WEEK ONE!

Hello all! The MTC is great. Nothing bad goes on here. What an awesome place. So my companion's name is Elder Jaynes. He's from Bountiful, UT and we work well together. I keep him in the right place (he doesn't pay attention to important details, like where we live or where the classroom is) and he teaches me Russian (his sister-in-law is from Ukraine). I've only got one big complaint; everybody in my dome leaves the toilet seat up! It's so annoying! All of 'em. There's my companion and me and then another couple elders. Elder Gardner (from Perry, UT) who is a debater, and Elder Hoffman (Rexburg) who is artistic and loves compliments on his voice. We're at the west campus, which has been described to us as spirit paradise compared to the main campus (spirit prison) by the elders who moved here the day before we came.

So cool story time: my zone leaders came in the first night and talked to us. Elder Greenburg (a tall version of Nate Kelley, 24 years old from Georgia) and Elder Rawlings (19 from Idaho) picked me out right away and said that somebody in our zone knew me somehow, and they had huge smiles on their faces. They took us on a quick tour of campus, and we made a special stop at a classroom where I found... ELDER DAVIS!!!!!!!!! He's in my branch, so I see him all the time. Other Bingham sightings: Elder Adam Watanabe, Elder Nick Jensen, Elder Nate Hannay, Elder Brandon Mills, Elder Brandon Meldrum, Elder Travis Chapman, Elder Connor Mecham, and that's it. There's so much to say in so little time.

Second day we had a lesson taught to us by Brother Christensen from the District TV series, so that was cool. Then we met our Branch Presidency and I got called to be the District Leader, so that's cool. We met our teacher, Brother Seitz, who served in the Baltics Russian speaking. That reminds me, Elder Jaynes and I are the only ones in our zone going to St. Pete.... weird. He (our teacher) likes to give us quotes about how missionaries called to Eastern Europe are the cream of the crop, so we like that. I bore my testimony to our first "investigator" on Friday, and that was probably the most spiritual moment so far here. We had gym time Saturday morning. My zone plays a mean beach volleyball, it's awesome. SUnday was really relaxing, more so than P-day. Monday flew by! It was soo fast it was really scary! So today we went to the Temple, had breakfast there with Elder Davis and his comp. who's from Arizona and he's really cool. P-day is SOOOO busy. Not fair. Today we gave a blessing to a sister in our district who had a bad headache, and she's feeling good now, so that's a miracle. Miracles everywhere. My District! There are seven of us, two elders five sisters. Sister Grover and Sister Rebentisch from Colorado and Boston. And yes, she lets us know she's from Boston. Sister Becker (St. George), Sister Hansen (Layton), and Sister S. from Canada. She's Tongan with a long Polynesian last name. So that's cool. Card reader on this computer is not working, I'll send pictures next week. I'll also usually send some good quotes from the week, but I'm running out of time and don't want to break the rules. LOVE YOU ALL SOOO MUCH

Elder Gwilliam