WEEK #1

Hola!

Thank you everyone for the letters you've sent, and also for the cookies. Overall, I love the MTC so far. After you guys dropped me off, they walked me to a building to check in, and the way it was set up really reminded me of joining the DHARMA Initiative. My companion's name is Elder Keysor. He's from Danville, California. He's a pitcher for BYU baseball. He's going to Costa Rica as well, and he actually won't even turn 19 till we're there. We get along great. It's only been like ten days, but it already feels like I've known him and our roommates for a lot longer. Somehow, I came here thinking that I'd have to be pretty serious 24/7 for the next two years, but it's actually been the opposite. I've laughed to the point of tears more in the past week than I have probably all summer. We have so much fun, and so many inside jokes already. One of my roommates is one of the funniest people on the planet and he doesn't even know it. We're all serious when we need to be though. Elder Keysor and I were the first one's to get our district's "investigator" to commit to baptism! Even though it was just a practice, it still was the best I've felt since getting here.

Our district has already changed a couple times, and will change again in a couple weeks, but for now, there are 11 of us total: 7 elders and 4 sisters. My companion is the only other person I've met that's going to Costa Rica, but a few missionaries have mentioned they have friends here going there. The rest of my district are going to Guatemala, Chile, Louisiana, New York, and PROVO (all Spanish-speaking of course). It's just one of the Elders that's going to Provo. His name is Elder Page and he's from Minnesota. He's half black, tall, skinnyish, and his mission covers Orem, so if you ever meet him, feed him dinner. To answer Dad's question, we do only get to go to the temple on P-Day. We went this morning and some of us ate in the cafeteria after. It was a good, spiritual time. It was nice to be in a building I was familiar with.

The food here ranges from 2/5 to 4/5 on my scale. A lot of it looks really moist and delicious, then turns out to feel and taste like a plastic toy. I wasn't hungry at all the first few days. Last Friday was the first time I actually ate more than a few bites. It was Papa John's pizza. I still don't get hungry very often, but I eat most of what I get at meal times. I always try to mix Sprite with the different juices they have, but they're all gross except for when I do it with apple, because then it tastes a little like apple beer. I've seen tons of people from OHS here. I've seen Tay and Chance. I see Evan Johnson (Ventana/Tie One On) several times a day. We talk a lot during gym time. Gym time... I like pretty much everything at the MTC, but if there are two things I don't like, it's shaving every day and gym time. I've kind of established myself as the weirdo who bums around the track alone humming to himself. I'm not really kidding. I know it's a commandment to exercise though, so I usually try to mess around on a bike or eliptical for a lot of the time while my companion plays basketball.

I really do hum a lot. I hum through entire albums sometimes. I miss music SO much. We can't listen to anything here, but even if we could listen to mission music, I'd still be dying. It's really been hitting me the past couple days now that I've been here longer than a week, because I've done a week without music before for scout camps and things like that. I'm slowly getting over it though haha. To answer some other things people have asked me: there's nothing really specific we do on p-days here besides temple and laundry, and of course e-mail. I'm really liking learning and speaking Spanish. It's nice to be using it and hearing it a lot again. I weirdly missed it after I was done with it in high school. There's a returned sister missionary who I think actually lives near our house. Tawni (spelling?) Christensen? She came into our classroom. She lived in Costa Rica this summer and told me and Elder Keysor about the living conditions and taught us some Costa Rica slang.

I'll try to write replies to Morgan and Addy's letters today, as well as other people reading this who are awaiting written replies. I'm sure you'll post this on Facebook and stuff, so I need to say a couple things to people: Sam, thanks for writing me that letter! I hope this email answers most of the questions you asked me, because I can't write you back without a return address! Marci, thanks so much for the nice letter! It made me feel so good. Tan, you should probably write me sometime since Sam and your mom have and you haven't haha. Also, give my family $40.


Love you all and miss you! Sorry this is a little short, I'm scared that it'll kick me out of the account when my 30 minutes are up! I'm not sure if it worked, but there should be a picture of Elder Keysor attached. Adios!

Until next week,

Elder Hampton


PS please send me a picture of me getting my black belt, just like with a package or letter. My companion and roommates don't believe me

Jake and his companion, Elder Keysor