Week 1 (MTC)

Hey guys!

I'm not sure where to start.  When I left you, I was sad for sure, but once things started moving along, I realized there were nearly 20 other Elders on my plane.  It was a warm thing to see and feel, knowing I wasn't alone.  Then, the Lord granted me another tender mercy.  The lady who sat by me on the plane was returning from Gilbert to her home in Canada, and asked where I was going.  We got to talking, and she is LDS, and it turned out her cousin went to the Croatia-Slovenia mission! She said her and her husband had visited, and they say I am beyond blessed to be going there.  Very exciting and helpful.  Then Papa and Grandma and Aly and Cody and Justin greeted me at baggage claim in Salt Lake, and that was a lot of fun, spending a little time with my cousins and grandma, listening to and laughing at Papa as usual.  He's a riot.  He taught me how to say "Greetings comrade, I am a member of the KGB" in Russian, because apparently that will save me from any troubles.  We ate at Five Guys, a good last real world meal, and then dropped me off on the curb.  I'll have to say I wasn't too scared, just a little.  Then, my host took my bags and it felt literally as though my burdens were lifted.  I was walked into the first building, recieved all my stuff, and that was that.  One of the sisters who was checking me in says, "Elder Hixon, are you from Simi Valley?" I was blown away. "Uh...yeah, how do you know that?" I couldn't figure out her relation to us, but she knows somebody or is related to somebody by the last name of Knight...who has some relation to one of us...not sure what you guys know of that.  To me it was another tender mercy that the Lord was telling me I wasn't alone, and that this is where I need to be.

Then, everything got crazy awesome.  I LOVE MY COMPANION, and my roomates too.  Couldn't have hand picked better. We all get along so well, have similal sense of humor and all are committed to why we are here.  In my district, there are 4 elders and 5 sisters.  That's right.  We are the first district to have more sister than elders.  It's me, Elder Sheridan (my companion), Elder McAllister and Elder Barber (my roomates), and four of the five sisters in our class learning Serbian and Croatian.  That's right.  We are learning both.  Because it is nearly completely likely that we will serve in Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia.  Serbian and Croatian are very similar, just the different alphabets are the trick.  Me, Elder Sheridan, and Elder McAllister are going to the Adriatic North Mission, and Elder Barber is speaking Serbian in the Adriatic South Mission, so he's with us.  Four of the sisters are speaking Croatian/Serbian, and one of the sisters, Sister Flanders, is going to our mission but she is learning Slovene, so she is a solo missionary who stays with two of our sisters except for during class time.  Cause Slovene and Serbo/Croatian are a lot different.  A little more on the language, we've been told that the hardest languages taught at the MTC to learn from English, are 1) Finnish and possibly Swedish if I remember right, 2) our Slavic languages, (Czech, Slovak, Bulgarian, Croatian, Serbian, Polish, Slovene, etc.) and 3) Chinese. You read that right. We've been told ours is harder than Chinese.  If I had time I would try to explain why.  Our teachers don't speak English to us.  I think I have heard each use 2 sentences in English, but the rest from day 1 has been in our language.  And we...understand it.  Sort of.  It gets easier.  The gift of tongues is a strange thing...it works if you work hard and have faith.  That's the key though, those two.  It is so so hard, but as we have worked at it and had faith, we are now able to (and do) pray in, bear our testimonies in, and scattered other things in our languages.  And we have taught our first investigator, Goran, 2 times in full Serbian already.  Like, he speaks it at us full on, and we try our best to understand him and share our prepared lessons.  The first lesson didn't go well, like we couldn't understand him well, and we struggled to teach.  But we got him to pray....and the Spirit was so powerful there.  Then, the next day when we came with another lesson, the Spirit was there the whole time. And I could understand almost everything he said! He talked about how he lives in Belgrade, does construction out there but is teaching at BYU...etc.  (He's really a return missionary from our mission at BYU, but he plays the part well.) I also love our teachers. They teach us so well, they are AMAZING! I can't describe the Spirit here....really.  It's a necessity, I need Him always. We learned day 1 to teach simply, as we taught three investigators as a group in english, and we learned that we can't complicate things.  Lucky for us, we don't know the language complicatedly enough to anything else :)

I am short on time, but let me break it down for you.  I receive Dear Elder letters the day you send them, so thank you very much Mom and Lo, that helped me much that day.  I can read those and mail the day I get them. Emails I can read and respond to on P Day, which is Mondays. And on P Day I can respond to the letters.  I can email immediate family while at the MTC, so I only wrote a physical letter back to Lauren.  It is easier to respond than write fresh.  So siblings, you can email me, or write, whichever.  Dear Elders would be best, as I can read them throughout the week and type up a faster response, as I only have 30 minutes of computer time. So...that's that.

I love every day here.  The language, the devotionals, singing with 2500 missionaries, its all so incredibly powerful and worth it. Please, everyone planning on it, get here.  It's incredible.  I'm rambling, but I also ran into Elder Idso, Elder Rogers (Naterbug) and Elder Spencer (Jesse) while here.  Everything is so awesome!! Also, our sisters are amazing.  They really have been a shield and a support to me.  They teach so much and are positive and exctied, they are truly amazing.  They are my adoptive family, my elders and sisters.  I'll respond better to questions, but two last things.  First, in our zone are most of the Slavics, but new with us are the Czechs and Slovaks, who I love because of Bishop. Our zone leaders are incredible and friendly too.  But hear this, the District Leader over the Czechs is an elder named Elder Payne. And we think he is the biggest stud ever.  Seriously, he does everything right and he's built and he's just always happy and we look up to him.  So when things get hard, we just shout "Elder Payne!" and press on. And our Branch Presidency is also more incredible than I have time to write for.  They are amazing.  My Branch President said "This is the only time you have to give your whole soul in service of your God, in perfect obedience.  The time will fly by, so do it right and enjoy it." 

This is where I am supposed to be. And I am so incredibly happy here. I appreciate all your prayers and letters, I love you all so very much! And I will see you soon.

Love,
Elder Hixon

P.S. dopplegangers of the week: Tyler Lockwood was on my plane, Charles Whittmore is in my Mission Presidency, and Si was working in the temple this morning, with a clean shave.