Date: Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 4:56 AM
Subject: Half Way Through

Bonne Matin! The MTC has been pretty great this last week. Most of it the same kind of stuff though. I don't remember if I told you but I did the math and out of my nine weeks I spend three of them in the same room seeing the same four walls and then another three weeks is sleeping and the last is eating. So that's basically all we do, eat sleep and study. It's not bad though, I do love it here. I want to be a teacher here when I come back. I see the influence all these teachers that have been back a couple months have on me and I want to be that for some missionaries too. We moved into a new building with chair desk hybrids that role around. They're kind of fun though and it's not nearly so cramped now. Yesterday we started a game so that we will be better at "Parlez Votre Langue" which means that you speak your language all the day. We made it a game called Le Vrai Francais (The Real Frenchman) and the point is that everyone draws a slip of paper and someone has the slip saying they're it but you guess at the end of the day. The person with the most votes gets a reward and then the person with the least draws a punishment. The punishments are a French Hymn Solo outside, bare your testimony five times to someone in the bathroom in French, wear an ugly tie/dress, wear "the cone of shame," and something called French Croissant. French Croissant is when you go sit with a random group of missionaries and ONLY speak French as though they understand. Yesterday I got the least amount of votes and am therefore the first one to draw a punishment. I drew the French Solo so at nine thirty while everyone is headed to their room I stood in the middle of the breezeway and sang "Repands le Soleil" which is Scatter Sunshine. I drew quite the crowd. ;) Yesterday and earlier this morning all the other French and Haitian Creole speakers left for their mission fields so now my district is the oldest group. It feels really weird. Plus in a couple weeks after we really feel like the old group there's a huge influx and forty five French Missionaries arrive. That means Elder Karras and I will be getting a roommate or two very soon. I am lucky and homesickness hasn't hit me yet although that could be because there's just too much to do to focus on home. Where most language classes in school say they have to compress a years stuff into a semester here they compress five years worth of stuff into nine weeks (six for the few who just got here). So if you have time to think of home a lot then you are not working hard enough. The new French speaking Elders are cool. The other day we did a contacting practice so one companionship pretends to be regular people in a park while another one gives them a very short message. Elder Karras and I taught the new sister missionaries and it was so funny. We'd be talking and they'd nod their head like they new what was going on and then we'd ask a question like "Quand est-ce que nous retournons partager notre message avec vous?" and they just kept nodding their head. It was all I could do not to laugh. It's cool seeing that that's where we were when we got here just four short weeks ago. This Friday is the mark for a month left here and then Saturday is when I've been here a month. C'est bisarre. By the way, I'm pretty sure I've spelled a lot of these French words wrong. I'm super happy most of the time. The Lord has been with me. Good thing too because there's no way I could do this without him. Oh! I realised something as well, I switched my goals so now I'm trying to read the English Book of Mormon as well as the French. I realised that I don't understand most of what's going on so the promise in the scriptures that in the hour of need He will put the scriptures in my mind won't come if I don't know it and I won't know it if I only read it in French so while I'm still reading it the fifteen pages don't occupy the study time I have. My half hour's almost up but the thing that came to my mind the other day is cool and I'd like to share it with you. I have been born as Nephi of old, to goodly parents who love the Lord. I have been taught and I understand, that I must do as the Lord commands. I am as the army of Helaman. I have been taught in my youth. And I will be the Lord's missionary to bring the world his truth. I love you all and miss seeing you but not overwhelmingly so. =)

Elder Davis