August 9, 2007 - First Email

Hey everybody,
Things are going great here in the MTC. Today is my first P-day, and I got to go to the temple with my district which was AWESOME! I have the best district in the MTC! My companion is named Elder Jones and he's from Litleton, Colorado and he's a complete stud. Super excited to be out on a mission, hard working, has a great spirit. My other two roommates are Elder Rasmussen and Elder Rogers. They're both super good guys too, I'm really lucky!
Thanks to everyone who sent me letters, Mom, Dad, and Mary. They were great! Letters are awesome, they remind me that life does indeed go on outside of the MTC. Sometimes I feel like if I walk for long enough in the same direction, I'll just end up on the other side of the MTC. It really does feel like a self-contained world.
Everything has been awesome so far, I got to see Elder Perry speak on Tuesday night! At the end of his talk he called up some random missionary, and pulled him in, put his arm around him, and got all up in his grill, and started bearing his testimony to him! I was so jealous of that Elder! But it was amazingly powerful and it was awesome to be there.
My teachers are completely awesome. The first is Hermano Winder, he's super cool! He absolutely loves the gospel and he gets really excited and it's fun to listen to him and just catch his enthusiasm. He was as running back for BYU his Freshman year and was supposed to play again this year until he tore his hamstring a couple of days ago. He was really bummed.
Our other teacher is Hermano Monroy and he's originally from Mexico, and he's an absolute stud! He has such a love of the gospel! He's also a great teacher, really funny, and really cares about the district.
My branch president is, frankly, not exactly my style. When I feel the Holy Ghost, I get super pumped up and want to share the feeling with everyone else in the world! With him, it seems to have more of a sedative effect. He almost never speaks in more than a whisper, and he's a compulsive corrector.
Having said that, he really loves, and really cares about his missionaries. Day by day I've grown to love the man more and more. He's not my style, but he's probably exactly what I need.
The food is terrible here, but oh well. I can't eat healthy so I just eat less.
Gym time is really fun, I originally planned on lifting during gym, but basketball is more fun and a better stress reliever so that's what I do.

I'll share one quick experience that I had, I think on my second or third day (Seriously feels like a lifetime ago, time has been moving really slowly since I got here). We were learning how to pray in spanish, and so in personal study I was practicing going over mock prayers in my head.
At one point I had the rediculously obvious idea "Why not just actually pray?" So I sat there in class and closed my eyes and said my first prayer in Spanish.
I just got overwhelmed with the spirit midway through my prayer. It just started burning in my chest and spread out through all my body. It was truly amazing.
Other than that, nothing too exceptional to report. Been having tons of spiritual experiences and my testimony is growing exponentially!
Oh yeah, I saw Josh the other day which was awesome! I think he's a DL now and you can tell he's a really good missionary. We talked for about fifteen minutes and it was super good to see him, it seems like he's really doing well, and you can see the effect that the MTC has had on him, he really just radiates hapiness and love.
Well I don't really have much else to report, just try to make sure that this gets out to everyone. Especially make sure it gets to all my siblings, and then also:
Ryan Curtis
Brett Candland
Brad Coons
Brian Van Blerkom
Emily Robinson
and then if those five could make sure to send it out to those who you think would like to hear from me, I'd appreciate it.
I only get to check my email once a week, so if you want to write me, please send me a DearElder.com or actually write me instead of emailing me!
Thanks,
Love you all!
Elder Ben Wilson