I got here and Elder Hamula took me through about 50 lines where people handed me stuff that I had no idea what it was for. We went by my room and we dropped off my stuff, then we went to my classroom where I met my district. My companion is Elder Summit. He is 6'6" so the name is fitting, and I feel like a dwarf. I'm the shortest one in my district. Elder Summit is from Wellsville which is by Logan Utah. The other Elders in my district are Elder Billeter and Elder Hill, Elder Harrison and Elder Crandall, and Elder Herring and Elder Hamblin. I had a class with Elder Harrison my junior year! He's kinda weird... but he's a cool guy. Elder Herring is 6'8", and has a football scholarship for BYU when he gets back from his mission. He's HUGE!!!!! He is what real life Bane would look like. I saw Elder Cottle and Elder Shurtleff and Sister Olsen (all high school friends) at dinner! Then we had a meeting called People and purpose, where we were in a room with a group of Elders and Sisters and an investigator, and we tried to teach them... all at the same time... ask me how that went. Not great, but hey, it was our first day. We were going on a tour of the MTC with our zone leaders, and then I saw Elder Longhurst!!!! I gave him a huge hug, and talked with him for a second. It was great getting to see him this week, and eat meals with him, but he shipped out at 3:30 Monday morning!! We finished our tour, then went to the residency hall, then went to sleep! it was a pretty crazy first day!
This has been a CRAZY week!!! Holy cow! Lets do a quick recap!
-Elder SorensenI LOVE YOU!!!!!!I won't get another P-day for two weeks.... I got basically the worst P-day/flight schedule ever.. We leave here at 4:35 AM Tuesday next week, then our flight leaves at about 9:40 I think, so leave the phone lines open Dad! There's no SD card slot here, so I'll have to send pictures later! I love getting notes and letters, so feel free to keep those coming! :DMonday was kinda crazy.... Yikes. The morning teaching was awesome! I love lessons with Brother Vogt! He is so nice to everyone! Our lesson with Bobby went great that day! We talked a lot about his questions with church and left him with a Plan of Salvation pamphlet! It was really good! Lots of packages again! The main part of Monday though was we started TRC teaching.. TRC is where we teach real investigators who work here at the MTC! We taught Christian. He has a really bad stutter, is a professional photographer, and has studied lots of religions. He likes the theology of our church except that we think of Heavenly Father as loving... It was hard to hear that he doesn't understand Gods love for us... There were a few other comments throughout the lesson that just really frustrated me, and made it hard for me to know where to go with our lesson... Elder Summit or I would say something, and he would come back with something that just... I don't know... Didn't help. I left the lesson really frustrated, and not knowing where to go for our next lesson... Then Elder Summit and I were talking, and he was so positive about our experience!!! Urgh! We had a long talk with Brother Barton (our evening teacher) who watched our lesson on the camera, and he said we did a really really good job, and explained that Christian doesn't give out compliments often, and he means them when he does, so the fact that he ended the lesson telling us he appreciates our personality and honesty was a really big deal. I got a lot better outlook on our lesson after about an hour discussion with them.... We talked about how to make our next lesson more gospel focused, and helpful for Christian. I found out that I get really frustrated when people won't take my point of view when I know that I'm right... bleh. I'm glad to have Elder Summit here, he is basically opposite me, so we work really well together. We see things really differently and that makes us a great dynamic duo. I love it!We met our Branch President on Sunday! He is awesome, and so caring! It was our last day with the other half of our zone, so it was kinda bittersweet. Especially the temple walk with them! Elder Summit and I got a list of the two new districts our zone is getting on wednesday, and there are people going to California, New Hampshire, and England!! holy crud! So many cool places! MTC choir makes me sad.... The arrangement for this week is really unintuitive, and not written too well... but oh well... I SAW DURTSCHI!! He was playing the organ at devotional so I got to sit next to him during the talk, so that was super great!!!Okay, I think Saturday was the most meaningful and spiritual day of the week. I had had some feelings of homesickness, and worried that I wasn't cut out to be a missionary and wasn't good enough, and when I felt that Thursday, I got called as Zone leader, and I felt okay, then on Friday, I saw Kolton as soon as I got worried, then Saturday... I was really frustrated with the way my lesson with Bobby went the night before, and really felt like I wasn't doing a good job, and that I wasn't going to be able to convert a real investigator if I couldn't even convince my teacher who was pretending, and as soon as I was ready to just explode Brother Vogt asked if he could talk to Elder Summit and I, then when we got to a different room he asked if he could just talk to me, and I was able to express all my concerns, and feelings with him, and he made me feel so much better about myself as a missionary and his spirit just helped me know that Heavenly Father is looking out for me, and knows that I'll be a good missionary! I can't believe how in tune with the spirit he was to come and talk to me then! I LOVE IT HERE!!! The spirit here is unreal. We taught an awesome lesson to Bobby that day, and got him to Pray, and go to church! I felt so reassured as a missionary and that I'm doing the right thing!Friday the 13th in the MTC!!! Yikes! Just kidding, nothing scary happened. I got two packages that day! So much food!! Ah! They feed us all we can eat here, plus the food from home! My gosh, it's crazy! I have probably gained sooo much weight! Just kidding, I'm still tiny. The days here are getting shorter, There's a saying, the days feel like weeks, and the weeks feel like days. It's so true! time flies here! I love it here, and our district is like best friends now!! We all love each other, and our whole zone! I'm really sad that the other half of our zone had to ship out on Monday too!! They were super funny!WHOOPS! Here's the rest of my week,The second day here was possibly the longest day of my life. There was sooooooo much classroom time that I may have drifted off a few times... haha, anyway, We woke up at 5:45 to make sure we got shower time, then figured that noone was awake, so we woke up at 6:15 for rest of the week. We met our other teacher Brother Vogt (vote), and our other teachers Brother Gruninger, and Sister Gibson we met on Monday. They're so nice, and really good at teaching us how to be missionaries!!! Never underestimate the power of role-play. I've hear that so many times!! We started role play teaching Brother Gruninger who is pretending to be a Nonmember named Bobby. We started off doing really well! It was exciting getting to start teaching for real (kind of). Elder Summit and I were called as zone leaders for the MTC!! Yeah!!
No comments:
Post a Comment