Arriving at the MTC, greeted by my New Missionary Host!

This week was OK it was really long. I am glad that it is p-day because I get to take a break for a bit, I just got back from the temple. Its nice to see all the new missionaries coming in and not be the new missionary now. 

So, where to start? My companion is Elder Kelley and he is from Alabama. He is really nice and we get along so that's a positive. On our second day in the MTC we got an investigator to teach. Our lesson did not go so well since we only knew a total of ten words. Since then its gotten better, we have taught our investigator three lessons, and each one seems to get better as we learn more of the language. I can offer a simple prayer, bear testimony, and do a few other simple things in Ukrainian. At the MTC there are 100 Russian Speaking missionaries, and only 8 speaking Ukrainian. We call ourselves the elite 8!

There are boat loads of food here..... breakfast is at 7:10, lunch is at 11:45, and dinner is at 4:45. So by the time bed time rolls around I am starving! I am really trying to use the short fifty minutes of exercise a day well so I can stay in shape. I will let you know in a few weeks how that is coming along. Oh, guess what? I got to see Megan and Mason! I saw Megan on our temple walk, and talked with her, we took a picture and I will send it next week if I can figure out how too. Mason is in the same building as I am, so every other night or so he has came up and said hi to me. I am sad that they are leaving tomorrow. The MTC feels kind of like a jail with big fences all around it. I was told to think of it like a fortress that keeps evil things out rather than a jail to keep us in.

Something else that's kind of cool is that my district is the first one to only be here for nine weeks, all previous Russian and Ukrainian missionaries got twelve weeks. So I better study hard right? I have a set of Ukrainian scriptures and I got them engraved today. They say "Elder Mitchell Hadfield" in gold letters across the front. Its weird to call everyone Elder, they don't like us using the words "guys, dudes, or bros," so I have had to focus on just saying elder. When I first saw Mason, I shouted his first name and I got a lot of nasty stares.

Until Wednesday,

Elder Mitchell Gregory Hadfield

The Missionaries in my Mission District in front of the infamous  MTC World Map.