Dear everyone,

This week has been a busy but great one. We got another new missionary. Now we have ten missionaries in our district; which is pretty big for the MTC, so that's fun. My teacher's are awesome. Brother Ramsey's played college soccer at ASU for two years and almost walked onto the ASU football team as a corner. He took third in state in AZ for the 100, and right now he is going to try out for the BYU soccer team. He had a 37 inch vertical in high school so he's pretty much a beast. Hermana Koth is our other teacher. She is a convert and served her mission in Vegas, Spanish speaking. She is really hyper and fun, and we all really like her..some of us a little too much. Our current project is getting the two of them to get engaged before we leave, which works because they only teach us one at a time, but unfortunately Hermana Koth just got a boyfriend. 

They are both really awesome, and we spend a ton of time with them so we have lots of inside jokes with them that make it fun. We call Brother Ramsey just Ramseys like in Nacho Libre, and we say whenever he walks in.."Raaamseyyys, how are youuu?" which is a line that Jack Black says to Ramseys in that movie. And we also talk about how his legs are number one, his muscles are number one, he is number one....also from that movie..if you're not understanding the references then go watch Nacho Libre again I had no idea how often those movie references would be.

I guess that's our pre-mission exposure to Spanish before the MTC. 

The fire alarm went off this week. Our whole building emptied out. Everyone started being loud. It was 10:30 so in another building, we woke up three huge Samoan guys that came out and started yelling at everyone and trying to pick a fight. One of them even got in my companion's face a little bit, but he just walked away since the guy probably weighed 250 pounds. The next day we told Elder Hunt and pointed out the elder in a picture. He found that Samoan guy and made him apologize to Elder Wilkey which was pretty cool since I'm pretty sure Elder Hunt is the toughest guy in here. He just got his mission changed to Texas from Mexico. He will leave a week earlier, which it too bad because everyone loves him so much, but we are all leaving eventually anyways. 

My Branch president is a scriptorian and quotes the scriptures a lot like dad does; especially, D&C 6:36 all the time. He was teaching a lesson and mentioned one of his samoan missionaries that would do 1200 push ups a night before bed. It reminded me of Elder Masima. I was inspired; so I did 600 push ups that night and 200 pull ups the next night so I guess if I'm halfway there that makes me like half a Tongan. 

We taught Erika our last lesson. We taught her (remember this is the same as Hermana Koth just in character) hand signals for each commandment. It was really fun, but we still managed to bring the Spirit bearing testimony afterwards. Other investigators we have are Roberto (Ramseys) and Graciela. They are really easy to teach, keep all commitments, etc. I think, just for the first part, they are going easy on us, because so far every second lesson we have challenged baptism, and it has always worked. Maybe it will get harder soon with people who won't listen to everything we say. The Spanish has been improving. I still struggle to remember some words and have made no progress on rolling my tongue, but I will get there eventually. 

We played soccer a few times this week for gym which is fun. I did ok and at one point me and Elder Wilkey ran towards each other at full speed to kick the ball. We both missed and just smashed our shins into each other at full speed..it hurt baaaad, but nothing is broken so that's good. We learned our lesson. 

We have devotionals twice a week. The best thing that happened in a devotional this week was that the speaker let the elders take their jackets off, which was AWESOME, because it gets so hot in there. We have had a couple seventy come and President Rasband come, too. They are really spiritual. We watched a video of President Bednar teaching missionaries how to recognize the spirit. It's probably my favorite talk I have ever heard. Dad, if you could find a copy that'd be cool. Sorry, I don't remember the title, but it goes along with what you teach about spiritual hunches. He had some really cool stories about it. 

This Wednesday I got to host new missionaries. You just walk them to get their books and stuff; then put their bags in their room and take them to class. It was fun. Only one seemed really nervous, but he was pretty shy. It's cool to see people say goodbye and then turn around and just start being a missionary. I will do it next week again, probably, and hopefully see Phil when he comes. Can somebody tell Phil that if he wants to see me, we may not have the same meal time. Our zone eats every meal by the leftovers, so go over there and look for me when you get here. I think Chantz is coming in next week, too. That'd be cool to see him. I don't know if any of you know Sheldon (elder Larsen), but I have seen him a couple times and played soccer with him. It turns out he is a beast at soccer, which is pretty cool. 

Mom, I have not seen Brother Hellewell, just Gustavo. We use the red book a lot. It's very helpful. They have a couple other red books we use as well. I usually play the piano every priesthood, but we just got eight new sisters. 2 play, so I won't play in Sacrament anymore hopefully. Meetings are all separate on Sunday. It's a little different with it being all missionaries. It's kind of stressful thinking you will be speaking every week since they randomly choose two people after the Sacrament. But it's good practice. 

We taught a lesson yesterday. We were following up with Roberto about a commitment to read 3 Nephi 11. He said there was a word he didn't understand. I said, "Oh was it hosanna?" and he said, "Yeah what does that mean?" I said, "Significa salvanos ahorita." He laughed. Later he said the reason he laughed was because that's how he messed with new missionaries. No one had ever known the meaning. I have to thank you for that for teaching the new missionaries that came in what that meant. It was cool to be able to talk about what a good mission president dad was again. 

This morning, we went to the temple. I told everyone three times the night before to be ready at 6:20 and then was frustrated when people weren't ready at 6:10. I realized that was a dad thing.. hah. Anyways, we didn't leave until 6:30, of course, but still made it. One missionary was being a pain about it, because he said he didn't want to go so he could just sleep in until like eight. I said you can't sleep in and his reply was it's p-day, I can do whatever I want. That was a test of my patience. I just referred him to the zone leaders after he wouldn't really listen. They explained it to him. He didn't end up going today, because he wanted an extra 30 minutes of sleep. That was frustrating. 

Another missionary kind of struggled this week, too. He got mad at me during soccer and kind of starting yelling and pushing me. I walked away then later talked to him about. He is pretty discouraged and isn't really feeling it and almost wants to go home. He said he assumes that people don't like him because that's how it has always been. I told him that if he had that perspective he would be very unhappy throughout life and his mission. I said that and a few other things that were direct quotes from what mom has taught me in different times in life. It was cool to be able to see more things this week that I have learned from  you, Mom. The other thing he said very seriously was that he doesn't want to be my friend. I said that's fine but you need to learn to love everyone on your mission and no matter how much you don't like someone you don't flip out at someone like he did and he understood. 

There are missionaries that really like creating new drinks here out of all the drinks we have with combinations. Two missionaries in our district made a periodic table of drinks based on acidity, strength of flavor and sweetness. They use what they call the triangulation theory to create the perfect drinks. We all thought they were just being dumb, but it actually works really well. That's kind of weird. Also, one they made is called the Elder Hunt, because it's brown and sweet and little bit strong. Elder Hunt really liked that they named it after him. It was like a going away present. 

Everybody in our district represents a different avenger since that's pretty much our favorite movie. I am Thor. The new missionary in our district is going to draw a picture of all of us as our character, which will be funny. He is pretty talented. We have had a few times where missionaries ask me if they can get on youtube, or just google something really quickly. It's so interesting to me that people don't understand that the white handbook isn't exactly optional. But they will learn, I guess, even if they think that means I'm micromanaging for not letting them.  

Anyways, I have to run love you all.

Elder Bassett