotional broadcast, with Apostle Richard G. Scott! So incredible, he talked about the "supernal importance of prayer!" Very meaningful to me because I have been following Pres Houston's blessing of wearing out my knees in prayer to the letter. Kneeling prayer really is important for a better communication with Heavenly Father.

I'm so proud of my brothers! What studs! I knew they could do it, they will become twice the men I ever was at their age. Though I guess since they already are twice the men I was, they will become 4x the men. Or something.

I  have two progressive investigators now. One is still Carlos, with whom we are making slow and frustrating progress with, and the other is Rojelio, who is easier to talk with and understand. The investigators, as I've said, are our teachers, Hermano S. and Hermano B, pretending to be people who they had taught and baptized on their missions.  So that is tough but good. I've been reading the scriptures in Spanish aloud and trying to translate them. It is so immensely difficult that it feels like my brain is burning, but it's gotten easier as I've progressed in Spanish. 

Elder Wright