December 30

Hello Family!

So my P-Day is on Thursday, so that's when I will be able to E-Mail. We weren't allowed to call on Christmas because there are like 2,000 missionaries here and only 5 phones, so... that wasn't going to happen haha. Thanks for the Christmas presents, the elders in my residence hated the smell of the oysters but it made it feel like home haha.

So I already accomplished one of my goals here in the MTC; I wanted to read the Book of Mormon before I left, and I am done now, so maybe I'll read it again haha. I would love to send pictures that I have taken, but that's not allowed on the computers, so i'll have to mail them... But, I haven't gotten any printed yet... so you'll have to wait longer =)

All is going good in the MTC. I am learning the German language a little at a time, it's kind of funny, they only teach the things that we need to know in order to preach, so, I have no idea how to say any of the colors, which is okay since i'd probably mess them up anyway, and I didn't know how to ask how someone's day was until a couple of days ago, but, I certainly know how to give the first lesson! We give a lesson every single day here, i've been giving lessons since the second day, we have people that volunteer to act as investigators and we teach them the lessons and resolve any concerns that they have. I actually had a pretty funny thing happen, I was having the investigator read a scripture about Jesus, so I found it in my English Book of Mormon first, then I turned to it in the German Book of Mormon. I accidently turned to chapter 7 of 3 Nephi instead of chapter 17, so when I told them to read verse 10, i told them the scripture was about Jesus they read something about a man becoming king of the robbers and the wicked. It was pretty embarrassing, but hilarious to look back on.

Well, all is good here in the MTC, hope you all enjoyed your Christmas, I hope you enjoy your New Year, feel free to send me a tie or two, it's the only thing us missionaries really have to brag about haha; every night TONS of missionaries walk around the Residence halls to trade ties, it's pretty funny.

Tschus!

Elder Collings

(This was in a letter to Conner) I forgot to put this in my letter to the family so you'll have to tell them, for Christmas we had Elder Nelson from the Quorum of the twelve apostles come to the MTC, he spoke to us three different times, it was super awesome.