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Hola Family!

Well, it turns out I was wrong about them having us write you the day we get in (by them I do not mean prison guards or any German police).  Honestly there is zero time for anything here, barely enough time to get dressed even.  As soon as I walked out they put us right to work (after paying an initial $84 for a meningitis shot...that's got to have taken a severe hit on the ATM.  We're allowed to write letters this Sunday but P-day is Thursday.  I realized why the first week is so tough...there are a million orientation meetings that get bothersome fast.  My companion (Tońg bàn) is from Alaska.  His name is Elder Fraser.  We room with another companionship Elder Hill from Montana and Elder Rathenburg (or something like that), from Farmingtom UTAH!  This language is incredibly hard...all the vowels take on different sounds. "E" sounds like "uh."  They let us stay up last night and watch the fire works out in the parking lot.  That was a very nice change from the tight schedule we normally have.  I just realized...my handwriting is horrible...hope you don't mind :p.  Thank you for the Momen Jing (it always bugs me when people write in their mission language to people...no one else understands.  Now here I am doing it!).  It is so awesome to receive mail, you really have no idea.  It's what everyone looks forward to all day and then no one gets any...with the exception of me.  Please call Susan and tell her I said THANK YOU! for all of the postcards and such.  I've been trying to ration out the mail so I can read something every day regardless of whether I get any or not, good idea aye?  The language is starting to come along but it's till very hard.  I'm able to pray and bear testimony in Chinese now as well as introduce myself and count to ten...woohoo!!  We're supposed to get a District Leader today.  I think it will be Elder Otte, he is the furthest along in the language.  Really cool guy.  He spent two years in the Air Force Academy in Colorado so he is leaderized.  They aren't going to teach us how to read for obvious reasons...said we could learn in the field. --Rachel, tell Cameron that I said thank you for the card.  This place is so awesome!  last night at our spontaneous patriotic fireside they had some guys (a quartet) sing "Prayer of the Children."  They were so good...music truly does bring the spirit.  I'm excited for the nest few weeks to see my progress in the language.  We start teaching real people this Saturday...should be fun.  Well, it's 6:20 AM there...it's amazing how you get used to waking up early.  Love you all! --Elder Willardson (Wặe)  PS-Father, my companion and I are the first Mandarin speaking missionaries to go to Birmingham...aka we are opening the mission.  PSS-REBECCA! Thank you for the brownies, they rock, much like you. Send milk. love you.