Cody's first email from the MTC

Dear family and friends,
Man 30 minutes is all they give me to do emails on P-Day, Crazy!! I'm going to have to type pretty fast I suppose haha. Thanks to everyone for the awesome emails, I wish they gave me more time so I could respond to all of them, but for now I'm just going to have to get this one out first and then start replying from there haha. The MTC is an overwhelming place simply put. The first 2 days felt like a week each and I couldn't help but think I might have bit off a little more than I could chew to have to do this for the next 2 years but I stuck it out and boy has it gotten lots better and I've gotten very excited to spread the gospel to the people of DC. My companion and I get along great, his name is elder Rasmussen and he's from Salt Lake (I think a good 90% of the MTC is guys from UT). Really we don't have a lot in common but for whatever reason our personalities have clicked from day one. He is going to my same mission, same time, but he wants to get transferred to Spanish speaking because he knows the first couple of discussions in Spanish already so I've been doing what I can to teach him some more. The food here tastes great but is exactly as everyone describes it. Alot of the elders here think its the orange juice but everybody avoids the OJ and still things are bad. Everybody here is happy though. I'm in a district of 10 guys who all got here on the same day as me. We are all going to the same mission except for two guys that are going to Australia. We all get along great and are already a big group of friends so that's pretty cool. the teachers here say districts like ours are rare because literally everyone of us gets along with every one else. We went through the Provo temple this morning at the 6:30 AM session and man was it early. I was so dang tired. But that is a really pretty temple. The MTC is alot bigger than I thought it would be and I really enjoy the lessons we have but man I'm struggling with all of our personal study time where we have to stay in the class and just read scriptures or preach my gospel. I've found some awesome scriptures and the time is really helpful but man after a solid 5-6 hours of it every day it gets really really hard to focus. I feel alot more prepared to serve now though and after those first two days the time has started to fly by really fast. Man just like the time on this email!!! I'm already about to be kicked off because I'm out of time again. I miss all of you guys though, homesickness is abundant here at the MTC but it serves as a motivation to do our friends and family back home proud by serving our best here. Thanks to Michelle and Dane for their awesome care package, i've never seem so much food in a box that size. Thanks to everyone back at the office too for the package as well. Things like that make my day every time just like the letters do so always feel free to write me any time. While I am here at the MTC it's best to use DearElder.com to write me. They basically print out an email and give it to me same day so it's great. I've still got to write back by US mail though so it'll take 2-3 days to get back. Thanks for everyones support though. I love all of you guys.

-Cody or Elder Gronning