Does luggage exist?

Hello everyone! I hope all is well for you over in the real world. I believe tomorrow marks the exact halfway point of my stay at the MTC. The days and weeks are definitely starting to run together, especially when you do the exact same thing every day. Yesterday was probably the most different day I've had here at the MTC because we got to host new missionaries. It was definitely fun to see the first few minutes of a missionary's journey and to relive that moment of your own, but it was not a walk in the park by a long shot. Seriously every missionary i hosted lived on the top floor of their building, so I was basically a bellhop without an elevator.

One thing that hosting taught me was how quickly all of my Spanish is being replaced by Korean. So in Korean, they don't use the verb "to have" like we do at all. If you want to say "i have a question" in Korean you have to say "a question exists" (side note: Korean was created to be a simpler language than Chinese, so everything is condensed into as few words as possible, making it very difficult to learn. So the words " I, a, the, you" do not exist). Back to the story though. So a car pulls up to the missionary drop-off where I was standing. The sticker on their car indicated a sister missionary was inside. There were no sister missionaries available to host right then, so in that case an Elder can host the Sister until she gets to her dorm room. So I approached the car, but nobody got out of it for a solid 45 seconds. The woman driving eventually rolled down the window and said something in Spanish. I didn't understand her so she said it again and I understood she was saying something about a missionary. She then looked at my Korean nametag and asked if I spoke Spanish, because why wouldn't I if I had a Korean nametag? I told her I spoke a little bit, to which she said nothing for another 15 seconds. So, I tried to ask her if she had any luggage. So I started saying it, and then I realized I was in the process of saying "equipaje 있습니까?" which, when translated from both Spanish and Korean means "Does luggage exist?" I stopped myself in time, and ended up just saying "luggage?" And after all of it, there wasn't even a missionary in her car. There must of been some mix-up at the gate, but she was here to see her nephew off and ended up with a sister missionary sticker... The MTC is a whole different world.

As far as other news goes, I have memorized the First Vision in Korean and used it in a lesson yesterday, it was pretty sweet. I was also called as District Leader on Sunday, a calling that will last for 3 weeks. It entails leading an hour district meeting on Sunday and Tuesday, going to meetings on Sunday, and getting the mail. So you could say I wield a lot of power here at the MTC now, nobody gets their letters unless I say so. It was actually funny the timing of the calling though. I was the first to get sick in our district, and then I was called as District LEader once I was healthy. Our first district leader was the last one to get sick, and he got sick the minute he was released the District Leader. So I'm banking on the theory that this position will give me some kind of immunity for these next three weeks because that would be much appreciated.

Oh, I almost forgot about my temporary companion. Elder Macasieb got his call reassigned right after I finished emailing last Thursday, and left the following afternoon. He was reassigned to the Orem Utah mission, and I know he'll do great things there.

I'm glad I get to be here in the MTC for 9 weeks, not just for the language training but for instruction in the gospel. I've answered the questions "How can we apply our purpose to our investigators?" and "why is it important to have the Spirit when we teach?" at least 600 times, but I'm glad that they train us so well here. The spiritual growth that happens here is incredible, and I'm so glad they called me on a mission. Thank you everyone for your support and prayers, I'll make you proud!

P.S. There was a mouse in our bedroom this week and let me just say that I am so glad I'm not going to the Philippines.