Week 2

The "u" sound in zuster is kind of like a sigh. I'm not really sure how I can explain it. But Sister Baxter, one of the Dutch teachers, told us very adamantly that it doesn't rhyme with rooster.

The MTC's really starting to frustrate me. I just want to bake some banana bread or something, but I won't be able to do anything in the kitchen until the week of Easter. When we have "service," we do janitorial work, and none of that involves the kitchen. I did get to use a "Ghostbuster" vacuum on Friday, though. I was singing the Luigi's Mansion theme while I was vacuuming.

Can you send me pictures of the cats? I miss them. A lot.

So, on Sunday at dinner, I was in line for the ice cream bar (and determined to not get marshmallow cream all over my suit pants, like I somehow did last week), and the elder in front of me asked me "Where are you from?" I told him I was from West Jordan, and he said, "Cool. A lot of guys in my district are from West Jordan." He mistook it for South Jordan, as I found out later. When I asked him who they were, he told me the name of a person I've never heard about, and then he said "and Elder Butterfield." So, after we got our ice cream, I followed him to say hi to Alex Butterfield, but he didn't even notice I was there. It was weird, but I'm totally okay with that.

I've seen Clinton a few times, as well as Jésus Callirgos, with whom I went to high school, and who I didn't know was a member until I saw him in the gym on Thursday. I've seen a few other people with whom I went to school, including Josh Woodruff, who we saw at the Distribution Center, and who is in the Acomb's ward, and going to Moscow.

I've found out that if I eat a ton of food, and am super lazy, I can actually gain weight. When I weighed myself after running half a mile (a third as much as I usually do), I weighed in at about four pounds over what Wii Fit told me I was the day before I came in here. However, I also fasted on Sunday, and again yesterday, so that might have had something to do with losing four pounds since Saturday, as well as running a mile and a half five times a week. I'm kind of hoping that over the course of my mission I'll put on some weight in muscle, or at least not gain a belly. (Elder Hendrickson's is named George, apparently.)

Yesterday, Brother Bond told us that the Dutch are the tallest people in the world, on average. It'll be weird not towering over everybody. I'll still tower over the missionaries who are going there next week, though. They're tiny, but awesome. I'm super-excited to get out in the field, improve my Dutch, and start teaching people over there. And to start being able to cook and--brace yourself--do dishes. It's so awful sitting at a tiny desk for most of the day. It wouldn't be too bad if our desks could hold multiple books, but they can't. And they won't let us do our studying in our residence hall (dorm) room, where we actually have furniture worthy of being called desks.

Speaking of furniture, the beds here are regular bunk beds, but the top bunks are higher than I'm used to, and getting up is an art, and getting down without hurting yourself is, too. They're twin-sized, which isn't surprising, but long, which is nice. However, the blankets and bedspreads are queen sized, and whoever it is who does our room checks freaks out and marks us down if our beds aren't made perfectly, which is just ridiculous.

I really don't have much else to say. One of the Danish elders is trying to get me to trade the blue tie I got for Easter years ago, but I'm not going to trade any of my ties, especially because I have five, and I'm sentimentally attached to all of them.

I'm kind of struggling with dealin with the pride in my district. It seems like every day there's a heated (contentious) debate on a different gospel topic. And it's really frustrating when I'm trying to study and others drive away the Spirit.

The donuts here aren't nearly as good as I'm accustomed to, but I'm managing to survive. There's lots of cold cereal, and so I can get a lot of good food when I want some, but we were talking about donuts yesterday, and so I started craving some. I'll survive though. I've also wanted a Moleskine notebook.

I love you.