District 10B, Hard pressed humor, and almost Halfway done with the MTC!

Mexico City MTC Complex

 View of Mexico City from the MTC

 Visit to the Mexico City Temple

 All the PG boys at the Mexico City MTC

Hello Everyone!!!

Well, we found out why our pday was moved to Friday, the missionaries who are serving in Mexico have to take a pday and go to the customs office here in the city, and do visa stuff. We have 5 missionaries in our district going to Mexico, so our whole district got our pday moved to today.

The nice thing is that because our pday is on Friday this week, we don’t have any other missionaries in the lab today to email, which is nice, because I get a little more time to go in depth on stuff that happened this week!!

Some cool things that happened this week:

1. Memorizing the First vision, and four other scriptures in spanish this week. I couldn’t memorize anything for the life of me before the mission in English, but now, in the language of my mission, with the help of the Lord, I can memorize just about anything in Spanish!!

2. Fast Sundays. Sundays here in the MTC are super super cool. It’s kind of weird, because before the mission, a Sunday scheduled from 7:15am until 9:00pm full of meetings might have been my worst nightmare, but here, it’s the best thing ever!!! And Fast Sundays here are incredible. The Spirit here is absolutely amazing, and I love every second of it. It was probably my favorite thing to happen yet.

3. The power of music. Wow, the spirit that is felt through music is absolutely amazing!! One thing that our district does that is really interesting and kind of unique is each morning during our personal study right after breakfast (while everyone is still kind of waking up) we sing. We do acapella renditions of everything from the Lion King, Billy Joel, to Praise to the Man. It’s kind of a fun unique way our district gets up and going for the day.

4. Teaching with Glenn. So Elder Livingston is in district 14B, and they are our sister district if you will (meaning that they are on the same schedule as us, and when it’s time to practice teaching with another district, they are the ones we practice with.) The nice thing about that, is that I get to see a lot of Elder Livingston throughout the day. And Yesterday, for the first time, Elder Hansen and I got to teach Elder Livingston, which was so much fun, and the Spirit was way amazing as I bore testimony to one of my best friends.

5. Reading the Book of Mormon as a missionary. I started the Book of Mormon over 5 days ago, and I love it so much. It is amazing to read it again. It takes a whole new meaning as you read it with not just yourself and your questions in mind, but the questions and needs of your investigators.

I got to see Elder Jensen more this week, and it doesn’t matter where we are in the MTC, if we see each other, we run over, give each other a huge hug, and wish each other well for the rest of the day, and it’s the same for the rest of our PG boys here in the MTC! It’s so nice to have a bunch of familiar faces on top of all of the great people in my district. And allow me to let you all in on something on the MTC-sometimes, after a long day of practice lessons, language study, and all sorts of other mentally taxing things, you really need something to laugh at. And we are all so hard pressed for some humor, that literally anything is funny at that point. We have had times in our district, where for 15 minutes, we can’t even look at each other without laughing!

A couple of cool quotes and scriptures from this week.

"When we join this church, we leave neutral ground forever." -Joseph Smith

"Remember who you are, but more importantly, remember whose you are."

2nd Nephi 31:19

Love and miss all of you!

Love, Elder Newman

Moms Questions:

1. Have you been able to go to the temple there yet?

Yes, we went to the temple right after we emailed last week on pday, and it was truly incredible!! It was awesome to do it in Spanish too!! I’ll be sure to attach a picture of the Temple.

2. Did you get your package and letters from the delivery service on Monday?

Yes I did, THANK YOU SO MUCH!! It was really nice to hear from each of you, is was a nice boost to get me through the week, and it’s very nice to have some granola bars to snack on during the day, so thank you very much!!!

3. How is basketball? What other activities do you do for physical activity?

Basketball is super super fun, But yesterday without even thinking about it, I accidently broke the MTC rule of no dunking in pretty spectacular fashion, haha. We all felt like we were getting out of shape still, so we have thrown some soccer into the mix a couple times a week to get some more cardio, which helped alot!

4. What is your district like? How many people are in it? Where are they all going to after the MTC?

My District is amazing!!!! We have 12 people, 10 elders and 2 hermanas. Elder Lisonbee, Elder Beazer, Elder Mortensen, Elder Van Alfen and Elder Hansen and I are all going to Bolivia together. Elder Marberger and Elder Harper are both going to Mexico City East. Elder Shupe is going to Vermosilla Mexico. Elder Pacheco is going to Cuernivaca Mexico. Hermana Benavidez is going to Guadalejara Mexico, and Hermana Kofford is going to Uruguay Montevideo West (so close!)

5. What is your favorite food and least favorite food at the MTC? Is your stomach doing well?

Lets just say Pizza night here doesn’t seem to like me very much. but everything else has been good, haven’t had too many problems!

6. Have you joined the MTC choir?

Unfortunately no. Elder Shupe really wanted to, and so did my companion, But Elder Pacheco (Shupes Companion) didn’t want to, so I do a companionship exchange with Elder Pacheco, so the other two are able to.

Mom,

Thank you so much for the package again!! I love the pictures of the wedding, Gabby looks so so happy!!! And the cardboard cutouts are the best!!! Everything is going really well, and I love this work so so much...So cool that you saw Elder Price!! Te amo Madre!!

Dad,

I have been taking your advice from the Day 1 letter to heart, and been trying to dedicate every minute of my day to the Lord. This has resulted in learning 350 words in the past week, and getting to Alma 10 in my nightly scripture study. Te amo Padre!!!

Sarah,

Sounds like an awesome week!! By the way, you look beautiful in the wedding family photo! Have fun with the expanders!! Te amo Sarah!

Callie,

Nice job in your soccer game!! I remember when you and me went to the PG pool!! Te amo Callie!!

Emma,

CONGRATS ON DRILL!! THAT IS SO AWESOME THAT YOU ARE IN THE DANCE NUMBER!! Sounds like a pretty awesome week!! Hope you sent my love to Peter Hollens, because he is the man! Hope you had fun at CVX! All you sisters look so grown up and Beautiful in the wedding family photo! Te amo Emma!!