What can I say… I love the MTC!! I love my mission!! I wish you all could see how great it is in here.. what we do is really quite amazing.
As soon as I got dropped off I got all my stuff, was shown to my room and met my companion. Things just really took off with Elder Guzman and I, but also our whole district. They are all Latinos except for me and we are always talking and we get along really well. There are three other companionships in my district. Our first day we went straight into class and started learning.
Elder Guzman is from a Mexican family but comes from Seattle Washington. He is going to Guadalajara. I knew we would get along beautifully when I pulled out my Spain jersey and he pulled out his Barcelona jersey at the same time!! That’s was up. He played forward for the BYU-Hawaii soccer team.
The highlight of the week was definitely the first night, when we were watching a workshop where actors were acting as people who were being taught by missionaries. We had the opportunity to try and talk to them and see how we did. Our teacher was getting a little frustrated because we didn’t seem to be getting the point. Then he asked me directly what I thought. This was in a group of like 80 people. I said, “I don’t think the point of missionary work is baptism. I think the point is to work at changing someone’s life, and if that is done successfully, based on what we believe, baptism is a result of that. But we should be more focused on helping the person than getting him or her in the water.” The teacher kind of just stopped and literally said “That is easily the best thing I have ever heard here.” Talk about a boost!
The facilities here are pretty sweet. The food is amazing… and you can have as much as you want. A blessing and a curse.
The second day was pretty tiring and long not gonna lie… classes and studying for the most part from seven am until nine pm. The days here are all meshed into one. It’s hard to believe I only got here on Wednesday. Yesterday was an amazing day!! We had class and learned how to ask investigators about their commitment to get baptized, and we practiced it on an actor. We did really well.
Then we had personal study and dinner. After that, class. We started off the class by watching a video of a family who was receiving lessons from the missionaries and progressively accepted the message and then were baptized and eventually sealed for eternity as a family in the temple. The testimonies and gratitude of the family was so powerful. When Brother Lee, our teacher turned on the lights, we saw that we were all crying. Like, bawling. He just kind of stood there and said simply, “This is why we are here.”
It was unreal. We then all got busy to work on studying how to prepare and teach lessons so that we can be sure to help whoever is out there waiting for us to bring them this wonderful message of happiness.
Just wanted to let y’all know that it’s going great. Probably one of the best parts is how well we all get along. It’s like Guzman and I were seperated at birth or something! Our whole group recognizes that it’s something special how great friends we have all become in such a short while. We are all like best friends.
I want to tell you all a joke that I hope you understand.. you only will if you speak Spanish.. mom should get a kick out of this.
“Que es la diferencia entre una novia y una pera? Bueno, la pera espera, pero la novia no espera.” HAHAHA! Elder Guzman told me that one.He is one of the funniest people I have ever met!
Mom will be happy to know that I have been able to keep my “Spain” accent intact, but by speaking Spanish all day and hanging out with Latino’s all the time, I speak English with a spanish accent already haha… it’s pretty weird, I’m hoping it will go away when I go to Texas.
Well, I really am loving it here. I don’t regret one bit my decision to come out here and serve a mission. I know the time is gonna fly by, and I’ll be home before I know it, but at the same time I really am enjoying this. I can’t wait for my three weeks to be done so I can go down to Texas and leave this cold Utah weather!
I would really love to be hearing from people back home. My address is:
Elder Carlos Viitanen
TX-HOUE 0118
2005 N. 900 E.
Provo, UT 84604
Letters are like gold out here. I would love to feel all of your support. Especially y’all who said you would write! haha.. Let me know how you all are doing! Hope everything is going well! All is good here…
Well, I love you all, and may God be with you.
Love,
Elder Viitanen
p.s. Oh. Elder Guzman says hi. That guy is crazy.