Skip to main content

May 26: 10 Days at the MTC

I pooped in a cup this week.

This week has been pretty full since my last email. Lots of ups and downs, but mostly ups. Quite a bit of French hilarity too. Saturday, stuff happened. I can't remember what. Sunday was really great. In the morning we had a "Match the Message" meeting, the MTC version of "What Not to Wear." I knew I would have issues with the nitpicky-ness of the rules, and I did, and it put me in a sour mood for the morning. It's not even that I'm breaking any of the rules, (maybe my hair is a touch long), but just that whole notion of focusing on appearances just rubs me the wrong way. Always has, always will. That being said, I am trying to be exactly obedient to the mission rules, and I understand why they are there. They just made it seem like if someone compliments your tie, you're a horrible missionary. Yayyyyyy more unnecessary shame. 

Don't get me wrong, I love the MTC, I'm doing great, and I'm happy that I'm here. I'm just putting all my thoughts out there.

Sunday afternoon/evening we have the opportunity to attend choir, which me and my companion did. I'm glad we did. The choir director (I forget his name, I'll just call him Bro.Choir) is really cool. He keeps does a really good job of making choir rehearsal both very funny and very spiritually uplifting. We sang "Nearer my God to Thee" and so he told the story of Jacob and Esau (mostly Jacob, after he leaves his home and flees to the desert), on the which hymn is based. Bro. Choir pointed out that the words in the song describe Jacob having nothing with him, and laying on the bare ground to sleep (my rest a stone), as well as the vision Jacob saw in a dream and how it references The Endowment (there let the way appear, steps unto heaven), and other stuff too that I forget. It was cool to learn the story behind the song I'd heard so many times.

After that we had the Sunday Devotional with Elder and Sister Something Something. My brilliance with remembering names is still the same here at the MTC. They talked about the importance of fasting, and how even if you don't see direct results from your mission, your work and influence has a real, tangible effect on the people you serve. After that, every Sunday night you choose from a bunch of films to watch. The first Sunday there everyone watches a recorded talk from a previous MTC devotional by Elder Bednar called "The Character of Christ." All the other missionaries kept hyping it up and I didn't think it would be that great. But it was great. One of the old dudes here said that when the apostles come to speak at the MTC, they "let their hair down," so to speak. And yeah, it was a very different tone and feel than a general conference talk. It honestly made general conference seem stale, stiff, and insincere. It's probably because they have to have their talks all pre-written and understandable for everyone, including non-members at general conference. Anyhow, this was Elder Bednar with nothing held back. He was frank, much more expressive, gave some really cool and specific interpretations of scripture. It was so good that I was frustrated that he isn't like that in general conference. He would say, "Get over yourselves," "it's not about you," in a firm tone, but still with love there, y'know? He was an actual person.  The main message of his talk was that the character of Christ is to turn out when the natural man would turn inwards. Christ's life is full of those examples. He learns that John was beheaded, so he goes out to pray in grief, but all the people follow him. Instead of saying, "guys my best friend just died, can you give me some space?" he performs the miracle of feeding the 5000. After his apostles deny him and his people crucify him, he isn't sorry for himself, he says "forgive them, for they know not what to do." Anyhow, everything ever written about Christ has that theme of turning out when anyone else would turn in. Our goal is to emulate the character of Christ in our own lives. Anyhow, it was very inspiring. They only play that talk at the MTC on sundays, so you unfortunately can't find it online---so that sucks.

The rest of the week was studying, teaching, eating, with a little bit of physical exercise in there somewhere. It already feels like I've been here for months, when it's only been 10 days. I do really enjoy the class and study time, and teaching time that we have. We finished with our first "investigator", who is also our first teacher, yesterday. We only teach in French. Every time Elder Wallace and I have the opportunity to teach, we improve, which is cool to see, but I also thought I would have learned and grown more by now than I have. Anyhow, I think having our new teacher will help a lot. Her name is Sister Vance and she served in the Paris mission, and she's pretty strict but also very enthusiastic about missionary work and teaching--but she's also not weird mormon-missionary-makesyourskincrawl-not-sure-if-this-person-is-a-robot-or-not enthusiastic. She's legit. We're only just starting to study grammar now, before it was all basic phrases and words that we could throw together to teach basic stuff and say, very simply, what we know. But my French is improving a lot, I'm reading the Book of Mormon in French (with English alongside if I need it), but not I can almost go without the English. Speaking is another story, but pushing myself to read the French right away has helped. 

My companion, Elder Wallace is the best. Having us as companions was definitely inspired. He is the most sincere personal, who is without guile, that I know. And what I'm all prideful and complaining or whatever, he just listens, he doesn't get weird. He is always striving to follow the spirit and teach and serve with purity. His French is also pretty bad, which leads to hilarious misunderstandings in class. One time our teacher asked when we were moving to the new building. In French, the word for building is "batiment" (with an accent on the "a," but I don't know how to do that on this keyboard), which sounds a little similar to the French word for baptism, "baptiser." Elder Wallace caught on to what he thought was the word "baptism" and immediately asked the teacher if he would be baptised, in broken French, with great excitement and his characteristic, almost Spanish accent. 

"When are we moving to the new building?"
"OOOOOO WILL YOU FOLLOW THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST AND BE BAPTISED?"
(voulez-vous suivre l'example de Jésus-Christ et vous faire baptiser?)

It was amazing. I mess up the French too, but not as hilariously. I probably said blood-ghost instead of Holy Ghost of few times. (sang=blood, saint=holy, they sound similar).

Long email, I know. But I've got some time, sooo there ya go. I'm doing good, I've gained 2 pounds. Yep. Cool. Bye. Oooh the poop in the cup was for a test that Belgium requires for it's Visa application, so that was fun. Never done that before. 

 - Elder Johnson

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

June 26: Last Email from the MTC

My time in spirit prison is almost done. We have an 11-hour direct flight from Salt Lake City to Paris at 5pm on Monday y . Here we go. It's been a good last week, including a real celebrity siting. So every  Sunday  and  Tuesday  evening we have a devotional, typically with a general authority of the Church, or some member of the missionary board of  whatevers  or  yadee   yadee  ya. Normally they're a little dry, but honestly usually quite good, inspiring, and always very spiritual and  churchy . Anyhow,  this Sunday , the Sabbath day our  Sunday  devotional speaker was Donny Osmond. I honestly thought the guy who made the slides was playing a prank when I first saw the picture and name Donny  Osmand , but then I looked at the stage area and there he was. When I realized it wasn't a joke, I was actually excited because it was a unique and perspective on the gospel that would be very refreshing to hear after ...
Post a Comment
Read more

July 31 - I'm legal, Zone Conference, La Classe

This week we had our first zone conference with the new mission president, President Sorensen. He said a lot of great things, one of them being "don't count the days, make the days count." He was referring to photos missionaries would take of themselves holding a number corresponding with the number of transfers they've had, but that I took that to heart, so I won't be putting the week number on my emails. I was also counting the days each night in my journal (mostly just for memoirs and hitting big landmarks like 100 or 500 or whatever), but I'm not doing any of that anymore. Make the days count. The first entire hour of the conference was solely focused on repentance. He shared a lot of quotes and yadee ya, but my favourite takeaway was when he had us listen to the song "Oh Divine Redeemer," sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. He pointed out that it was originally written by a frenchman, Charles Gounod, and it was originally titled simply, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

July 3: Je suis arrivé en France

Well a ton has happened. We flew into Paris, had some fun with a Sister's lost passport, and were greeted by President and Sister Babin, who are no longer the president of the mission. So it was good to at least meet them. First thing in Paris, they broke us in with some contacting in Paris--they paired us with a more senior missionary and sent us out. That was weird at first, but was good overall. I was expecting more of a negative response. The French people I'm met so far are quite surprised when a stranger stops them to talk, but once the French people get talking, they get taaaaallllkking. It'd be great if I could understand haha. At the MTC I felt pretty confident with the language, but I got here and couldn't understand a word. The accent, the speed, the phrasing is all different, which I was kind of expecting, but not to the same degree. They can understand when I speek, but I miss a lot when they speek. For example, we knocked on this lady's door and I unde...
Post a Comment
Read more