FIRST LETTER!

Hola! So todays p-day and i finally got the computer to let me on and write, so here goes the best letter I can muster up in the 21 minutes and 26 seconds I have remaining. Just for future reference in case I run out of time to finish this letter and forget to mention it, probably the best way to get me letters from now on would be to use "Dear Elder". I'm not entirely sure how it works and so I don't know if you know how to do that or anything, but it lets me get a hard copy of the email in the mail during the week instead of having to use up valuable writing time here in the computer lab reading them. No worries about this week tho - thanks for the letters! Also, thanks so much for the packages. Before I got here I didnt really think getting mail would be too big of a deal, but its actually really fun to get stuff. So ya. Just send them that way if you can figure it all out. Oh, and if you wouldn't mind, can you throw a thanks out to the Blomfields and the Mysyks for me - I don't really know the best way to respond to mail just yet, but they sent me letters which was really nice. And thanks for the candy! Me and my roomies were very happy to see it. lol




Anyways, I'll just try and tell you a little of what life is like here... I live with my companion Elder Tenney 24/7. Fortunately he's a great guy and we get along pretty well. I realized the other day that he kinda reminds me of Dan Hall a bit in the way he talks and stuff, but fortunately just the parts of Dan I like and not the Dan that I got into a couple of scraps with. haha. I also have an Elder Bennion and an Elder Sears living in the same room as me. They're great guys. We spend most of the day as a foursome. Our district is also great. Right now its got 12 guys in it, all of which are really cool. All of us are going to Paraguay except for 4 of them which are headed to the Dominican Republic and will be leaving in about 3 more weeks for the MTC there.



Our highlight of the day is going to gym time. We go out into the field and play a little soccer for about half an hour. Its a blast. We're all terrible but we're trying to get good at soccer before we look toooo stupid in Paraguay. The other good thing is that its helping us keep off the fat. lol. We haven't found a scale yet, but we're probably all going to get chubby while wer're here. I'm glad you all went to chuck and seem to have had a descent time. Don't even worry about the fact that I missed out tho - thats basically life here every day. I try and make sure that I eat a salad or something healthy, but theres just so much food all the time... I think we're all going to be suprised next time we hit the scales. haha.



Today we went to the temple. It was great. It was cool to see what a different temple is like and just experience that kinda thing. Elder Gibb also told me that being an international Elder that I'll get to go to the Salt Lake temple before we leave too. Thats pretty exciting. Speaking of which, I have run into Elders Gibb, Patterson, and Nilsson all at various times since I've been here which is great. We mostly just see each other at meals and stuff like that, but I'm going to try and remember to get a picture with them all before they head out. Its fun to see some familiar faces. Also ran into the Stonehockers as you apparently know. I had just gotten out of the showers one day after gym when I got called on the intercom to come down to the front desk. I was kinda scared that I was in trouble or something even tho i was pretty sure I had done nothing wrong, but fortunately it was just them saying hi.



The spanish is coming really slow unfortunately... not so much my fault tho I wouldn't say, as we just haven't been taught all that much. The first few days are basically the same for all Elders and so all we've learned so far is to pray, bear our testimonys and ask really simple questions. But I think this week we'll get into the meat of it. We're in the middle of a teacher switch so we'll see how the new teachers handle things.



Ah! Running out of time. To answer your question, Sundays are great. The meetings are all spaced out and the rest of the time is mostly just individual study time which I really like. We also get to walk up to the temple grounds to take pics, naps or just study. Its good. They also make everyone write talks for sacrament no matter what, so we made some really bad ones in the morning using example phrases in our books.



Sorry dad I didn't get to send you your own message. Not enough time. Sweet about the car - its funny tho cuz i have the exact same issues when i ride things like that. I like low revs. Wish I could have come to the caves, but gld your all having fun. As far as I know we'll have the same comp the whole time. Thankfully I'm not too homesick (sorry), but I'm having a great time. Trying hard, and the spirit is really strong. Thanks for the messages. Say hi to everyone for me. As I said, Dear Elder is the way to go and I love getting letters. Thanks for everything. LOVE YOU LOTS!!



Elder Humphreys



PS I'm sorry, i ran out of time. Hopefully it all makes sense... lol

PHOTOS FROM THE MTC

Elder Humphreys with Ellis and Glenda Stonehocker

Elder Humphreys with his MTC companion Elder Tenney

Elder Humphreys and Elder Tenney