Andrew's first dispatch from the MTC...

Greetings all-- Aaron here.  Andrew is 8 days in, and today was his first P-day.  I got his letter about an hour ago, and I'm posting it here for everyone...  For those of you that wrote Andrew this week, he says he'll be responding individually over the course of the next week, his precious time permitting :-)

Hey Dad,

Things are going pretty well at the MTC, I am part of a threesom with 2 other companions. They are Elder Mangus, and Elder Misseldine. Misseldine is from Arizona, from Joe Arpaio's district no less! And Elder Mangus is from Zionsville, Indiana. The days are pretty long and hard, but the weeks are short. My two companions are both zone leaders, so I get split quite often. There's 8 of us going to Latvia, 5 elders, 3 sisters. I'm also now known among the Hungary-bound missionaries, so that's pretty cool. It can be a relief sometimes to let them practice their Hungarian on me, cause Latvian is kinda kicking my butt. It's got some Germanic elements to it, like conjugating nouns in accusative, dative, and genitive forms, instead of just pronouns like English. It also has some exceptions to the rules, which really sucks. I wish it was like German, nice, orderly, and the rules are absolute. 

Our district gets along very well, I don't have photos yet, but I'll send them when I have the chance. It's hard to find a computer where you can upload pics. It's nice to have really well scheduled days, but I have literally zero time in the week to review what I already learned. I'm getting a lot more than 20 words a day. The language really is frustrating at that kind of pace. We've covered in 9 days here, what we covered in 3 months at the Swiss Integ. school. 

I've already had a couple funny stories happen here. The Finns accidentally had an investigator read Moroni 9:8-9 as a way to learn how to feel the spirit (read it out loud to understand). The investigator we were teaching for the last week just revealed himself as one of our teachers, so we have 3 now. In fact, "Valdi" has been teaching here the longest of the 3. He came back from his mission in Latvia 3-4 years ago. He sounded fluent when we tried to teach him in Latvian. 

Also, we had a great first impression with out branch president. There was something like 20 of us Elders showing up to a meeting without our suit jackets. He told all 20 of us to go back to our dorms and get our suit coats on. One of my companions said "really?" in a lighthearted way to him.... from right in front of him. We were in front of the group. So yeah, he's one of the zone leaders now, and I do not envy that assignment.

I miss all of you, dad, mom, Aidan, Ali, Ashton... But I am having a great time here.

Love you all,

Elder Palmer

PS. I'll write answers to all the individual letters I got over this upcoming week. Tell me when you move to the new house, and tell me how great it is.

And he's off! 1 week down, 103 to go :-)

Aaron here-- Andrew's dad...  Finally back home in Hungary-- was awesome dropping Andrew off at the MTC a week ago today.  We turned into "those parents" immediately-- sending him two packages in the first 4 days, prior to our flight home Monday.

Normally the missionaries write home the first night (we assumed via email) and since we hadn't heard anything by Friday night, I called the MTC and asked about the policy-- really played it up by indicating we were an international family from Hungary and wanted to know that all was OK with the new Elder Palmer, etc.. (apparently arriving International Elders are supposed to make a quick 5 minute call the first day to their family) so they got Andrew on Saturday to call us.  Typical Andrew-- already taken to the MTC life, and his call was hilariously serious-- basically "Why the heck am I calling you guys?  My P-day isn't until Thursday, don't you know how busy I am?"  Awesome.  I asked if he'd gotten our mail or package, and his response was "you've written to me already?  Its only been 4 days..."  Apparently hadn't even checked his mail yet :-)

So.  We are glad Andrew is off to a roaring start, with 17 Elders and sisters in is group, and 8 of them are speaking Latvian.  He's in a 3-some with two other Elders, and hopefully we'll get details tomorrow on his first P-day.

And if he's not too busy, we might just get an email :-)

Aaron

Here's a couple photos from his drop off last Wednesday, including a few from our "last family meal" at the Kieffers Tuesday night.  All we were missing was Dad, who but for an unfortunate accident in Iowa the previous week, would have been there with us as well!

Well it is now official.  Elder Andrew James Palmer was officially set apart tonight as a full-time missionary.  Thanks to our awesome Stake President (7 year and counting) Gabor Klinger.

Well, time to kick off the blog for Andrew's mission!  He's on his way to the Baltic States Mission, with the specific assignment of Latvia, Latvian speaking.  The Mission itself covers 4 different countries (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Belorussia) each with its own language needs.  Someone called to the mission as a "Russian Speaker" can serve anywhere across all four countries, where a specific language assignment ensures you are tied to that particular geographic area-- so in this case, Andrew has his mission-within-the-mission, LATVIA.  SO he'll be learning Latvian in the MTC, but no doubt will also pick up a bit of Russian on the street over there. We are in a period of countdowns right now-- 3 hours to his setting apart by the stake president, 14 hours to the flight to Utah, 68 hours until he reports on Wednesday at the MTC.  SO much to do (and frankly buy), so little time left..

Last week, being that we live here in Europe, Andrew and I thought we'd take a quick 36 hour trip to Riga and scope out the sights of his new home for the next 2 years.  Thought it would also be an inspiring way to get a quick "feel" of the place, so that during his training over the next two months, he'd have a specific mental image of the place and people he'll be preparing to serve.  And I have to Say, Riga is BEAUTIFUL.

We do miss his Grandpa-- the plan was for Dad to get out here for this weekend, but he's ended up with a broken shoulder/collarbone Wednesday, so that has been the only low point this weekend.  Andrew gave a great farewell talk in church today, about perseverance and enduring to the end.

Soooo...  Andrew's basically giving Agi and I the carte-blanche to post to this blog in order to keep our friends and family & loved ones apprised of his progress and activities, via these here inter-tubes :-)  Should be fun.