Night Class with the Latinos, District Family, The best high five ever

 Elder Newman and Elder Hansen

 One last temple visit for two years

 District

 So very happy about their package of chocolate milk and cookies

 Tradition Mexico MTC District picture

Hey everyone!!!

So good to be talking with you all again this week! There was a ton of cool things this week, and I can’t wait to tell you all about what has been happening here at the MTC!! We have had a very busy week, and we are almost finished up here at the mtc!

Some new things around here:

1. Unfortunately, one of our elders in our district had to go home this week. It was really hard, it felt like losing a brother.. When you spend 5 weeks with the same group of people every day, all day, you become like a big district family, so it hurt to lose one of our district brothers.. Luckily, he will be joining us again in Bolivia, so we will be able to see him again!!

2. New assignment here in the MTC, Elder Hansen and I have been called to be Zone Leaders here! Its different, but it’s very fun to have some new assignments here! We have been striving to administer one by one just like we were called to do, and it’s been very fun to meet with and get to know all the new missionaries! We actually get to go and welcome a new district tonight, which will be super awesome! We have been loving the new responsibility, and it’s really nice to have some new things to do, because things can get a little bit repetitive here!

3. Night class with the Latinos. So we have a Latino class right across the hall from us, and we started getting to know them last week, but this week, we have been doing our nightly study after dinner with them! It’s been super fun to get to know them, and practice our Spanish, and help them learn some English! There’s a running joke between our two districts, and it started when the hermanas in the Latino district asked if I was friends with Elder Miranda (Elder Miranda is a small, kind of shy Elder from Guatemala), to which I responded that we were actually brothers, and that I am from Guatemala too. The hermanas thought that was the funniest thing ever, and ever since, they have called me Elder Miranda's brother, not Elder Newman.

Couple of other fun things here:

There’s huge rainstorms here, that hit really hard, really fast. They are super awesome, and actually do the opposite of what rain usually does, the entire MTC comes alive, and starts playing in the rain a little bit! We have had four this week (one in the middle of a practice lesson, which turned into me protecting my scriptures), and they are so so so fun!!!

The other thing is I have been seeing everyone's favorite, Elder Jensen, a lot more as of late! Anybody who knows me and Elder Jensen knows about our quest for the world’s greatest high five. We have sprinted across parks, schools, and met in the middle with a huge high five. But two days ago, we did it. We got the world’s greatest high five. We started at opposite ends of the building, ran as fast as we could, and high fived so hard, that it bruised both of our hands, Elder Jensen's arm was completely red, and it threw me so off balance that I toppled to the ground. But we had done it--the best high five ever.

There’s so many cool spiritual thoughts I want to share, but I’ll just stick to my favorite one. Our MTC president is an absolute stud, and has this quote that is one of my favorites. "Don’t accept the common thinking". I love this thought. In the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we are not common thinkers. We hold ourselves to a high standard, do things that may seem weird to the rest of the world, and love people like nobody else. In this gospel, we are not common, so why think common? We have so much to offer this world, don’t get caught up in thinking small, THINK BIG!

I love you all, and love hearing from all of you! I'm sorry if I can’t get back to some of you, we don’t get a ton of time to write in the mission, so I put most my time and effort into this email and writing my family, but I do love hearing from everyone, and I will try my best to get a personal note to you as time permits! Much Love!!!

Love, Elder Newman

Dad, I have been trying to use your advice, and it’s been paying off. I have been talking with the Latinos here, and man, I can hold an entire conversation! I need to keep working, but it’s nice to see hard work pay off! Hard to believe what happened to our PG football boys! But they will bounce back! Love you!

Mom, Thank you so much for the cookies and chocolate milk!! It was really nice to have, and once again, my district thanks you! Sounds like you have a lot of time on your hands now with all the kids at school! Love you mom!

Sarah, Congrats on winning your Tournament!!! Thats amazing!! Tell Mrs. Rooke I said hi!! Enjoy your first week of school!!! Love you!

Emma, Good job with drill!! Good to see that you guys have a good focus for drill! Work hard! Love you!

Callie, nice job on your reading!!! You are one smart cookie!!!! And speaking of cookies, that is very nice of you to send cookies to Isaiah! Love you!!

Mom's Questions

1. Any new responsibilities to report this week?

Yep!! Elder Hansen and I are now Zone Leaders, I guess Elder Hansen was just too good of a district leader!

2. From Emma: Have you started dreaming in Spanish yet?

Not really, I have Once! But honestly, I almost never remember my dreams anyways.

3. Do you have goals as far as how much or little you speak English in the MTC?

We do, we actually have a game where our district is split into two teams, and one person from each team is only allowed to speak spanish, and the goal is to guess which person it is, which means every person on the team tries to only speak spanish as to not give it away. Its pretty fun!

4. Still eating as many salads? Or have you found some other things to eat there?

I still usually have a salad with every meal, but now that my stomach is a little more accustomed to the food, its usually a smaller part of my meal :)

5. How’s your weight? :)   

I actually don’t weigh in very often, but I feel and look almost the exact same as I did when I left, actually, I think if anything, I might have lost some weight!