Elder Braden Baker: Week 2: The MTC is "Incredible"

Hello Family and friends, I love and miss you all!

I feel like it has been SO long since my last P-day and I've got the chance to contact the outside world. I got here at the Provo MTC last Wednesday and I got to email my parents and then my P-day was on friday! So, it came so fast which was so nice but then it just made today feel like so far away!! It's crazy though how time flies here at the MTC. It is honestly so weird that just a little over a week ago, I was home with my family and Ellie. Overall experience here at the MTC so far is very good. I was blessed with an amazing district of other guys also going to India. There are four of us going to the Bengaluru mission and the other four are going to the New Delhi mission. We became so close so fast and that has helped me out A TON being here. Also, something that is very nice and helpful is that two other guys have girlfriends at home so I love being able to talk to them about my girlfriend and being able to relate as well as brag to them about Ellie.

My district's classes have kind of been a roller coaster. So, we have an assigned teacher named Sister Kennedy who is way awesome but she knew she was going to be out of town a lot during the time that we are here so she got a team teacher named Sister Jacobsen. This means that our district gets a new teacher to teach us about every other class. Little did she know, Sister Jacobsen ALSO is gone a lot lol. So, Saturday night there was some miscommunication and no teacher showed up for our class at night which is 3 hours long... SOO, instead of heading back to our residence and going to bed for the night, we sang a hymn and said a prayer and began the discussion all by ourselves. We started out by going over what was supposed to be taught that class but eventually decided to go through our whole district and share what we said in our farewell talk and then tell about our goodbyes. This soon turned into one of the best testimony meetings that I have ever been apart of. All of us missionaries got so close during this and also felt the spirit so strongly. Anyway, word got around the MTC a little bit and I guess you could say that we're the best district here.

Another class we had, where our substitute actually did show up, was amazing!! The substitute teacher was Sister Horvath and we're all kind of in love with her. I didn't think anyone could keep me on the edge of my seat for a three hour class but she did!! Everything she says is like so inspirational and so good! Oh, and she like knows everything about everything. She is crazy smart. We love when she teaches us and it's funny because all the guys try and throw in the word "Incredible" when we make a comment in class and I'll tell you why. Sister Horvath talks SO fast and like doesn't breathe hahahah like all the veins in her neck kind of pop out. And her voice is just identical to the babysitter from the movie The Incredibles. When she talks for a long time really fast, she will end her sentence with "I DON'T KNOW" and it's just like the babysitter from the incredibles, IT'S SO FUNNY. All of the elders totally noticed it and we all said it at the same time and now we love her.

There is one elder in the MTC that all of my district says hi to as we pass him. He stands out to us because he is Indian!! His name is Elder Pryanshu and he is SO COOL. We all wanted to meet him and talk to him so one day all 8 of us kind of just walked up to him.(sounds pretty scary if you were him huh) He was totally cool about it and actually heard about us 8 guys going to India and wanted to talk to us as well! He is from Goa, India which is in my mission and he actually served in Bengaluru before coming to the Provo MTC because he was waiting for his visa! Crazy that he's already served in the field before coming to the MTC! He told us that we will love the mission, the people are totally open and ready for the gospel and that the mision president and his wife are awesome. He said that Sister Mortensen makes amazing cookies for the missionaries and that we will love her and her husband. It got me so excited to get there, I seriously can't wait!!