August 7, 2009

Hey Everyone! I hope that everyone is doing good. I am praying for you guys often. I am past the half way point in the MTC now. It seems crazy. I have been here for over 5 weeks. The way time passes here is a little bit strange, for the first three days each day feels like a month. For the rest of the first half each day felt like a week, and each week felt like a day. Now all of the time is going very fast. I am hosting new elders next Wednesday. I am really excited! I remember when I first got here and my host helped me with my bags, and helped me find my room. I have been looking forward to hosting for pretty much the whole time I have been here.My days of teaching lessons in English are over, and my days of speaking English are running out fast. Each week we choose one more day that we speak only Spanish. Now we can only speak English on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The other days are Spanish only. Our last week here will be all Spanish! I love speaking spanish! I really feel blessed that I have caught on so quick. On Wednesday we taught our first lesson in Spanish. It went pretty well. The lady that we taught was from Nicaragua, I think and she didn't speak any English, so we had to speak all Spanish! I was very glad about that actually, because I hate using things as crutches. I like eating with the native Spanish speakers so I am forced to speak in Spanish. One of my favorite things to do here is TALL, it stands for Technology Assisted Language Learning. Or something like that. It is a program on the computer for learning languages. It teaches me a lot. They are making so many changes here right now. They are replacing all of the computers in my building with really fast ones with really big monitors. It is great because when we were doing TALL on the old computers we spent a lot of time waiting for them to load. We also just got these cool new chairs and desks today! We had been waiting for them for about a week and a half. That may not sound that exciting, but in the MTC that is very exciting. They are always doing what they call "pilot groups" here. Before giving us new chairs and desks they tried out about 15 different types on small groups for a while to see if it helps the missionaries learn better. One of the new things that they are testing right now is having netbooks (really small laptops) to help the missionaries learn their language. We saw a group carrying them around everywhere. We also have a district in our zone that is a different building that has big TVs and other stuff in their room for the teachers to use to teach. The name of the game here is progress, and faster learning. They are willing to do whatever it takes to make us learn more in the time that we have here. I am so grateful for all of the people we have here that help us so much on a regular basis. One of my teachers (she was actually just a sub for 2 weeks) is a convert and she told us her conversion story yesterday. Her name is Hermana Peñaflor. I will have her record it to a tape for me and send it home for you guys. It is amazing! I was so grateful that she shared her story with us. I wish I had time to type it up for you guys but it would take too long. I have found some great friends here that have helped me a lot. When I first got here there were 5 or 6 people that I knew from home here, but now there is only one. Lizzy Law, from work, got here on Wednesday. I was really excited when I saw her. She told me that she saw Jennifer like two days before! It was nice to get to see someone from home. We got a new district in our zone this week. There are two elders going to the Georgia Atlanta mission, so they will be pretty close to us. I have some good friends in the MTC that are leaving next week. It is hard to see them go, but it is also very exciting. I am very excited to go to Georgia and start teaching the gospel. I am not getting really anxious yet though so it is ok. I am sure I will hit that point soon too. I love you guys thank you for all of your letters and dear elders. They really brighten my day. Thank you for your prayers.
Love,
Keith (Elder Banner)