Hola familia,
First, the big news. Our permisos (Mexican visas) have NOT come yet. We will recieve reassignments once the Quorum of the Twelve's vacation ends next Wednesday and one of them can approve our new assignments. We will serve in the general area of Utah while we wait so we can go to the Mexican Consulate that apparently exists in Salt Lake City when we need to. I am very excited about this! My friend just came back through the MTC after serving in St. George for three months and he really enjoyed it. It will be really fun to serve in two different areas eventually. We'll be in the MTC for some extra time until we recieve our reassignments.
The temple has been closed for a few weeks, but today my district has the opportunity to clean the temple! We're really excited about it.
Christmas in the MTC was great! Elder Nelson was here and he spoke three times over two days. He has a LOT of knowledge. He spent an hour explaining linguistics relative to Christmas and the Nativity; it was very interesting for me. We also got to watch Mr. Krueger's Christmas; I vaguely remember falling asleep watching it once before. I loved it this time. It's really funny. Earlier in the day, we had the Christmas talent show. Elder Pearson and I tried out with "Hallelujah," and the coordinator said if we changed the lyrics a bit we could play, and then we just never did. We realized afterwards that we could have tried out with basically anything and it would have been fun. The talent show had some really awesome parts (it also had some really terrible parts, but those were pretty fun too). A group of five Russian missionaries has achieved celebrity status after their rendition of Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance," entitled "You Missionary Now." It was hilarious. Apparently Lady Gaga is huge in Russia; they knew the dance and the song really, really. They also can't REALLY speak English, so the lyrics were really funny. I think that everytime I remember it, they have more and more pitch. The best part of the act was the reaction from the crowd. I can't really describe it. It was weird. A companionship from my zone played an MTC version of "Tribute" by Tenacious D, which was also one of the favorite acts.
We did Secret Santa as a district. Everyone just bought each other the best that the MTC bookstore has to offer: scripture markers, scripture cases, scriptures, tie-related items, Pepto Bismol... you name it. The missionaries get a 40% discount on everything except stamps at the MTC Bookstore, so things tend to be really cheap. In fact, I wish that I hadn't bought a lot of things for packing list until I got here, because it would have been much, much cheaper to just buy them here. After the movie the night of Christmas we had a really great testimony meeting in our room with our district and shared some of our favorite stories of Christ.
Thank you for the Christmas presents and the speakers and the beef jerky. I got 6 bags of beef jerky in a package, and thought, I'll never be able to eat all this! And then, two days later it was all gone. And thanks for the photo album; it's really great. Maybe I can get a picture of our family as well? I really liked all the Christmas cards and stories too! Especially Jane's "Mary Christmas" card. I really enjoy reading stories. It doesn't really matter what they're about of if they make a lot of sense. I was laughing out loud about Mom's explanation of Trey Tagliaferri's Tingey and Tingey feature.
Congratulations to Daniel for graduating! And congratulations to Charlie for being a boy and making Kate's stomach bigger! Many people enjoyed the ultrasound. It's up on the wall with Tyler, Carson and Ella's christmas card (that was SO awesome). What are the plans for Daniel, Kate and Charlie next fall?
Jacob's ski-trip sounds insane! What?!
The TRC is where we teach lessons to volunteering investigators once a week. We prepare new vocabulary and for a task each Tuesday and then teach a lesson. It's one of the most helpful tools we have available. Taking the TRC seriously and signing up for "Teaching Evaluation" appointments are some of the best ways to progress.
Most districts in the MTC have 2 teachers, but so far we have had 12! Yesterday, our twelfth teacher helped us with setting goals for who we want to become during our mission and who we want to be afterwards. I want to become a perfect disciple of Christ in my diligence. I am woprking very hard to become better and spending all of my time as best as I can, because it's not only my time, it's the Lord's and it is the time of the people I am serving.
Love,
Elder Tingey
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