Happy New Year!

Hola,

This week has been amazing to say the least. So many hard moments but at the same time I have never felt more blessed in my life. The two other elders in my district that are going to Guatemala leave today and it is a little surreal to think that it should be me getting on that plane. I am a little jealous and a little glad I´m not leaving just yet. My Spanish is progressing well, I think. I don’t ever take notes or read anything when I teach, which only a few of the other elders in my district can do.

 I am still waiting to get my pictures back from the bookstore here. I have been waiting forever so hopefully they come soon.

I have been so sick this week, so if there are some charges on my card from the bookstore its because I have nyquil pumping through my veins like nobodies business. I have been trying pretty hard just to tough it out and I think I am finally on the tail end of it all, I have been saying that for days now though just hoping if I say it enough it will be true.

Either way I loved getting all the photos from y’all, its so weird to see the outside world. I finally feel like I have settled into this place, but its bittersweet because now people I have come to love are leaving.

Our roommates are leaving for Paraguay this next week, and though it will be nice to finally have a desk in my room, some of my favorite people I have ever met are in the district that is leaving. Elder Lieshman is my roommate and he is from Brigham City, probably my favorite person in the world. I think we were best friends in the pre-mortal life. He is making me write his 16 year old sister today because he wants me to marry her so we can be related. It doesn’t hurt either that I find her extremely attractive, but that’s irrelevant.

The other elder I will have a hard time saying goodbye to is Elder Zulauf. He is from California and is probably the funniest man on the planet. He bore his testimony on Sunday (since it was fast Sunday here but apparently not everywhere else) and he talked about how this last year his father was battling cancer, and a month before he entered the MTC his father passed away. I have never cried harder in my life then when I heard his testimony. He said the first week he was here he was praying to know if he was supposed to be here, and he said that he immediately got an answer as he physically heard his fathers voice say to him ``Tyler, are you kidding me? You know where you are supposed to be.´´  Wow. It was amazing. I’m sitting here now with tears streaming just thinking about it.

Just makes me think how blessed I truly am. To come from the circumstances I have come from, and to have all the opportunities I have had. Very few people in this world are as blessed as I have been. I love you guys all so much.

I can’t believe how fast time has gone by here. I finally ran into one of my friends from school yesterday. He was in my ward this last couple months and I was so flippin excited to see him. I think he was a little surprised at how happy I was to see him. He is a teacher here and he was speaking Spanish to me, but I got so excited to see someone from the outside world my mind totally blanked and I couldn’t speak any Spanish jaja. I felt like a little dog that was too excited to bark. 

Its surreal to think I am almost halfway done with the MTC, it seems like I just got here yesterday. I am a little freaked out to have to go and be able to speak Spanish to real people, but at the same time I feel like I am not doing a whole lot of good in here. It is such a strange feeling.

I love you guys, I hope you are all doing amazing. With the whole building situation I found some scriptures I think you might enjoy. In 1 Nephi 2:15, It says, ¨and my father dwelt in a tent¨, but in verse 14 it talks about the power Lehi as a man had. I was thinking about this and the thought came into my mind, It doesn’t really matter if you get kicked out of the building, or the one your moving into isn’t as nice as the last, you can still do amazing things like Lehi, who was a prophet of God, and he lived in a tent out in the desert. I loved that scripture. I think that will be so true for me in Guatemala. You are not measured in success by what you have or what you are, but by what you can do where you are and with what you have. I hope that all makes sense. To me it sounds profound, but I am kind of an idiot so...

I will try and get off some more letters to everyone today. I wrote about 8 letters to friends last week so hopefully I will be getting some letters back from people soon. I love you all, talk to you in a week.

Elder Morrow