FIRST LETTER!!!! 6-23-12

Hola! Como estan todo? Thank you so much for your emails! Friday will usually be my preparation day but for the first week it's today. I love the MTC. Although I was late, it wasn't a big deal. I'm glad Grandma and Grandpa dropped me off too. When I walked into the MTC, it was weird because I've been in some of these buildings before, yet they felt different. They gave me my name tags and key and stuff, then we had a meeting. We sang the EFY medley, but the words were a little different:

"We are as the army of Helaman
We have been taught in our youth
AND WE ARE NOW THE LORD'S MISSIONARIES
To bring the world His truth"

That caught me by surprise, but then I had a spiritual confirmation after we sang it.

I've been writing in my journal trying to record everything. I wish I could just send my journal instead because I feel so limited by the 30 minutes they give me to email. It's good though because like you said, we'll both appreciate communicating even more. I'm doing perfectly fine without my phone and facebook, in case anyone thinks I would have a problem with that. ;)

My companions are great! We're in a trio, at least for now. One of them I met at BYU. Mom has talked to one of my comp's mom before. My other companion just finished his first year at USAFA actually! They're both great guys and we get along great. The trio setup is odd just because I feel like if I need to go somewhere I'm dragging two people with me instead of just one haha. Honestly though, I have great companions right now, and my other two roommates are awesome too. I really lucked out to be here with the most amazing people!

I entered the MTC on a good week. This Tuesday, there will be over 90 General Authorities at the MTC and we will have a devotional from one of the Quorum of the Twelve. Tell Kurt and Ashton that it is worth missing the Legend of Korra for. ;)

Learning Spanish is quite a challenge! There's not too much we've gone over that I don't know (besides all the missionary vocabulary and all), but we immediately start using it in real-life applications, which is the very difficult. My companions and I taught our first investigator yesterday all in Spanish. Although I didn't understand much of what she said, I felt impressed to express God's love for her and everyone in the world. Afterwards, my more affluent Spanish-speaking friends told me that that was her biggest concern about the Church. I have experienced so many miracles so far. And I can't wait to improve my Spanish so that they'll happen even more often.

I've been told that after Sunday things start flowing and coming together, so I'm excited for that to happen.

Cool story: I just talked to an Elder who is the son of Simon Dewey, the artist who paints some of the best LDS paintings of Christ!

I'm sleeping fine. I've gone to bed on time every night and I've gotten up on time. So don't worry about that, Mom. ;)

Also, I've been assigned to be my district's District Leader. All the Elders have expressed a lot of support for my assignment, which means a lot to me.

If you feel fine with it, you can send this to anyone!

I love you guys. I miss you so much. You're always in my prayers. I know I'm engaged in the Lord's work and that makes all the difference for me being here.

Love your son,
Elder Hill