May 19 2015

HAHA good to hear from you. First off, about the package, I haven't heard anything about it but I will ask president right after this.  Maybe he'll even let me tell you whats up... 

Anyways, I'm glad you guys enjoyed the skype, but honestly I've never complained so much in my life!! There are a lot of things I don't like about this MTC. Stuff that doesn't make any sense. Such as a teacher standing behind every missionary watching them talk to their family (in case anything goes wrong is the excuse when I promise I know computers better than any of these teachers) and then finding out other missionaries got an hour to talk with their families even though they'd been here for a week, and then the teacher behind me literally was laughing and talking about my spanish right behind me the whole time. SHE LITERALLY LAUGHED WHEN I SHOWED YOU MY SPANISH!! Plus to make it even better, my teacher asked me why I was withdrawn in the next class and I explained, and then he focused the whole next lesson on me, embarrassing me in front of everyone. Then Johnson gave me a scripture that said to quit murmuring, and explained that I needed more patience!! I was very upset that night. Barely slept. Not gunna lie, the next two days I was kinda withdrawn, but today definitely made up for it. We went to the temple which always renews my spirits, and then we went on tour. We went to the gold museum which was really creepy, but cool. The gold is the Lamanites gold. Their stuff is really cool but creepy.

 So my district has officially been split, I moved rooms today and will meet my companion in the morning. He is from Columbia so he will be cool. There are a lot of Ecuadorians coming tomorrow though. I'm the only person without an Ecuadorian comp! Really weird, but a few are going to my mission!! Super pumped. 

Of another thought about my birthday is the fact that you tried is awesome. Elder Orr's was May 5 and we gave him 2 packs of Oreos. That was all we had. It was great. So I'm not expecting much. Ok quick update, I asked president (he walked by) he said that's normally the case. More money.

Anyways he said to ask Hermano Ortiz in the morning, that he would be the one who would hear about it. President doesn't do that kind of stuff. So another thing I didn't get a chance to ask for was Mios. I miss flavored water!!! Oh and suitcase locks. Obviously I won't need them now but when I'm in the field I'd like to lock my valuables up somehow and I doubt street vendors will have them. And an english hymn book. Anyways had to write that down before I forgot. 

So when we were out, we convinced Hermano Baragon to take us to a few places where we could buy stuff. I spent the last of my pesos today so that was good. I spent 17,000 to go up the gondala to the wierd catholic temple, and 3,000 to go in the museum, and 12,700 on a soda and a whole bunch of chocolate. It is great. Candy is money in the CCM because no one thinks to bring it, and we don't have any access to it. 

Anyways, more detail about the catholic temple.. The gondola is super sketchy. They put as many people in them as they can fit!! I was shoved against the glass, and was pretty nervous. But once you get up there, you can see all of Bogota. It is HUGE!!! Also, there is like a street just full of vendors selling jerseys, and knick knacks, and nasty neon yellow chickens that you can tell haven't moved since the guy cooked them yesterday. Crazy. Got a few cool pictures, but this camera sucks!! I have to aim it at the ground, then point at what I want and take the picture rapidly otherwise it looks super dark!! Its really annoying. I might have to buy a new one in a few months or something. 

So starting tomorrow, we are officially on the latin schedule! Meaning no more horrible grammar classes, or TALL(computer language program)!! I'm so excited!! Now lets see.. thinking back on the week, I don't know if I ever told you but I gave a talk two weeks ago. They make everyone prepare a talk and then at sacrament they select 6 people. I'm the first norte I've seen give a talk yet. Afterwards, president got up and says, Now we can see the gift of tongues working, Elder Taylor just gave a talk in english, spanish, and portuguese! It was pretty funny. 

The last group (of missionaries) was just awesome. Mostly converts, the most loving people ever. Most of them wanted to learn english so they'd always try talking to us. I taught about half of them to say *whats Up Dog?* It was great. They helped a ton. 

So last Saturday, before talking to you guys, we went out proselyting for 3 hours straight.

Elder Orr went with the teachers, and Elder Musick and I ended up going on splits. He went with Elder Esquivel and I went with Elder Fernandez who spoke no english and slurred all his words. It was a great learning experience for us. I spoke spanish for 3 hours almost non stop. Granted, it was crappy conjugated words but it was spanish. So let me explain why spanish is so hard. All verbs end with either ER, AR, or IR. So for example, Ayudar means help but to say help me it becomes ayudo or for you there's ayudas or ayuda for we it's ayudamos then for all its ayudáis then for you plurual or they its ayudan. That is present form though. To you will you help its ayudará, and so forth. There's like  8 forms you use. In enlish we use the same word, and add will or did or whatnot to make it past tense or whatnot. It is terrible. Every day we have learned a new form so they all kinda mash together in your brain and that's before you even know the verbs!! It's hard. Then on top of that our teachers are very forgetful so rather than a week to write 100 lines in spanish about the first lesson, we have a day. We don't have time in the days to do this stuff so its difficult. To give an example of the teachers we had one day where we had one lesson. They just forgot about us somehow. We just sat in the room and tried to catch up on all the extra work we had. Another fun story for you. The other day we were walking to our district when president stops us ans says don't go in, there's a bird in your room. It was fun. We all went in. He eventually came back with a pair of gloves and I grabbed them, and caught the bird then threw it out the window. It was fun. K I'm gunna run to my room and grab the cord to try to send pictures now. Oh congrats to Abby, love the dogs for me and love one another. Don't know why I added the last part it just flowed well...

Love you all,

Elder Taylor