Dear Family,
The street contacting was probably the most frightening part of my entire week last week. To be honest, I could hardly speak to anyone, they all just looked so Scary and English. Eventually me and my companion only placed one Book of Mormon, though we did hand out a few pamphlets and pass-along cards. We'll be going tracting tomorrow, door to door, which I feel just a little more comfortable with because I've done it a few times before in America .
I hope that in the field I'll have more time to email you guys because this half hour just isn't long enough. I've taught a lot of practice lessons that have gotten increasingly harder (with some very difficult investigators, mostly just other Elders acting difficult on purpose) but Elder Turney and I have gotten through them very well. We've managed to do everything we planned in all the lessons except some end-commitments because we're only assigned a 20 minute block to teach in each Milestone lesson. I'm finding that memorizing scriptures comes a lot easier to me than to other missionaries so I've been trying to help and teach them memorization tricks and such.
I've been able to attend the temple again today. It means more every time I go there, and it makes me sad that there are no temples in my mission area so the most I'll get to go to the temple is one or two times more over the course of my whole mission. Right after we finish writing here, though, I'm going in to get my first true missionary haircut, which I'm a little apprehesive about. Something tells me that something is going to go horribly wrong. I guess you'll know when you get a picture of me next week, hm?
I should share a funny story that happened just a couple days ago - One of the missionaries in the MTC is from Italy and his name is Elder Papagallo. He has a habit of stealing people's food at mealtimes when they aren't looking, and so Elder Turney and I, with the help of another companionship, decided to get back at him. During the night-time snack we toasted 2 pieces of toast. On one of the pieces we spread Nutella (which Elder Papagallo loves), on the other we coated it with Tabasco sauce, then spread Nutella over that so it was completely hidden.
I think you see where this is going.
So while one of the missionaries in the other companionship was sitting a table with the pieces of toast, he was kinda turned around and talking to the person behind him and eating the Tabasco-free toast. And of course, here comes Elder Papagallo very sneaky-like and he steals the Tabasco toast and takes it into the corner and takes a big huge bite out of it. The expression on his face was something that makes me laugh every time I think about it. It was hard to get to sleep at night, we were still laughing at that.
Also, when my companion wouldn't get up one morning, I taught him Dad's mission wake-up song.
Well tell Logan good luck on his mission from me, and remind him not to talk to strangers. I'll be leaving the MTC on the 10th so that'll be my last opportunity to tell him anything. Make sure you send his first address to me when he gets out in the field. Also, tell James and Alisa something that they probably already know but tell them anyway -- that serving a mission is definitely something that shapes your life for the better, so prepare as much as you can before going. I don't think I quite prepared enough. If there's anything they should read from Preach my Gospel that matters the most, it's the section on Teaching by the Spirit. if you can teach by the Spirit, everything else falls into place. And tell all 3 of them to write to me, even if its just about the weather.
Oh and yes, it is cold over here... it rains a lot, it snows quite a bit, and it's always bitterly cold. And I am now officially out of time. More to come next week.
Much Love,
-Elder Alsop
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