Only 19 more days at the MTC!

Six weeks ago today, Elder Swenson arrived at the MTC, eager to learn Danish and serve as a missionary. Today he informed us in his letter he only has 19 days to go. He leaves the MTC on Feb. 13. As for the language, he says, "There are a few native Danish elders here and according to them, our Danish sounds great, but it's just weird for us. This is the first language I've had to learn to speak fluently, so some words don't even sound like anything. Like the word for "lake" is sø, which pretty much sounds like (suh-uh). It's been way fun learning the language, honestly there haven't been any huge obstacles of any kind, I think my music background has blessed me tons. I actually set up similar practice plans to those I used for piano at BYU which is pretty funny, but they work really well. I probably study the language for about 2 hours each day personally, on top of the 2-3 hours we spend in the classroom only learning the language. I think we'll be fine, everyone in the district is doing very well. We took the LSA (Language Study Assessment) this week and I was actually surprised that I did pretty well. Our teachers said that the average missionary leaves the MTC with an overall score of 4, and I got a 4.5 which was pretty encouraging."

We were online at the same time today so we got to "chat" meaning we exchanged emails quickly so it was almost like chatting! This is the second time we've had a chance to do that. These are the two times I've felt the most connected, and I love it! It's a blessing. I also discovered that playing recordings of his piano music when I'm missing him helps a ton. SPEAKING OF THE PIANO, I keep asking him in my letters if he's played the piano at the MTC. During our chat, I asked again. He answered and told me that he had just played "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" by Marshall McDonald with a cellist on Sunday for sacrament meeting. He said they are auditioning tomorrow to play for an MTC devotional! How on earth do you leave that out of your weekly letter? Silly boy.

The cello player is Elder Dibble from Houston, who is leaving for Mexico in a couple of weeks. Elder Swenson said, "He's pretty good, it went awesome on Sunday. We got like 100 compliments after haha." I can't wait to hear if they get chosen for the devotional. He told me that Marshall McDonald and Steven Sharp Nelson play it (they probably arranged it) and wondered if I had heard it. I couldn't find it on youtube. Would've LOVED to have heard it on Sunday :)