The Week of Ghost Peppers

Heyyyyy everyone,

So to kick things off I think the biggest thing we've been trying to do the past 7 days has been to SYL (speak your language as they call it in the MTC, which means to use as much Spanish throughout our day as we can) and since we haven't really done very good at that in the past we decided to incentive ourselves somehow. And the conclusion that we came to was that we were going to start keeping a tally of how many English words each of us says and the loser has to eat a ghost pepper. Where did we get said ghost pepper you might ask? Well I'll tell ya.

So something super cool about the MTC is how culturally diverse it is, and the dorm setup I live in is no different. I live on the fourth floor with only Spanish speaking elders who are from the U.S but each floor is different, the 3rd floor is pacific islanders (think Fiji, Tonga, New Zealand, ect) super cool, super funny, super loud guys. The 2nd floor is Europeans, haven't had much of a chance to talk to them, they usually keep to themselves and are pretty quiet. But the 1st floor is where the most fun happens. It's a mix between central Americans, Asians and Eastern Europeans, my favorite are the little Chinese Elders and the Elders from Central America. We've made friends with a few Elders from Puerto Rico, who literally have a whole trading operation set up in their room. They somehow get dozens and dozens of ghost peppers each day (from who knows where) and trade them for candy, soda or useful mission items. But in order to be trading buddies with them, they get to pick a ghost pepper and we each have to eat one in front of all of them.

So my comp, another Elder in my district and me each ate ghost peppers to become trading partners with them. And wow. I put it in my mouth and they all started counted down from 10, and when they got to 3 my mouth lit up. Easily the hottest thing I've ever eaten. It felt like acid tripping down my throat. Crazyness. It hurt to breathe and water only made it worse. Meanwhile all of the Latinos and their friends are dying laughing at us, taking videos of us and trying to somewhat support us, but by the end we each had tears streaming down our faces, but hey we're good friends now and trading buddies. It was a wicked experience but hey it was cool and while it was brutal, no regrets.

Anyway so, to help us learn Spanish, we made a game where we can't speak English from 8am-9pm and the person who speaks the most English words at the end of the day has to eat a ghost pepper. The first day I said 4 (which got my 3rd place), the second day I didn't say any, and the 3rd day I said more or less 3 words but we got a little more relaxed, and because of a variety of reasons decided to put the game on pause for a few days. Anyway, I haven't had to eat another one since which has been super nice, but hey it was an experience and while it was definitely very unpleasant, knowing how rough it was added extra motivation for me to speak Spanish.

In other news I've been going to choir here (yeah kinda crazy right?) and a week from Sunday we're performing with the Nashville Tribute Band (pretty sure dad knows them?) We practiced on Sunday and it's going to be sooooo fun/ cool not having to sing hymns/ church songs. We're singing John's Song (which has a line in it that says "Covenant with the Father Born Again his sons and daughters in the water" which made me think of how Leah always jokes that Dad's Born Again lol), When the Son of Man comes Again and I Was Born. Definitely check those songs out, they'll all super cool, and during "I Was Born" they're going to pick a few of us to say where we're from. Anyway just something that doesn't happen everyday at the MTC, so I'm excited for that, and to hear an actual band perform.

This week in my study/ just day to day I've been trying to focus on prayer and how I can more sincerely pray to God and have my prayers better heard and answered, and I found this quote by Francis Cardinal Spellman that I really love, "Pray as if everything depended on God, and then work as if everything depended on you." I love that because it shows that if we turn to God with our most humble needs and desires he'll be there for us to lift us up, but it's our job to do everything in our power to be deserving of his help. Just something cool I came across.

Well things are still good here, yesterday marked 14 days until I head to Arizona, I'm excited but still focusing on the work here, still gotta learn as much Spanish as my brain can stand.

Love ya all,

Elder Merrill