It's Minecraft! You start wherever you want to. We recommend taking a look around survival spawn first before you grab your starter kit from the npc and head out into the wilds with the /rtp command.

That can happen! Make sure to have "Server Resource Packs" enabled for ther server in your servers list enabled and try rejoining the server.

If it still isn't loading for you, then try deleting the files in the server-resource-pack folder of your .minecraft directory and try again. 

In case everything else fails, you can use the resource pack locally by downloading it here. Make sure it's on top of any other resource pack you're using.