I am here! I have made it! I can't say one week down yet though because I haven't even been here a week! but I have been blessed with a full pday. Saturdays are the days! Wednesday was the blessed day that I entered this amazing place and I have to say, I was full smile saying goodbye to everyone. I am so excited to be here! I was walking around as a nice wide-eyed greeny with a wonderful big orange dot on my tag that let everyone in the MTC know that they absolutely had to run up to me and give me the biggest greeting they could muster in the language they were learning. Awesome. I realized how amazing it was that in just these few short weeks, all these missionaries had learned so much and that I would be doing the exact same!
Basically, my host showed me to my room where I dropped everything off and then instantly showed me to my classroom where the Spanish begun. My first Spanish teacher is Hermana Nelson. Yes Nelson. As in President Nelson. I am being taught Spanish by President Nelsons grand daughter. She's an absolutely amazing teacher and I learned so much that first day.
Alright, now for some fun. What you've all been waiting for. At the end of the first day, My companion (Elder Iverson) and I were back in our room unpacking with another set of missionaries that we are rooming with. We found out quick that our district is the only one on the second floor while our whole zone of 70 other missionaries is on the first floor. We were a little bummed that we wouldn't be hanging around with them. As we were all kinda talking and getting to know some more about each other, we heard something start to happen about right underneath us. Silent at first, we start to hear people chanting "carne fresca, carne fresca, carne fresca" which means fresh meat. It got louder and louder. It seemed as if the basement had rallied together and was now chanting in unison. It started to move up the stairs. Then the chanting turned to singing. What were they singing you ask? Well about 70 missionaries started charging the stairs screaming "YOU BETTER WATCH OUT, YOU BETTER NOT CRY" over and over to the tune of santa clause is coming to town. Then our room was filled with all those missionaries giving us the warmest welcome in the world. In that moment, I knew I was going to get along perfectly with everyone.
My next experience with everyone happened last night. There is a pull up bar right outside my districts rooms and we were all goofing around and doing a few when our zone leaders came up and started talking to us. He saw that we were doing some and said "hey! Pretty impressive elders. You know, the record on the first floor for pull ups is 10." My companion looked at me instantly and then quickly said "I can beat that in a heart beat!" I knew something was up because I had seen some of those guys the other night and some of those kids could do like 50. But my comp was determined and I wasn't about to take that away from him. As we were walking down the stairs, our zone leaders called our whole zone together because it had to be done in front of everyone. One kid took my comp and I into the bathroom away from everyone so he could tell us the rules. Lots of talk about how you couldn't laugh at all or you were disqualified and he made us practice counting to ten in spanish so we would know what was going on. Then it was time. He led us out the other entrance to the bathroom so that when we walked up to the pull up bar, we had to run down a tunnel of Elders. Everyone was chanting and clapping and so excited. When we got to the bar, we met an Elder nicknamed The Chain. He is nicknamed as so because when we got there, he put a chain around my companion. My comp hopped right up on that bar and started going. "Uno! Dos! Tres!" then something happened and everyone switched to english "Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! Nine!" He was about to do it! I could tell he was excited because like showing everyone up in the first week? That would be respect. "Ten! Ten! Ten! Ten! Ten! Ten!" I dropped dead laughing hahaha! I learned an amazing lesson from it though. We are all equals in this. No one should be looked at as better.
I know this is a lot and certainly bless you if you made it this far in the email. I know its always off putting to see these super long emails, but know that I will always try to keep them interesting. This has been the best four days but also the longest four days of my life and I am so grateful for every second. It has been full of cramming and learning and praying and especially the spirit. I hope you all know how much I love and miss you but I wouldn't change this experience for the world. Find your own weaknesses in the Lord and strengthen them as much as you can. I've been strengthened so much these last few days and I can't wait for a lot more to come.
Talk to you all next Saturday!
Elder Campbell
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