Time Flies in the MTC

Another week gone, wow only 11 days left in the MTC! Wow. I'm happy to say that this has been another great week though! We finally got snow to stick! It has snowed a couple times but now its finally cold enough to stick and continue snowing. It's about time. All the other Elders in my room enjoy sleeping in the freezing cold, so our thermas is turned all the way down. I must be taking after my mom because I sleep with a bunch of clothes on and like 5 blankets! I guess its just getting me ready for the Czech haha. Wow, it's so hard to think  only 11 days! We got 6 new Elders going to Poland and I can remember my first day and how excited they are to be here. I can't until they are in my shoes and are almost leaving. I'm definitely not ready language wise, but I have a feeling that I am about to learn a lot as soon as we get to the Czech. On Sunday, we had a devotional by the BYU Men's choir and it was totally amazing how the brought the spirit so strongly through their songs, and one of them shared a story from his mission and guess where he went. Yep he also went to the Czech! He's been home for about 6 months and he absolutely loved it! We talked to him after (We as in my district) and he said that we are absolutely going to love our mission, and then he asked who had the best ř which is how we pronounce that letter. It's a pronunciation that no other language has... with good reason because of how hard it is haha. So today was our last temple trip because the temple is closed next week for Christmas. At least we got to go though as a whole zone. That was super great. Our other devotional this week was from Lynn G. Robbins from the Presidency of the Seventy and he taught us about developing Christ like attributes and how they are important for our missions and for the rest of our lives. He taught us about how a to do list is different than a to be list, and how we should try to make our to do list influence our to be lists, and the person that we want to be in the future, starts by us becoming them now. We got to skype some Czech members this week as well! It was totally scary. I thought my teachers speak fast... whewh! Then yesterday we got to  teach the new missionaries how to start teaching a lesson by showing care and love for the investigator, and during that time I saw my good friend Elder Benson Briggs! I haven't seen him for a long time, then I was able to see him in the MTC that's awesome! Sadly we loose two of our teachers this week. Sister Godfrey is getting her tonsils out today ouch, so we won't see here again for a while, and Brother Knapp is going back to Kansas for Christmas on saturday, which is great for him because his sister just got back from her mission so he gets to see her! So we will still have Sister Donaldson teach us, and she is getting married in January so she's always super excited haha. Our lessons have been going well while we teach our "Investigators" who are our teachers who role play somebody that they taught in the Czech. Sadly Starší Paxtons and I investigators are Brother Knapp and Sister Godfreys characters so we will get done early, but they said they have something figured out for us. Almost time to go the the Czech! The Church is true! (most of my good pictures are on other peoples cameras so i will send them when I get them later today)  but here is one of our zone at the temple this morning and me and my frozen face

​

MTC - Week 6

So this has been an awesome/sad week... We lost most of our zone. I'm so happy for them though! We gained 4 new zone members, one Elder and Three sisters. I've only met our new Elder, Elder Smith is great! I think we will get a few more members while we are still here. We are getting into the more complicated part of learning Czech (as if the rest wasn't already hard) It's defiantly one of the hardest languages, but the gift of tongues is real! It's amazing how much I'm learning and how its making sense, when really its so complicated that it shouldn't haha. The weather is warm again... man it feels like I'm back in Idaho (even though I'm only in Utah) There's snow one week, and then its hot the next. The weather is just slowly adjusting everybody to their new areas. Elder Paxton and I are the new sacrament meeting coordinators for our zone, it feels good do mix it up and do different stuff every once in a while. On Sunday we listened/watched a recorded devotional by Elder Bednar about recognizing the Spirit. It was amazing, especally for a missionary who is always relying on the spirit. His answer was "Quit worrying about it" Then he explained if you are always doing what you are suppose to be doing and living worthily to have it with you, then you will act on the promptings without knowing why. Which is amazing in itself. When i wrote about it in my journal Sunday night, i looked down (My missionary journal has scriptures on the bottom) and it was 1 Nephi 4:6 "And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do." That isn't a lucky page or any act of luck. That's about all for this week =) here are some random pictures (Me sorting all of our food earlier today) and a weird pic with me and all the zone that left. I'm doing great, the Church is true! Stay happy and safe!

 

 

 

Week 5 Random Pics

MTC - Week 5

So this has been a great week! Luckily i brought my journal to email with so i can tell you about some cool stuff. So to start with, last Thursday (Thanksgiving) we got to listen to Elder Oaks! He had some of his family here and they played some amazing music! the spirit was so strong with the hymns. It reminds me of choir. I've never really sang in my life but singing about the Gospel is truly amazing and very spiritual. Later we did a service project and provided somewhere around 370,000 meals or something like that. On Sunday President and Sister Yost (Old Czech mission presidents) came and visited us during our church and sat in while Starší Paxton and I taught a great lesson about faith. On the other hand, Czech is coming along...slowly but surely. I have accidentally said a few wrong things during our lessons, like the Bad Ghost, instead of Holy Ghost, and the Great Plan of Bad, instead of Great Plan of Happiness. So lets hope i get those words figured out before I'm in the field haha. Yesterday we hosted the missionaries coming in from different countries. I was able to host an elder who was 21 years old from the Pacific Islands, didn't speak a ton of English, and is serving in Oregon. He has been a member for 5 years. He was so happy to be here and it filled me with joy seeing him so happy. He was shy at first when I met him, but warmed up quickly and I was able to talk to him and have a good conversation about his home and how excited he is for his mission. It made me even more excited for mine! Most of our zone is leading this week which will be good for them but tough for us. We will be in the position they were in when we came in, hopefully we will be as good as examples to the new elders as they were for us. I'm over halfway in the MTC. 1 month of my mission down, 24 to go! I can only hope the next 24 will be as amazing has this month has been. We finally got some snow to stick! It's so great being with all these people who have never seen snow before and how the missionaries from the islands or other countries that don't get cold love the snow but the cold feels so weird for them. There have been so many little things I've realized while here that I have taken for granite in my life. I have learned so much while here, and I still have a ton more to learn. I love the M.T.C and look forward to every learning opportunity that I have while here.

MTC - Week 4

This has been a super great week, and it's only going to get better! We have still been having nice weather so that's a plus, it  makes it nice when we have to travel from far side of campus to the other far side for classes and food and residence haha. We had Chick Filet this week for food and that was awesome because i have been craving it for some reason. I've been super busy with everything lately and haven't had time to take a bunch of pictures, but i did take a few so don't worry about that haha. This week has been a little crazy because of thanksgiving so we are doing all of our p day stuff like visiting the temple, e-mailing, and laundry at random times through the week during our study time so it makes it hard to prepare good lessons and translate them to Czech, it's a good challenge that i enjoy because i think its helping me with the language. Its weird to think im almost half way though my M.T.C experience, and boy as happy as I am, im sad because the M.T.C is so great, its very spiritual here all the time and i will miss all the devotionals, but i can't wait to use what i have learned in the field. It was my teacher Brother Knapp's birthday (sometime this week i forgot the day) and so the sisters drew happy birthday in Czech on the board and a weird cake was drawn and it was good time. I'm so blessed to have good teachers here! they make the difference for sure. My two sister teachers were companions in the field and so they know each other very well and it makes me excited to get to know and love tons of people in the field. Elder Pickett and i matched on accident so we thought that was pic worthy haha and then the other picture is all our food, we went early black friday shopping at the book store and sense missionaries get 40% off, we had a hay day ( and stuff that was sent to us). I decided to challenge myself and read the Book of Mormon again while at the M.T.C and im in Alma 24 so I'm pretty sure I will finish and make my goal, but its amazing how much more I'm getting out of it while here! I love the spirit that is here and how it's helping me so much with everything. So thats about it, tomorrow we get to hear from a general authority and do service providing over 320,000 meals for needy families in Utah so I'm very excited for that =) thats all ill send a few pics after because this only lets me send 2 at a time (Really we can send people to the moon but not send more that 2 pics on e-mail?)

all our food

 Elder Pickett and I matched on accident

Pics from Week 4 MTC

Fixing the vents and leaving a time capsule for future
missionaries who have to fix the vent...

a fun pic  =)

Zone name tags at the temple

Selfies for days... 

Brother Knapp and his sweet b-day drawing

what it looks like when doing laundry

MTC - Week 3

So this week has been pretty great...except for a few random things that threw me for  a twist. We started this week with a sunday devotional, which was great. I don't have my notes on my and i forgot who gave it but it was sweet haha then Monday we hosted senior missionaries which was super fun. Its getting colder so i was all bundled up haha. Then tuesday we had another great devotional which was also awesome, oh and i'm our new district leader so that's cool. Im learning tons from this opportunity and how to love and be patient with others. Yesterday we hosted over 600 missionaries which was a blast! i personally hosted 5 elders which was great, i teased them some and tried to get them to relax because i so remember that day haha. Then afterwards, i was walking to class with Starší Paxton and i was watching this kid almost run into a door, when i wacked into a pole so hard i about died! thats the pic of my face... then lets see what else happened... oh yeah we stole a picture of Dan Jones from a different class room and carried it all the way across campus for our room because the teachers took all the language stuff off the walls so we couldn't use it to "cheat" anymore and the walls were blank so Dan Jones one of the greatest missionaries in church history is now in our room! so thats sweet haha and thats about it.I'm having a great time here, I wish the last 6 weeks would be over already but the first 3 were a total success! We wont have the same P day next week because we are doing service for thanksgiving so i think i will email Wednesday morning or something? not sure so just keep an eye out and btw we get to have an apostle talk to us! so we are very excited for next week.

wacked a pole.....  Ouch

Dan Jones picture

Pics from Week 2 MTC

sweater Saturday with the district elders

2 Czechs (missionaries) from last transfer who visa waited

MTC - Week 2

So this is our second P day. Had a good week with some  pretty cool stuff happen. On I had to teach priesthood which i gladly accepted because I was able to speak English for it!! haha it felt so good to actually feel confident about a lesson! We got two new "Investigators" which are our teachers that act like people they either made up or met on their mission and we teach them according to their bio, and we got wrecked on both lessons because we can't take a script. They said we can take some words and a few phrases but teach what we know, and i felt okay about it, but then everything went over my head and it was so hard to try to answer their questions because i was getting their words and my words mixed up and it was crazy! we have another 20 min lesson tonight that we have to prepare while our laundry is washing... I sang in the choir Tuesday night for a devotional and i realized that they lie to you when they say you have a beautiful voice so come sing. I said id try anything once, and shouldn't have haha i realized im horrible at singing, but the spirit was great so im hoping the voices of everybody else drown me out. And it showed me on the big screen =) so at least they got to see my good side, and hear my bad side haha. Its starting to get cold so ive been wearing sweaters a lot which is super nice to have them because some elders who are going to like tahati or africa dont have warm clothes so... that's no fun. An elder in my zone went home Monday, he was going to Bulgaria and had been here 5 weeks and then just randomly went home. he seemed totally fine and then he was just gone. It makes me worry about the other people who seem fine. the language is starting to come along..ish haha we are learning cases which is what makes czech harder than most languages because is will change every word in the sentence based on the context its being used in or something like that. Ive found when i am in a lesson, i sometimes randomly speak a little spanish and im like wait.. that didnt sound right haha  luckily i have super cool teachers who make it fun to learn. We borrowed a ping pong net from some people in our district and had some fun earlier today (Pic 1) and then i finally got my world mission picture (Pic 2) all in all I've been having a ton of fun here and learned a lot so dont worry about me im doing great =)

 

Pics from Week 1 MTC

My companion, Elder Paxton from Riverton Utah

MTC - Week 1

So, the first week has been really good. my companions name is Elder Paxton from Riverton Utah, he was a hockey player and cheerleader so thats pretty cool. I'm getting along with him which is good. Everybody in our zone is super cool, and branch is even cooler. Foods great! i have been eating a ton, but don't think ive put on any weight so thats good. I weighed with clothes jacket and shoes and i was 159... hopefully most of that weight was clothes but i don't feel any fatter. we have been playing volleyball outside even though its super cold because we can't stand being copped up in class for 11 hours a day. They way they teach you is crazy! the teachers on speak in Czech so your forced to learn. Its like being sprayed in the face with a fire hose and being told to get a drink. Other than that its great. Our residence is the farthest away from everything and its on the highest floor, along with our class so we are getting plenty of stair exercises in. Today was our first P day and temple day and so far its been great. At night when we are at our residence, it sometimes seems like a college campus haha except without the bad things. Just a bunch of crazy guys with weird ideas.... but its been great getting to know everybody. Im still trying to the email thing worked out so if you get duplicates or stuff not meant for you... sorry hahah