Week 3? Already?

Alo fanmi ak zanmi! Mwen kontan ke mwen ka ekri nou jòdi a. MTC a ki pral byen. Mwen renmen Levanjil a JeziKri. Di mwen tout bagay w ap fè. Si ou gen kèk kesyon pou m, mwen pral eseye reponn byento. Mande mwen tout bagay, konsènan levanjil a oswa konsènan lavi mwen. Mwen manke tout moun, mwen pral wè ou pita!

Translation: Hello family and friends! I am happy that I can write you today. MTC is going well. I love the gospel of Jesus Christ. Tell me everything you're doing. If you have questions for me, I will try to answer soon. Ask me everything about the gospel or about my life. I miss everyone, I'll see you later!

Hey all! It's already week 3 at the MTC! Time is flying by it seems, the days are long and the weeks are short. I'm already almost halfway done in the MTC.

This past week has honestly been pretty uneventful. Sunday I watched “17 Miracles”, that's such a good movie. We've been teaching fake investigators with our teachers. This week we started teaching Ivan (Brother Augustin). On our first visit we knock on his door and he barely opens it and peeks his head out and is like, "What do you want?" It was funny, but we were not prepared for that. We go into the room and barely can say anything except questions like "Kijan ou ye?”(How are you), “Èske ou gen yon fanmi?” (Do you have a family), “Kisa ou fè pou travay?” (What do you do for work) and Ivan is all like, "You come into my house to ask questions?" and kicks us out. He did that for all the groups, and none of us were expecting that. It's funny now, but we were all like "Is this how it's actually gonna be?" Turns out it was mostly our teacher messing with us, Ivan has been very receptive since then. I'm sure that'll happen at some point though.

No apostle for Tuesday devotional this week. Rumor had it that Elder Holland was coming because he was in town for Education Week, but instead it was Sister Bonnie L. Oscarson, Young Women's General President. Her talk was really good, took good notes. She's on the missionary board or whatever they call it, so it was all pretty relevant. I can't remember what she talked about now, but she showed the video of Hugh B Brown's currant bush. I love that story.

Food here is good, it's pretty much cafeteria food. I like the chicken cordon bleu we sometimes have, it's not as good as the ones from home though. None of it really is, of course. I've been doing the weight machines every day still, some days more than others. Last I checked I had gained about 2.5 pounds (all muscle weight, of course ;) ) and I haven't been drinking chocolate milk as much as you might think. I think the real reason we get fat in the MTC is not because we're eating unhealthy food (which is debatable) but because we get 3 full meals a day. I'm surprised I haven't gained more weight to be honest.

That's pretty much it. Tell me all about what's going on in the world right now (heard we're absolutely dominating the Olympics, no shocker there *cough* Michael Phelps *cough*). Tell me about school and what not. Mr. R sent me a nice email saying he ran into you guys at Mod Pizza (I'm gonna miss Mod Pizza.)

Here's my spiritual thought for this week, figured I should start doing that:

"Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a seed there a long time ago."

One of the Elders in my district told about a friend who went to the same mission as his dad, and in his farewell he said, "My dad planted a seed, and I'm going to check on the tree." I think that's really powerful and inspiring.

Love,

Elder Stevenson