MTC Life

I still havent figured out how to send pictures yet but I am working on that. You probably wont see any pictures until I get to the field. Speaking of the field, I have received my travel plans. I leave tuesday september 6th. depart from SLC at 1125 am and arrive in Pasco WA at 107 pm (MST). Its a short flight. 

 

Last week I didnt organize my thoughts very well. I probably still haven't but I wrote some things down that I wanted to share with you. Last night was the coolest night ever. We had sunday devotional and President McKif spoke. But the best part was the closing hymn. We sang called to serve and it was the coolest arangement. We sang the first verse and chorus quietly. the next verse medium loud. the chorus loud. and then we stood up and repeated the chorus one last time and we sang at full strength. 2000 elders and sisters in this room singing called to serve. I get goosebumps just thinking about it. If you ever have 2000 people at your disposal I would that ye should have them sing called to serve really really loud.

 

Mason, I exhort you to spend five minutes and dear elder me. Send me a sports update for heavens sake!!! I have been disconected for two weeks and I need some information. You're my man, so do it. cool, cool cool cool.

 

We watch films on sunday's after the devotionals. Last week we watched legacy, this week was the Joseph Smith film. It's hilarious when people kiss in the film because you get a bunch of whistling and clapping from the elders. I don't participate in such tom-foolery but I do appreciate it.

 

Fun story. Elder Wakefield in my district is the chubby little elder and he is hilarious. Perhaps I've mentioned him before... He has a girl at home waiting for him and he told us a story about her. You know how you put your mouth on a baby's belly and blow and they think its the funniest thing ever. Well Elder Wakefield's girl, Cathy, was doing this on his mouth. He thought it would be funny to blow back. So when she started to blow, he unexpectedly blew back and it caught her off guard and snot flew out of her nose all over him. And thats disgusting so he threw up all over the couch. That is the funniest story ever so stop shaking your head at me in disgust. I laughed extremely hard.

 

I do some things here that I probably should have done at home but didn't. One of those is making my bed. I make my bed right when I wake up. Its the first thing I do. Also, I make everyone else's bed in my room. My companion's and Elder Wakefield and Elder Palmers bed's too. Today we woke up really early so I didn't have the energy to make their beds for them... I felt really bad. We went to the temple this morning and had to wake up at 5:30 to get there on time. Another thing I do here that I should have done at home is I have made a goal to do 100 push-ups or 300 crunches each day. Or both. And thats pretty easy so I might make it more. Elder Wakefield and I have commited to do this and I have been doing it every day but he sucks and I usually end up doing like 40 push-ups for him so that he gets to 100.

 

On a more spiritual note I have been learning so much here. I have really developed my faith in the past two weeks. I have seen how trusting in the lord makes all the difference. Trusting in the lord can mean so many things and recognizing those things is one of the ways that I have grown closer to him. Faith Patience and Humility are the three big things that I have developed. I would be nothing without my Heavenly Father and Savior. I realize that and its amazing how reading the scriptures, praying, and devoting yourself to Him can make the such a huge difference in your life. It is my testimony that God can change our human nature. We can become new beings in Him if we allow ourselves to change. I hope to gain a greater testimony of that not only through myself, but also by seeing other people change in Washington.

First P-Day

Hello everyone. Let me first tell you that I only have thirty minutes to email each p-day, which for me is monday. Not every missionaries p-day here is monday, so it was lucky that mine was. You shouldn't email me until I am in the field. I dont have time to read long emails and write one too so you should use dear elder. It is so so so much better. I get the letter the day you send it and then I dont have to waste my email time.  I am glad you're thinking of me though and emailing me. I have written everyone I just need to find the time to send it. We are not technically supposed to write letters on anything other than p-day, but I miss you all so much that i have "broken" that rule a little bit. I trust that you are all doing well and loving life.

You're probably wondering about my ankle. It hurts. I am trying to stretch it daily and get it better but with all the movement that goes on daily I havent been able to reduce the swelling or much of the pain. I just try to ignore it and I hope that it will go away eventually. I dont complain about it to my companion Elder Marshall. He is great by the way. I can see in my district that the companionships are calls from the lord and not our leaders. We work well together. In my district everyone is going to Kennewick other than my companion and one other sister. They are going to Toronto Canada. For some reason there werent many missionaries called to the Toronto Mission so they needed to put the odd ones out with other districts. The structure of the MTC is districts and zones, just like the mission field. There are 4 elder companionships and 2 sister companionships in my district (12 people total). There are three districts in my zone. When we go to sacrament meeting and other sunday meetings we meet with our whole zone but other than that we usually just stick together in districts. I eat learn sleep and do everything with my district.

So far in my MTC experience what I have gathered is that Role Playing is a huge part of the experience. I have role played so much in the past 5 days and I already feel so much more prepared to be in the field. I see the progress I have made and it makes me wonder why the lessons were ever taught any differently. Memorization of the lessons would make it easier to teach but so much less efficient. We are being taught to teach by the spirit and to tailor each lesson to the investigators needs. I have something called a TRC on tuesday which is a simulated teaching experience with someone from outside the MTC who comes in to be taught by a set of missionaries. We are given a little background on these people and an appointment to meet them. I havent done any TRC's yet but I imagine it will be a lot like the mission field in some ways and I am excited to learn from the experience.

My days are filled with a ton of personal study time in which I study the lessons in PMG as well as the scriptures. Also there is classroom time. 6 hours of that each day. The classroom time is taught by a returned missionary and sometimes it is us role playing with him and other times he is teaching us how to teach or other things. Classroom instruction and personal study cover the bulk of each day. Meals for our district are usually at 710, 1140, and 440. Its an extremely early dinner but so far I havent really had any problems with starvation in between dinner and breakfast the next morning. The food is great but I'll eat anything. They have plenty of variety and like I said, its all good.

The first few days dragged on so so so so slowly. They are long days and each minute is planned. Also, I miss home. Sometimes I feel like the only elder here who gets down because he misses his family. I know the other elders are hiding it just as I am but its hard to be away from family and kristen. I miss you guys a lot and I might have to break my leg on purpose so I can come home :). It does get easier every day to deal with the home sickness. Sometimes it hits me really hard during personal study and I cant focus but What I have learned is that I need to have faith that Heavenly Father will provide a way for me to press forward. I can't believe its only been five days. They say the first sunday is hump day and time will begin to move at normal speed again.

See You Later-MTC Drop Off

It was sad to say goodbye but Chase was so excited so that made it a little easier.  The MTC had so many elders there and it was a beautiful day in Provo.  I'm sure Chase is loving it.

Being Set Apart

Mission Farewell Brunch