MTC Week 1

Whoa! Or as they say in Albania, "ua!" It hardly feels like it's been a week, and yet it also feels like it's been forever. One of our language teachers put it perfectly when he said that after the MTC, time is never the same again. When the day ends, you feel like it just started, but the whole place feels like home. My companion, Elder Warburton from Murray, agrees. Speaking of companions, Warburton is great, pretty chill like me. The other companionship in our district is Elder Johnson from Providence, UT and Elder Asquith from "Missip" (actually, he doesn't have an accent, which is weird). I am so glad we have a good district; everyone gets along and we all help each other. We better get along because we share a dorm room and we're in the same classroom for about 8 hours a day, 6 days a week. Speaking of the schedule, it's always, ALWAYS busy. As my companion said, you don't have time to think. You don't have time to get homesick or distracted, which is great! Seriously, feeling the spirit and learning the language all day long is awesome beyond words... And the food! It's very good, never mind what other people say. There's a good variety of choices every meal, and it all tastes great.

The language is pretty hard, but I know the Lord is helping because there's no other way we'd be able to learn as much as we have in such a short time. We were praying on the second day, and on saturday we get to "teach" the first lesson only in Albanian (or "shqip", pronounced "sh-jeep). The teachers are great, both are returned missionaries who speak the language well. We're just learning about noun declensions (or some language term like that). I can't wait to learn about the Wishing tense and Surprise tense that Albnanian has. We sing and pray in Albanian every meeting, which really helps. But there's not many applications for the language after I come back (besides CIA :D), I guess because it's not related to any other language (unlike slavic, which I thought it was) But it is a much more logical language, too, makes a lot more sense than English when you think about it. But you have to think a lot more when you speak it, too!

Until next time!

Elder Weaver

First!!1!1~

Hey, this is the first post, obviously, and probably the only one that will be done directly by me, Mitch. All subsequent posts will be handled by my mother (bless her), who will post what I say in emails to her.

Alright, let's do this!