Bogota MTC - Part 2

So another week! It's been a lot less hectic and we're more in a routine now. A new group of latins came in along with some more Americans so we're not as big of celebrities anymore since there's like ten white people here now. But all the latins still try to talk to us and some try to tell us stuff that we should say when we get to our missions and then giggle, LIKE THIS IS MY FIRST TIME AROUND THE BLOCK pshhh, but they really are all super nice and try to help us with Spanish. The other day we were able to go and get fingerprinted for Visas and such! That was fun to leave for a little bit again, and today we got to go to the temple which I love since I now have an in with the President and his wife.

We practice teaching a lot with our investigators who are really our teachers. They say that our Spanish is getting better and better every day which is nice to hear. And the two elders in our district who were in advanced Spanish in Provo got moved in with a native district, so that makes us all look a lot smarter too. We also got a new elder in our district named Elder Perfect which isn't even a joke. He's really cool and has been a convert for about a year and knows more than most people here haha.

The president here pretty much has us do all the super spiritual stuff like movies, devotionals, and sunday lessons in English. It's nice to not be translating the whole time, but that just means we have to practice that much harder. We got to watch the Joseph Smith movie that they show at the JSMB in temple square which was SUPER AWESOME. Only on a mission do you get that excited for that... But it's really good

So I told everyone to use Dearelder, but I don't think that works that well down here, so i don't know. haha If you want I'll just talk to you all in two years haha. And i don't know how, but I'll try and get some pictures home eventually?

Oh and I've talked to some elders here from Barranquilla, and they all just say it's beautiful and the people are really nice, but of course, really hot. I also get to eat fish, and they have lots of lobster apparently!

So, I love everyone! bye!

Bogota MTC

Okay so obviously I was wrong about getting to email on Friday and we still only have 30 minutes so I'm gonna try and fit as much in as a I can. So last Tuesday they said we were leaving so we had like 12 hours to get ready. I got on the plane Friday morning and was off! We got to New York and were there for about an hour and then boarded the plane for Colombia. It was a 6 hour flight and it was super long especially in a suit, but my seat was by other missionaries the whole way so that was nice. The flight attendant on the plane said that lots of people who go on missions get hired as flight attendants because they speak two languages, so there's my fall back! The airport was super scary since I spoke no Spanish and I just told customs I don't know like 12 times, but they let me in the country. Then there was a guy waiting to drive us to the MTC, so that was nice. I got to my room and couldn't sleep and then got up at 6:30 for gym time. The first day we had interviews with the President here. He's so nice. He's like 80 somethin and hasn't even tried to speak Spanish to me. So we get along. I got a new companion. His name is Elder Sawyer. He's cool and from Washington. After interviews with the president we met with his wife about health stuff. So I told her about my retainer, but we'll see what happens. That day we had class which wasn't that bad. My whole district all flew here from Provo, so we're all learning Spanish still. I'm still the worst at it, but it's okay! So then the next day we had classes again which was fun! Basically a regular day is wake up, gym, shower, breakfast, class, lunch, class, dinner, study time, bed. With lots of language study haha. but pretty much not a single day here has been normal.
Now I'm going to get to the best part. So we basically saw this on the schedule from day one, but on Saturday..... WE WENT PROSELYTING!!!! Yep that's right. In the country for 3 days and I was out teaching the gospel. They drove everyone in the mtc over to different areas and put us with missionaries in the Bogota, North mission. I was with one kid from this mtc and a missionary in the field. The elder from here is from Mexico and speaks pretty good english and wanted to practice that all day rather than speak spanish which was frustrating, but I tried to pick up as much as I could. We did contacting all the day long. We went and knocked on a lot of doors. At every single "house" they would look at the other two and talk to them, then just smile when they saw me because I couldn't talk and just smiled. We taught these three ladies who didn't care much for religion. They'd be in an intense discussion with the missionary and then look at me and just smile and laugh because I just smiled at them and said hi to their kids. Really like a ton happened Saturday, but I don't have much time left. So then we came back and hit the hay. Sunday was awesome. The president set up a lot of movies for us to watch in English and taught us this lesson on the atonement that was just spectacular. We read Bruce R Mcconkies last talk in conference, and wow... anyways. Sunday was great. Then Monday we were kind of alone all day because the Latinos were in meetings because they all left the next day. Tuesday was SUPER SWEET! We basically had a fun day since we were the only ones here. We went to the temple, Bogota temple..... So sweet! It was all Spanish but that's okay. I understood like 4 words haha. I also got to meet the temple president and his wife! They are the grandparents of my friend Zack Moreno from school who was in choir with me and much much more. But they were really nice and said they'd been expecting me for a long time. Then! We basically got to go out and explore Bogota for a day! We went to the gold museum, and then to the top of this mountain from which we could see all of Bogota! There was a church up there and it was so cool and can't even explain it. I took some pictures though and then late last night more North Americans got here and some are in our room which is cool that we're veterans already. And a whole new swarm of Latinos come in today. The old ones all left Tuesday.
So here's the deal. Don't send anything to this MTC is what they keep saying because by the time it gets here I'll probably be in Barranquilla. I don't know if I can ever send anything out of the country because they don't have a mail service in this country... but I'll see what I can do. I'm like out of time, but this week was so exciting so, I'll let you know more stuff next week.
I love you all!

He's gone!

Last Tuesday Mom called down to the MTC Health Center to give Cole permission to get a new retainer. He lost his and the lunch lady wouldn't let him look through the garbage. Anyway, when Mom called down there the lady said, "Oh he just came in and told us he's leaving tomorrow." Tomorrow! Cole emailed us that afternoon. He got a note in his mailbox that morning saying to report to the office Wednesday morning at 5am.
He called Mom and Dad around 7am from the airport that day and they were able to talk for a while. He was still anxious about the language, but excited to go. His plane left at 8:30am and he was traveling with 8 other missionaries to Colombia. They had a 2 hour layover at the JFK airport where he called me and Brock. The connection was a little fuzzy, but he sounded good.
His flight to Colombia was another 6 hours. He got there safely and sent an email Thursday telling us that his Mission President at the MTC there speaks English which he is very grateful for. We haven't heard anything since then, but I'm sure he's doing great! We'll keep you posted!
~Callie

MTC Half Way Point!

So we're almost to the half way point here at the MTC! And hopefully our visas come soon, or we'll be reassigned I guess. Which actually would be cool too! So... Spanish is still really hard, but I've learned a lot. I just need to learn how to conjugate all of these verbs that they're giving me haha. Our devotionals have been really good! On Tuesday night we had a member of the 70 who talked all about obedience and shared a ton of scriptures that have great examples of obedience. Sunday was fast Sunday and it was really nice. I got up and bore my testimony during sacrament meeting which was scary to do in Spanish, but the spirit was still so strong and I loved it! We also had mission conference and it was really cool. The president of the MTC and one of his counselors spoke. They both gave great talks. The 2nd counselor talked about following crooked paths and how the world finds things that are crooked to be normal. He shared a cool poem about a calf making the first crooked path and it was cool. The MTC president talked about the apostasy and how that all went down. It was really interesting to hear, but I'm not teaching all of it because that would be way too much Spanish to learn haha. 
One elder in my district had to go in for surgery today. He hurt his knee, then they did and MRI and found that his ACL was not even there. So hopefully everything goes well with him today. 
Thank you so much for the care package! That will make conference really nice, even though we have to sit in these uncomfortable chairs for 6 hours on Saturday and 4 hours on Sunday, and I don't even get to go to Crown Burger after... But that's okay. I'll probably learn more, not in my bedroom during conference as usual.
I don't have a whole lot to say today, but thanks for the letters, packages, and support.
Love you!
-Elder Morgan