Well, the MTC has been pretty good. It has been a little tough getting up at 6:30, but I feel like I have gotten a little bit used to it. My companion is good. His name is Elder Rucker from California. We get along well, and he is a nice kid. We have a really great District (group of missionaries). We have 12 people in total - 11 boys and 1 girl. There are 10 of us are going to Cambodia, and the 2 others are going to California/Cambodian speaking missions. The other elders in our District are a lot of fun and we all get along well and joke around a lot.
The firesides here have been great. We had a fireside on Sunday with a member of the Seventy (regional church leadership) from Salt Lake City. He was a funny guy, but the highlight of his talk, and the highlight of the week for me, came when a few missionaries were sent up to tell everyone what they gave up to go on a mission. One elder said he gave up sports. The men said, "Yeah, you missed the NBA draft." Someone in the front row yelled out asking where Jimmer went. Then came this. "We tried to draft Jimmer, but he went to the NBA instead." At first I though he meant we, as in Utah Jazz. Then we all realized he meant the MTC (Missionary Training Center). It literally was the highlight of the last few days. (As you know Jimmer is LDS, but he chose not to serve a mission.)
Learning Khmae has been a little difficult. We were given 3 Preach My Gospels (teaching manual for missionaries). One in English, one in Romanized Khmae, and one is in Khmae characters. It has been pretty difficult, but I am definitely making progress. It has been discouraging at times, but I can see the progress, and I know if I continue to work hard that it will eventually come. I am not the best in the class, but I am not the worst either. We have definitely learned a lot considering I have only been here 6 days. We know a variety of vocab, how to pray, and a little sentence structure as well. We also have started reading Khmae symbols. It is very hard. There are 24ish consonants each with their own sounds. Then each consonant can have a sub consonant and a vowel that can alter the sounds. It takes a good 3-5 minutes to decipher a single sound. In fact, one book we have says that learning Khmae is harder than an outsider learning English.
I miss you all a lot and have felt a little homesick, but I getting more used to it.
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