January 27

Hello Family! It has been another great week in the MTC. The last two weeks my district set a goal to only speak German. It has been awesome because I am learning so much faster, I starting to understand the grammar more as I speak it. I'd say i'm like.... a four year old German now with my understanding =) I was actually way surprised, I got that letter from Kaylea, translated by Tatjana, and I understood all of it except for like one sentence, so it was pretty awesome. I'll write back in German... eventually =P

So, I only have 11 more days in the MTC and then I am off to Deutschland, I am so excited! I really hope i can understand like a third of what they're saying, but I probably won't, so i'll just speak what I think is German with a smile on a face and hope they understand me!

Basically nothing has changed in the MTC, i basically wake up, study for an hour, eat, study for 4 hours, eat, go to gym for an hour, have a teacher, eat, have a teacher and then go to bed. That's my schedule every day. I can't wait to go to Germany so I can speak to real people, not that the people here are fake.... but it's like role play stuff, and actually have legit investigators. I get to wait for 11 more days though, and study as much as I can so I can be as prepared as possible when I get there.

My companion has still been totally random; sometimes he's super happy, other times he's mad at the world. I end up having around 3 pc's with him a week so I can find out what's bugging him so we can accomplish our goals, and it always surprises me what bugs him. The other night he was super mad at me because we had a scripture planned to share to an "investigator" but I felt prompted to share a different one, so I did, and he thought that I chose that scripture over the other one because I thought his was insignificant, or something silly like that, so he lectured me on how when I correct him I need to show him more love after because he hates to be corrected and it hurts his feelings... I didn't really know what to say; I didn't correct him, I followed the spirit and read a different scripture which lead to me asking the "investigator" to be baptized and he said yes and it really was an amazing lesson. I can definately tell Satan is working on my companion, and it all started since I became District Leader. So, it seems like a daily thing for me to try to resolve my companions' concerns which is always directed towards me, and then once it's resolved everything is awesome, I just wish my companion could start choosing to be positive and choose to not be offended, because he really has no reason to be offended every time. Other than my companion, everything is going awesome. I can definately tell I am groing closer to my Father in Heaven, I teach with the spirit more, I understand a ton more german than before and I am happy. =)

I had the opportunity to be a traffic control person on Wednesday, so I stood in the middle of the road for 3 hours while all of the new missionaries came and told the cars to keep moving, it was pretty boring haha, but, I saw Dalton Allen, I would have loved to go and talk to him, but, I had to stay in the road and tell the cars to keep moving, so I couldn't. Hopefully I'll see him again before I leave, give him some advice and tell him to stay away from the OJ and Eggrolls.

Jessica and Chris, thanks for all of the ties! Some of them are awesome! Some of them are... even more awesome! I'll send you a normal letter today to express my full gratitude, so it will get there like... Monday, or Tuesday... eventually =)

I just ordered a TON of pictures, so as soon as i get them I will send them off to you, some of them are weird.... but, we get bored in the MTC sometimes and have to do some strange stuff for fun. Maybe I just won't send the weird ones so I can keep my honor haha.

Thanks for all of the letters, they are so fun to read, i'm glad to hear everyone is happy and safe. I'm happy and safe here also, so don't worry about a thing!

Tschüs!

Elder Collings

Chocolatey nose....Like a nosebleed with chocolate.

Hello Family!

So, things have been awesome in the MTC; I can't believe I only have 17 more days before I got to Germany! I just got my arrival plan in the mail and I found out I will be street contacting the first day for about an hour, and then doing a whole bunch of random learning stuff. I also found out I need $50 more for a bike, so thanks for the new debit card haha.

This week has been a good one for me, but, my companion is really starting to have some problems with homesickness. He has yelled and slammed doors a bunch of times. It's really wierd because when he does it, it's totally random. The other day our whole district was in a room playing hymns on the piano, just having fun. He apparently didn't feel like he was having as much time on the piano as everyone else, so he yelled and said we were leaving, and then walked out the door. It's been wierd stuff like that all week, and the only reason I can think of is because he didn't get his email off last week. We are only allowed 30 minutes a week, but, he goes over every week for some reason. Normally our Branch President will let him have a couple extra minutes, but him and I both decided my companion had to learn to be obedient to the rules and stay within 30 minutes, he was really mad, yelled a little bit, and even hit the wall... So yeah, that's been fun to deal with, but he's writing a letter now, so, hopefully he finishes in 30 minutes so I don't have to calm him down all week again =/

I can't believe I only have like 16 more days in the MTC, I am SO excited and I just want to leave already. I've been in here too long, so, we have obviously found all of the best ways to have fun. We took some awesome pictures where it looks like we're walking on the walls and flying in the air, and we even have pictures where it looks like we have glowing lightsabers, I even had my first chocolatey nose here in the MTC. I challenged another Elder to see who could eat fudge popsicle in the least amount of bites; he did it in 5. I took a massive bite, which took off a little less than half of the popsicle, it gave me a huge brainfreeze, but I didn't let it show, I only had the look of victory in my eyes. I decided to take the popsicle out in one more bite, which I did, but, as I started to swallow I laughed and a chunk of popsicle went up into my nose and got stuck.... freezing the inside of my nose... and slowly melting for the next 30 minutes... I would not recommend it to anyone, but I won the challenge so i'm happy about that haha.

Well, thanks for all of the letters, I like knowing what's happening, feel free to send me ties haha, I decided to wear that ugly Heritage Tie Adam gave me... I don't think i'll ever wear it again, it smells funny.

Tschüs!

Elder Collings

Lucky January 13th! I got another letter!!!

Hello Family!

So I didn't get to write last week because I was at the Health Clinic with my companion like all day; my companion broke his nose playing basketball. I don't know if I've told you, but my companion is kind of a clutz, he has been hit in the face playing basketball twice which broke his glasses and his nose, and slips on the ice and trips on the strairs daily, so he's gotten beat up quite a bit in the MTC. He just became my Senior companion since we are half way through the MTC experience, and he is struggling to actually take control and lead our meetings and plannings, so I've been trying my hardest to help him remember what his responsibilities are now without being rude in any way. He says it's hard for him because he has never been a leader in any way, but he'll learn quickly =)

So, since the last time I wrote you, we got a new mission President and counselors... I don't know who they are, but I'll tell you when I know haha. I also am the new District Leader which is pretty cool. My district is awesome and they follow the rules really well, so it makes it easy on me. The only thing I have really had to work on with my district is I have 2 Elders that are really uncomfortable with the language. They know a LOT more than me, but they are afraid to make any mistakes and embarrass themselves, so they never speak. I've been trying my hardest to get them to have enough faith that even if what they are saying doesn't really make sense, the spirit will testify of the truth. With my companion, he knows so much German, but he tries too hard to focus on how to say things correctly, so he losses the spirit and is only speaking the words of his mouth, not his heart. I don't know how to really help him with this, we've talked about it a lot, he is just terrified of making mistakes. Last week in one of our lessons he was explaining how Prophets got called, and he decided to use Jesus calling Peter to "Feed his sheep" I thought he was making it extremely difficult to explain, but he said he knew what he was doing, he ended up saying, "And Jesus told Peter to Eat my Sheep" Our "investigator" started laughing hysterically, I was too. That didn't help with the fact that he is so afraid of making mistakes, but, I felt prompted to bear my testimony after he said that, it was so strong, it got us right back where we needed to be. Hopefully my companion took my advice after the lesson to heart, it seemed like he did, but I never know.

For our Tuesday devotional we had Elder Holland come and speak to us. It was amazing, there wasn't a moment of him being in the gym I didn't feel my spirit, and I my District felt the same way, we had a testimony meeting after and almost everyone in the room was crying, so it was super awesome.

The German language is going great, I still don't really make sense when I speak, but I guess I get the message across, because of our 7 "investigators' we have 4 with a 'baptism' date. Our teachers are having me bring other missionaries with my companion to teach to try and get them more involved in the lessons because they are struggling with teaching, I had one of the Elders from my district, Elder Goble, teach with us, and I couldn't get him to participate at all, so at the very end I asked him to bear his testimony, and it was just amazing. The spirit was so strong, the teacher who was acting like the investigator wanted him to come back, when I spoke to the teacher afterward, he said that he was still in character and he really did want Elder Goble back just because of how amazing his testimony was.

I'm still waking up early every morning and working out, I haven't gained much more weight, but that's okay because we all know i'm super strong already =) My companion stopped working out in the mornings with me about 2 weeks ago... He has gained 18 pounds, so I think i'm going to force him to wake up from now on. I still haven't printed off any pictures, but, I think i'll order a bunch today, they take about twelve days to come in, so you'll get some pictures in about 2 weeks. I was also wondering how much money I had on my debit card, i'm starting to run out of the Hotel supplies, so i'm going to need to buy some stuff, and i'd like to know how much I can spend.

Anyway, thanks for all of your letters, I love to read them, i'm so jealous Conner and Dad got to go to the BYU game, our gym instructor was telling us about the game I heard Fredette was amazing. Oh, and if you could do me a favor, will you send me Jake Howard's address so I can send him a letter, I forgot what his address was and I've got some advice, and warnings for him about the MTC. Thanks for all of the support, i'm loving it here in the MTC, and I can't wait to go to Germany NEXT MONTH!!!!