Well here's to being in the MTC for two weeks! This past week flew by, so much faster than the first one. Not a ton happened this week, but ill still tell you what i've been up to anyways!
Tuesday:
We had an INCREDIBLE lesson with our investigator, Tony. You know how everyone says that when you teach with the spirit you say things you didn't even know that you could? Well that definitely happened with that lesson that day, I could actually communicate with tony (still not well, but I could talk to him).
There was a devotional given by Elder Clark of the 70, he did a very awesome job. I really appreciated that he wasn't just reading his talk. He was literally speaking right to the missionaries about obedience and having the spirit. Very inspiring. They're some really really really stupid rules here at the MTC, but his talk made them seem a little bit better and easier to follow. So that's great!
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| From left to right: Elder MacBeth, Elder Bray, Elder Gossel and myself. They're in my zone, but they're all going to France. Elder MacBeth is from Utah, Elder Bray is from England and Elder Gossel is from Germany. |
MOM THANK YOU SO MUCH. THAT WAS THE BEST CARE PACKAGE EVER. Literally so much food, you really didn't have to do that! Lucky I have parents that love me, right? Haha! I can't even tell you how many times my district said that they wanted me to tell my parents thank you so much and that they love you more than I do! Every night after classes we said "Nou gen yon fet asweya!" Which basically means "we're having a party tonight". And PS mom, the microwave popcorn is perfect! We have a microwave that we're allowed to use on our floor.
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| BEST PACKAGE EVER ..... FOOD!! |
Thursday:
We had our final lesson with Tony on Thursday, we still couldn't get him to commit to baptism. It's hard to teach in a language that you know so little of.
On that note though, I'm so thankful for the spirit here in the MTC. I know for a fact that I couldn't have learned 300+ words and grammar rules in just over a week here on my own, I'm receiving some help from the man up stairs for sure. My creole is coming along well! I can actually decently talk in basic terms and phrases. Still a long way to go, but I'm amped to speak!
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| The plethora of French and Creole study material. Language books, scriptures, pamphlets, dictionaries, etc. in both languages. None of the English material is here!! SO MUCH STUFF TO LEARN!! |
Friday:
Here's the curveball of the week. In case you've been wondering why we haven't had a teacher every day here's why....
So it's friday, we get into class expecting no teacher. (Class starts at 7am) and it's about 7:30 and we basically decided that we're going to have to learn more vocab for ourselves again for the day, but no... guess who walks in? None other than our investigator, Tony Domesca. Turns out he's actually our teacher! They make you give lessons to him so he can figure out what he needs to teach and have us work on exactly. In real life his name is Frè Hall, he served his mission in the Ft Lauderdale, FL mission and now he teaches at the MTC! He's such a cool guy, really laid back but he's a great teacher as well.
So Elder Trockel (my comp) has been having some medical issues here at the MTC. Basically he's had blood drawn a couple of times and they've concluded that something is up with his liver. Friday morning we think that we're going in for just a regular doctors visit, but we soon find out that they think that he might have a blood clot in his arm. So the 3 of us get rushed out into a shuttle, taken off campus to a medical center where they did an ultrasound on him looking for a blood clot... Luckily he didn't have one, but something is still wrong with his liver so he's going to a gastroenterologist today.
So after the whole fiasco, Friday night Elder Ashby gave him a blessing which I got the opportunity to be in the circle for. He blessed him that he'll trust in the spirit and that he'll be healed. We're really really hoping that he doesn't have to go home.
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| The French and blond Josh Chaflin. This guys a goofball, he's going to Tahiti speaking French and Tahitian!! Crazy!! |
Saturday
Probably my first (of many) hard day. I just felt very homesick and distracted, I was just a little irritated with everyone and I just wanted to be alone. But due to the whole companion thing, you never can be alone. So when they asked me how I was doing on Sunday in the weekly interview I had a little breakdown. It's hard here, you get no breaks and there's never enough time in the day. We're held to such high standards and they make you feel horrible for literally everything. I love it here, but it's hard. It's becoming real now.
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| AJ with his friend and fellow ward missionary Elder David McDougal. GO UTES!!!!! |
Sunday
So Sunday was fast sunday right? Thank goodness I had that food mom send me otherwise I would've died! We eat dinner at 4pm on Saturday night and we were expected to fast until 5pm the next day. 25 hour fast! That's just wrong. So I ate a ton of snacks on Saturday night and just starved all day sunday. It was very very long that's for sure.
But on a brighter note, I bore my testimony at fast & testimony meeting in complete creole in front of everyone! I was really excited about that, the creole just gets easier every day. It'll come :)
The devotional on sunday night was pretty great, they had the Provo Temple president and is wife come and speak to us. They spoke on the importance of temples in our everyday lives. I loved it, made me think about temples in ways that I had never thought about!
Well here's a funny scripture someone told us about
Now while you're reading this imagine that it's talking about the MTC food....
Jeremiah 4:19-20
19 My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.
20 Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoiled: suddenly are my tents spoiled, and my curtains in a moment.
Yeah. It makes you gassy. It's whatever.
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| Provo temple that I visit weekly!! |
Just a cool story from the temple this week:
So last week I got the chance to do initiatories and I had the work done for a man and several of his kids that had passed on, and then I went back this week and I did the same work for those kids and their kids. I just thought that was pretty cool.
m renmen nou!
(I love you all!)
M konnen kè legliz Jezikri sa vre e m renmen travay la. M konnen kè Jozef Smit tè yon vre pwofet e Liv Mòmon an se pawòl Bondye tankou Bib la.
N'a wè!
-Eldè Halling
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