07/14/2014

Dear Family,

So did you get my letter yet? We can use the postal system at any time so be sure to check the mail. We check the mail twice a day here and I put my unit number on my letter so you can get it that way. The food is actually pretty good. We eat dinner at 4:30 so that is hard to get used to, but I am enjoying the food. My companion is Elder Luke Wilson from Bountiful, Utah. He reminds me a lot of Justin Coburn. He is really knowledgeable about the gospel and has a good testimony. We are getting along great. I love my district/zone. There were 12 elders and 4 sisters that came to the MTC the same day that are going to Vancouver, Washington. My district of eight is all elders. We are all 18 except for Elder Brase from Topeka, Kansas. He is the veteran here that has already put in a year at BYU and he is my favorite missionary.

The days pretty much consist of studying, eating and teaching. There is a lot of role lays here, which is weird for me, but I think it's helping. Some missionaries get really into it and it is kind of weird but it works. I am learning what to study for myself and with my companion.

The sleep has been in short supply for several reasons. When you combine no fan, a rock hard mattress, epic snoring, and a racing mind, the sleep does not come easy. However, I am getting tired enough at nights where I am sleeping better. There re four elders in our room. Just a fun fact, over 600 missionaries checked into the Provo MTC on the same day as me. About 85% of them were from Utah.

As far as fingernail clippers go, I am probably good. One Elder said, "Hey I forgot fingernail clippers." and everybody was like, "me too!" HaHa. but it's not like I used fingernail clippers at home so I probably won't need them here either.

Just a funny story for one activity in class, we had to summarize the whole restoration in 30 seconds to another elder. The point of this was to keep it simple and focus on what's important, but everybody just tried to talk faster. So I said, "The gospel was taken off the earth after Christ and his apostles were illed into what was called the apostasy which was restored in the latter days." It was a difficult exercise, but it made me think that this whole gospel is focused on Jesus Christ. When we start going deep into other topice, it is just going further away from Jesus Christ.

So I absolutely loooooove my branch president. His name is President Brown (his first name is Mike!) and he is hilarious. He is spiritual too. He will cry two to three different times for every talk/testimony. He gave such a great talk on Sunday. He talked about the faith of Jesus Christ. He talked about the story of Alma and Amulek. They had enough faith to sit there and watch women and children get thrown into a fire even though they had the pow3er to sotp it whenever they wanted. I know that I don't have that kind of faith as of yet, but I am still working on it.

My favorite Grandpa Hart memory was when we went on the Oklahoma trip and listened to some of his childhood memories.

So Lebron James just continues to haunt me. He is trying to distract me but it's not going to work! HaHa. It is actually working a little bit; I was asking everybody what was true and what wasn't. They better not win a championship for the next two years, but record everything just in case. That is so cool that he came back, even though now all of the Heat fans will be Cavalier fans. Somebody keep me updated on all of the sports. World Cut? Indians? NBA free agents? It is different just not being able to know what is going on but it is good too.

So I saw Elder Robbie Tolbert here. He left today. He is assigned to Australia but he is waiting for his Visa so he got called to Las Vegas. It was ice to see somebody I knew, especially because everybody here is from Utah so everybody sees to be friends from high school. I told my district that only four students from my graduating class have their mission call and they looked at me like I was from Mars! Most classes in Utah have over 100 students that received their calls.

Most of my letters won't be this long, but we got a little extra time today. Keep writing me; your letters help me out

Love, Elder Reiley