Elder Ellis' First Letter from the MTC

Hey Mom!

Just want to put you at ease, the MTC is awesome. I'm having a great time!

My companion and I are essentially best friends now. His name is Elder Christensen, and he's just the coolest guy ever. We get along so well and we have the same sense of humor and like all the same things. Most importantly we both like Psych. So everything is going to be alright. I could not have gotten a better first companion. We work really well together when we're talking to an "investigator". When he's talking he says what I would want him to say. We were talking to a recent convert who volunteered to be an investigator at the MTC just a little while ago. His name was Brandon and the three of us had such a cool conversation. He's from Louisiana so we talked a lot about food, of course. Elder Christensen and I just work really well together. We just give off a wave of camaraderie everywhere we go. 

My other roommates are Elders Hansen and Smith and they are such great guys. We all get along really well. Elder Hansen is so funny, he reminds me a lot of Landon, just in his sense of humor, and we're always going back and forth. My district is really awesome, and we just became family right away.

Thanks for the package - my roommates and I appreciated it. But next time could you send a bottle opener?! We sat there for 30 mins trying to figure out how to open it with out losing all the skin on our hands. So I took the opportunity to practice my tracting and went door to door asking for a bottle opener. One elder came over and tried to do a trick he knows to get it open but something was different with the bottle cap and it wouldn't work, so he looks at me and says, "Don't try this at home kiddies" and tries to bite it off. I was just standing there saying that I didn't advise it, and was asking if he could at least sign a waiver before attempting that. He didn't have any luck but he dented the bottle cap, so I guess that was an achievement in itself. Luckily one of the elders in another district in our zone, Elder Steinegle, had a swiss army knife, and popped that bad boy open. Then I proceeded to question why he brought a knife to the MTC, but I had a bubbly beverage in my hand so I didn't really care that much.

It's so amazing here mom. The all day classes are kind of long, but the teachers are really stellar and I'm really blessed to be here. The food is pretty adequate and I've gained 5 lbs since I've been here. I want to send pictures but I don't know how, so they will have to wait. And could you tell others to use DearElder if they email me, since I can just get it throughout the week and write them back immediately. 

Well I have other people to get to and little time to do it. I love you mom - don't worry about me, I'm just enjoying life right now.

Love, Elder Ellis