First Letter and a Surprise

Monday, we received a letter from Eric, the first since he entered the Missionary Training Center. I can't find it right now, so I'll add excerpts later. My favorite part was that he spoke to a sister missionary from England who told him there are only 4 Mandarin-speaking missionaries in his mission. This of course means there are only 3 potential companions, so he better get along with all of them since the pool is so small.

The letter also contained a surprise: he would have a half-hour once a week on his preparation day to send and receive e-mails. We had been told he would not be able to send e-mail from the MTC, but apparently this was erroneous. At the time he sent the letter, Eric didn't yet know when his preparation day would be. For the uninitiated, preparation day (commonly referred to as P-day) is kind of like a missionary's day off, the one day each week set aside for doing laundry, writing letters, grocery shopping (except in the MTC where they feed you), etc. Sometimes it even includes a friendly basketball game. In Quebec, we played hockey on P-day. That was entertaining, a bunch of Americans who could barely skate trying to play hockey. But I digress.

We found out on Monday that Eric's P-day is Monday, because we got an e-mail from him that day also. Some morsels of wisdom:
"I ... forgot to bring white socks, I've been playing basketball in church socks and that is no good."
LOL, Eric playing hoops in black dress socks, now there's a picture for you.

"How are you guys doing? I hope all is well and you're crying less than last time I saw you. I am doing just dandy so far. I am so busy that it is hard to get homesick. That doesn't mean however that I don't think about my family everyday. After all the message I am sharing is one that blesses families. I have been mostly busy trying to learn the language. My studies are both exciting and somewhat discouraging. I have learned so much already in just a few days of instruction. I know basic greetings, introductions, how to count, pray and bear testimony in Chinese. Granted I haven't memorized these things completely and I still need work on my tones and pronunciation... but it is coming."

Hmmm. Doesn't sound too bad for 4 days of instruction. Eric has the good fortune of having a companion whose mother is from Taiwan. He speaks enough Mandarin that he's able to help Eric learn the language. That's a great blessing.

Well, that's the news for this week. I hope someone is reading this. If you are, maybe you could leave a comment or something, and let me know what you'd like to hear about. Thanks.