First E-mail Sept 10th

Hey guys! It's finally P-Day! YAY!!! The last few days have been crazy. We literally just jumped right into everything.  Mom, in your first letter home you said you wanted the teaching to move along more quickly. * Well, it definitely moves along fast nowadays.  There is so much stuff that they are shoving into just 12 days of teaching.  It's nuts! I'll talk a little bit more about it in a minute.

I'm glad Lucie had a good birthday!! When everyone here heard about how it was her birthday on the day we came in they were sad for her haha.  So I mentioned a few things in the letter I wrote home the other day but you might not have gotten it yet so I'll just say it again.  The first day we were here all the new missionaries met with the MTC Presidency and Aunt Diane totally had me stand up in front of everyone and then she told stories about me as a baby and how cute I was.  It was pretty funny I have to admit though.  The first few days in the MTC were really nuts.  Non-stop classes and studying and everything.  The days just dragged on and on.  

We have had some really cool experiences though.  We just started something called TRC training yesterday.  They have people come in who pretend to be investigators and we go and teach them.  Although apparently, sometimes they aren't pretending.  A couple weeks ago some missionaries were teaching in TRC and the investigator wasn't a member but they got her converted and were able to baptize her while they were in the MTC.  That's crazy! Anyways, Elder Sharp and I are teaching a guy named Carlos.  He is from Peru.  In our first lesson we totally hit it off and he committed to reading the Book of Mormon and to pray.  He seemed really excited about it.  He told us he couldn't wait to start reading and that he was going to try to read at least 2 hours a day.  We didn't bother telling him that that's a ton! We would know cause we do that everyday as well haha.

On Sunday night the MTC has a devotional and it was awesome!! It was about prayer.  After that they show a bunch of films and we get to pick which one we want to go to.  We went to the Character of Christ video by Elder Bednar.  It's AMAZING!! If you can find it you should look it up and read/watch it.  It really is sooooooooo good.  There is another devotional tonight.  And guess what? yup you guessed it.  I'm saying the prayer.  I'm pretty sure Jim is behind this.**  I'm just hoping there won't be a general authority there tonight haha.  

That's fun about Nicole! Good for her.  I don't know if you heard about it Keven but Nicole got her call and is going to Vancouver.

There are 4 elders in my district and we are all going to Redlands.  We have only met two other sisters here on the main campus that are going to Redlands as well.  I don't know if there are any on the west campus.  

I mentioned in the letter I wrote too about how Elder Sharp and I are now Zone Leaders. It's a good time.  Last night while we were in our Residency Hall we were sitting there writing in our journals when all of a sudden a voice came over the loud speaker in our building asking for me and Elder Sharp to report to the front desk of the MTC pronto.  We hurried and threw on our clothes again and as we were getting ready they came on the speaker again and told us to use the emergency phone in the hall and call the front desk. At this point we were both kind of freaking out trying to remember if we had done anything wrong yesterday haha.  Well, we called the desk and they told us to hurry and to bring our consecrated oil cause one of the sisters in our district needed a blessing.  The sister, Sister Pickering, has been having an allergic reaction to something and it kept kind of going away but last night her whole body broke out in giant hives and she was in quite a lot of pain.  They are doing an allergy test today.  But anyways, we gave her a blessing and I think she's feeling better.  That was the second time we have given blessing to the sisters while we have been here.  Last Thursday we gave a bunch of blessings as well because they were all really home sick.  

This morning we were able to go to the Temple.  It was really cool.  That was the first time I had ever actually done any ordinances in the Provo Temple.  It's really neat!  I was kind of falling asleep the whole time though.  whoops.

Congrats on passing your Bio test Sadie! That's great.  I don't have your letter with me at the moment so I can't answer/comment on anything else.  I'll have to write you a letter later.  So be checking the mail.

How are things going Lucie? Are you liking school? Did you get to go to Jump-On-It with Kirsten?  

Duggie!! I hope you are liking work.  I hear it's been pretty busy.  I bet you are making bank.  Way to GO!

All in all, the MTC is pretty great.  I see a lot of people I know around here.  I see Skyler practically every day.  I've seen Jake a few times too.  There are a lot of others as well.  The people in my district/zone are all jealous of how many people I know here.  I think it actually makes my companion a little exasperated sometimes since I'm always stopping to talk to people and we are trying to get somewhere.***  Haha.  

Well this is a really long email.  My fingers are cramping up.  I haven't typed this much in ages.  I miss you all but this is a great time!!  I know the church is true!

Love, Elder Wise

P.S. Could you forward this to Zoe? I can't remember her email at the moment.  I forgot my address book.  

P.P.S. Hey Zoe!! :)

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(Some explanatory notes from Mom)

* I am sending Elder Wise copies of my missionary letters home in the same chronological order that he is sending them.  ( I thought it might be fun for him to read them)  For example, I just sent him a copy of my first letter from the MTC.  Next week I will send him my second letter, etc.  Mind you, I was in the MTC twenty-four years ago!!!  My letter lamented that they weren't teaching me fast enough.  Apparently that is no longer the case :)

** Uncle Jim actually had nothing to do with selecting Elder Wise to say the prayer in this meeting.  It just happened to be his branch's turn to say the prayers.  And his Branch President just happened to choose him.  Funny.

***He gets this character trait from his Grandma.  She had the same problem when she was in the MTC.  Grandpa was always having to wait for her.  haha