Para todos ustedes:
This is Elder Blackham, still in the MTC, ready to leave, but not having any idea when he will. So, yeah I'm trying to make the best of this situation, I certainly can say I didn't expect to be delayed this long. It's funny, on our walk to the temple this morning, me and my new companions were musing how we were talking last week that it would be our last trip to the Provo temple for two years....only to be doing the same thing a week later. Oh well.
That being said we certainly have had a very different MTC experience the last few days. We still have time set aside for instruction, but because we have already "learned" (I use this term loosely) all the grammar for Spanish, we don't really have any set lessons from the teachers, it usually ends up being a question and answer session. We also do a lot more practicing teaching and contacting here in the MTC, and we got a baptism on Saturday!
Obviously it was not a real baptism, but our progressing investigator...or rather, the progressing investigator of Elder Larson and Elder Bylund who got delayed here with me(I joined their companionship after Elder Jensen and Elder Davis left on Wednesday to Mexico)...she received all the lessons and felt ready to be baptized. We organized the entire baptism program(aside from the actual ordinance, where we watched a movie instead.) We actually picked up another investigator/teacher during the baptismal service, so we're getting a lot of "field" experience without being the field, but it's still not quite the same.
Another funny thing that happens in the MTC when you've been delayed is that they give your mailbox to new missionaries. So we didn't get our mail the first few days after the newest missionaries came in, because they would check the mail before us and any letters for us they would put in the "wrong mail" bin. We figured out the situation and found all our letters in that bin that day...or, at least, I hope so.
Then, we put a note in our box to let the other elders know that we're still here and that we're sharing each other's mail box. The next day all that got left behind was a letter for Elder Haynie....who left for Mexico already. So we put that letter in the "wrong mail" bin and didn't think anymore of it.... that is, until we got the same letter in the mail for the next three days.Hopefully now, the mail has got things figured out. I would feel sorry for Elder Haynie that he hasn't gotten his letter from this girl yet...if it weren't for the fact that it has been one of the few things we've gotten the last few days.
What's more, one of the new missionaries that shares our mailbox is named Elder Braden Blackham. So, this Elder Blackham is pretty popular, because Elder Bylund is telling me that I got 6 dear elders in the mail, and then he says "Wait a minute..." reads the addresses on all of them and starts laughing because everyone of them are addressed to an "Elder BRADEN Blackham" going to the "Mexico LEON Mission". So there just happens to be another Elder Blackham in the MTC going Mexico Leon, who just happens to be sharing my same exact Mailbox right now...bummer.
Oh well, we laugh and go on. I hope that some time I will be able to write you from an internet cafe in Mexico City, but for now, it looks like I might be here a while...hopefully not too long.
Thanks for the prayers and support.
Con amor,
Elder THOMAS Blackham
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