Howard, Keaton

Ola everyone! This is my last full week at the MTC before I (hopefully) leave for Portugal! It has been really fun so far. Volleyball, basketball, and four square have now become an essential part of our whole district’s daily routine, and it’s the best part of the day. It's fun meeting and talking with all the new sets of missionaries that trickle in every week that go to the gym, and getting to know them and their missions. It's cool seeing so many people speaking so many different languages. I've gotten to hear people speak Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, Norwegian, Finnish, Polish, Icelandic, Swedish, and German. I've always been fascinated with language, so it's been fun hearing all that. Since the fall BYU semester started, this last week was all of our language teachers’ last week teaching before they had to start school. It was a little tough to see them go. They were really good teachers. One of them was a native Brazilian, so it was awesome to have a native ...

Óla everyone! This email will be a shorter one, there wasn’t tons of stuff that happened. We did play lots of volleyball and basketball this last week, which was super fun. There are lots of talented people here, so it’s fun to see them get some good volleys going. It was also a bit rainy this past week, and we even had an awesome thunderstorm one day which was fun to watch. Before the storm, the sky turned super orange which was pretty interesting.  We were given the opportunity last Wednesday to welcome the new set of missionaries coming into the MTC and get them settled into their dorms. It was really fun being able to see and talk to people from all around the USA, going to serve all around the world.  Portuguese is going pretty well, but I’ve hit a little bit of a wall in the past couple of classes. Past tense conjugations in Portuguese are a little tough. The learning is picking back up though, so I’m looking forward to the progress I’ll make this week.  Every Sunda...

Óla todos! I just got done with my first week of in person MTC, and it was awesome. I finally met with my district in person, and they are all the best. I couldn't have gotten a better one. We all decided to make custom t-shirts for us all to wear on our p-days, and it's been cool to unite as a district more because of that. We all got to get together to meet our branch, and they are all awesome as well. The food here is actually pretty good, despite what lots of people say. Our first night here, we all had a steak dinner, and it was surprisingly good. They’ve also got an Aloha Plate station there that is decent also. Everything is unlimited, so we can get as much food or drink as we want. I’ve heard that some missionaries gain 25-30 pounds at the MTC, so I've been trying to limit myself to only one plate and drink per meal. I’ve been good about it so far, but the temptations to get seconds are strong. We’ll have to see how long I last before I give in. My progress with lea...