All's well

          Hola familia!

Everything's going pretty well here. I'm getting much better at Spanish to the point where I'm saying my personal prayers in Spanglish (accidentally) and thinking a lot of the time in Spanish. It's becoming easier and easier to teach and I'm getting un poco tired of this place. I really want to get out there and start preaching to the Lamanites in the land of the Jaredites (I figured it out in my cabesa.) We looked up the satellite map of Monterrey a bit more and looked at some pictures. I've decided that even if I'm in the city mission I'll still be pretty dang happy about it. But I'm still hoping for the border!

The Elders are doing pretty well. Some of them don't understand my need to get out there and start teaching NOW, but others are spending half their time dreaming about going to Mexico City (like Elder Blotter and two others in my district) or Monterrey (like the two others and me.) I'm trying to not get discouraged being here at the MTC but at times it's just annoying. We used to be able to listen to MoTab during our TALL time (language learning on the computer) but then our Branch President decided that we might get distracted from doing TALL if we do this. It's actually dramatically impaired my ability to concentrate and finish the lessons in TALL. I've always listened to music when studying so not being able to do it anymore is a real bummer, but I'll get over it. Also, I really wanted to watch the Easter Bible Videos and won't be able to do that anymore...

The devotionals are fantastic although we haven't had an Apostle come yet (here's hoping for tonight!) and I'm singing in the MTC choir. I was really majorly bummed out when I heard that the MTC isn't going to sing in General Conference :''( But the change in pace from all the (occasional) tedium of this place is really helpful. I always feel the Spirit most when I'm singing or listening to spiritual music so it's helped a lot with my spiritual fortitude and whatnot.

I have the First Vision memorized in Spanish minus all the scary Devil parts. I also have Moroni 10:4-5 memorized. It's nice to be able to tell a story without having to look in the Scriptures.

I can't get over how much I love doing TRC. The difference between the actors and real people is getting more and more obvious the more that I learn Spanish. I can truly feel Heavenly Father's love for his children when I'm talking to a real, genuine person. We taught an eighteen-year-old sister from Peru who has only been in the country for about seven months and is going to BYU, and I'll tell you that Peruvian Spanish is the clearest and most understandable Spanish I've heard yet. The other lady we taught was and older sister from Chile and it was extremely difficult to understand what she was saying. She spoke extremely fast, her grammar was iffy, and she had a very strange accent. But I was able to understand about 70% of it and was able to teach according to her needs.

Tell Colby to get better! Here's hoping he doesn't shrivel up like he did last time. That was scary. And remind Brooklyn that I had a hard time with friends too and I turned out fairly ok. ;) Tell all the other kids I love them and miss them and that they should do what they're told and stop causing trouble.

Thanks for the news stories by the way! I'll read them today during laundry (I haven't had time.) It's always nice to get mail. I think I only got that great one from Dad in the last week other than the big one with all the stories and your letter, Mum. Mis amigos at BYU haven't responded to me and I don't really look forward to mail time anymore. It's a bit depressing to see all the others in my district get loads of letters. But thanks ya'll for writing me! I really appreciate it!

And about the resistance bands, heavier to heaviest is probably best. I don't want to come back looking to tiny.

Le amo muchissimo familia!

-Brayden (Elder Decker)

PS: I got an email telling me I get two hours of email time in the field where I can email anyone I want. I don't remember if I mentioned that. So if you give my email out on Facebook that would be awesome, thanks!