Week 5 Missionary Email
Date
October 11, 2023
Area
Provo MTC
Companion
Elder Prince
Week 5 Missionary Email
Hello everyone!
Thank you for reading my email this week! Being a missionary has already blessed my life in so many ways! I love to write home and talk about my experiences!
One hard thing: Habla Su Idioma. Translated, this means "Speak Your Language". Basically, the idea is that you communicate with others only in your mission language. I would say that I spoke Spanish about 60% of the time (as you can imagine, the trash talk in basketball was definitely in English). I definitely had some awkward moments this week. There were some words that I was trying to communicate that my teachers couldn't even translate, so that is when I would just turn to Google Translate.
A couple of good things: One good thing was the EI Test. This test is basically to see how much Spanish you know before you go out into the mission field. I was initially very scared because the practice questions that our teacher was giving us were EXTREMELY hard and the fact that your mission president can see your score terrified me. I said a very earnest prayer before the test, took it, and received my score. I ended up with the second best score in the class!! I was named an intermediate Spanish speaker! I guess I knew more than I thought!! The gift of tongues is real. Also, last night we got to hear from my good friend from the Mesa temple rededication Elder Gerrit W. Gong. He spoke on how missionaries are fulfilling the Lord's prophecies and about how to keep our teachings centered around Jesus Christ. He told us not to Bible bash, and to interact with all people with love because they are the Lord's children. It was really good advice right before I went out into the field. I wanted to tell him "good job" afterwards, but I ended up just going back to my room and sending him a text LOL
Leaving this place: I loved the MTC, and I really did learn and grow a lot here in so many ways. But I cannot lie in saying that I am SUPER excited to leave. In the MTC, I feel like I have done way too much focusing on myself. Everything you do is focused on helping YOU to get better at Spanish and helping YOU to become a better missionary. A couple of weeks ago, we did service in the cafeteria with some kids who had special needs. This was literally one of the most fun and rewarding things that I have done at the MTC. I am excited to get out and help people. I want to bring joy to others lives and lighten the burdens that they are carrying. On the other hand, it will also be nice not having to wait in line for 20 minutes to get a mere bowl of Cap'n Crunch. Tomorrow, I have to board a bus at 3:30 am to the Salt Lake City airport. There will be 23 MISSIONARIES in my travel group! I think we are gonna be hard to miss! Once we get to the airport, we board a plane to Minneapolis. Once there, we have a three hour layover and then we fly to Baltimore, where I will meet my mission president. I am so excited to get started!!
One spiritual thing: Every Sunday, the MTC does something called the "Go and Do" experience. Basically, we have a devotional for an hour, and then we do personal study for 2 hours. This may sound like a really long time, but it is actually one of my favorite things that we do at the MTC. This week, I didn't really know what to study, so I opened my gospel library app and started studying the talk from the quote of the day. It was called "Christlike Poise" by Mark A. Bragg. I immediately fell in love with the talk when the speaker started talking about how his Dad played on one of John Wooden's national championship teams. But as I kept reading, I actually received some amazing personal revelation that I am going to apply to the rest of my mission. I also read through Luke 22-24. Here are some of the notes from my journal: "Today I have really recognized how cool my calling is... I guess I have really taken for granted all of the amazing things Christ has done for me. I get to declare this to people who do not know the divinity of Christ. What a blessing!! I also know that if I give 110% of my effort into being a light to others and inviting others to Christ, I will have the greatest experience of my life. It will be hard, and there will be days where I need to have Christlike poise. However, by knowing who I am as a child of God, staying true to my divine mission, and having an eternal perspective, 'I can do all things through Christ.' (Philippians 4:13)" I guess I already knew all of these things, but these words seemed to just flow into my mind, and they made a lot of sense to me as I was mentally and spiritually preparing to leave the MTC. Receiving personal revelation is such an amazing experience!
Hope that y'all are doing well!! Thanks for reading!!
Élder Regla (Elder Rule)
P.s. If you would like to respond to my letter please please please do!! I also have a Facebook account as I am now required to as a missionary. I would send you my mailing address but I am going to be in a completely different place by the end of the week, so I am going to send out my new address next week. One of the pictures attached is my score. "4" is considered intermediate low.
Thank you for reading my email this week! Being a missionary has already blessed my life in so many ways! I love to write home and talk about my experiences!
One hard thing: Habla Su Idioma. Translated, this means "Speak Your Language". Basically, the idea is that you communicate with others only in your mission language. I would say that I spoke Spanish about 60% of the time (as you can imagine, the trash talk in basketball was definitely in English). I definitely had some awkward moments this week. There were some words that I was trying to communicate that my teachers couldn't even translate, so that is when I would just turn to Google Translate.
A couple of good things: One good thing was the EI Test. This test is basically to see how much Spanish you know before you go out into the mission field. I was initially very scared because the practice questions that our teacher was giving us were EXTREMELY hard and the fact that your mission president can see your score terrified me. I said a very earnest prayer before the test, took it, and received my score. I ended up with the second best score in the class!! I was named an intermediate Spanish speaker! I guess I knew more than I thought!! The gift of tongues is real. Also, last night we got to hear from my good friend from the Mesa temple rededication Elder Gerrit W. Gong. He spoke on how missionaries are fulfilling the Lord's prophecies and about how to keep our teachings centered around Jesus Christ. He told us not to Bible bash, and to interact with all people with love because they are the Lord's children. It was really good advice right before I went out into the field. I wanted to tell him "good job" afterwards, but I ended up just going back to my room and sending him a text LOL
Leaving this place: I loved the MTC, and I really did learn and grow a lot here in so many ways. But I cannot lie in saying that I am SUPER excited to leave. In the MTC, I feel like I have done way too much focusing on myself. Everything you do is focused on helping YOU to get better at Spanish and helping YOU to become a better missionary. A couple of weeks ago, we did service in the cafeteria with some kids who had special needs. This was literally one of the most fun and rewarding things that I have done at the MTC. I am excited to get out and help people. I want to bring joy to others lives and lighten the burdens that they are carrying. On the other hand, it will also be nice not having to wait in line for 20 minutes to get a mere bowl of Cap'n Crunch. Tomorrow, I have to board a bus at 3:30 am to the Salt Lake City airport. There will be 23 MISSIONARIES in my travel group! I think we are gonna be hard to miss! Once we get to the airport, we board a plane to Minneapolis. Once there, we have a three hour layover and then we fly to Baltimore, where I will meet my mission president. I am so excited to get started!!
One spiritual thing: Every Sunday, the MTC does something called the "Go and Do" experience. Basically, we have a devotional for an hour, and then we do personal study for 2 hours. This may sound like a really long time, but it is actually one of my favorite things that we do at the MTC. This week, I didn't really know what to study, so I opened my gospel library app and started studying the talk from the quote of the day. It was called "Christlike Poise" by Mark A. Bragg. I immediately fell in love with the talk when the speaker started talking about how his Dad played on one of John Wooden's national championship teams. But as I kept reading, I actually received some amazing personal revelation that I am going to apply to the rest of my mission. I also read through Luke 22-24. Here are some of the notes from my journal: "Today I have really recognized how cool my calling is... I guess I have really taken for granted all of the amazing things Christ has done for me. I get to declare this to people who do not know the divinity of Christ. What a blessing!! I also know that if I give 110% of my effort into being a light to others and inviting others to Christ, I will have the greatest experience of my life. It will be hard, and there will be days where I need to have Christlike poise. However, by knowing who I am as a child of God, staying true to my divine mission, and having an eternal perspective, 'I can do all things through Christ.' (Philippians 4:13)" I guess I already knew all of these things, but these words seemed to just flow into my mind, and they made a lot of sense to me as I was mentally and spiritually preparing to leave the MTC. Receiving personal revelation is such an amazing experience!
Hope that y'all are doing well!! Thanks for reading!!
Élder Regla (Elder Rule)
P.s. If you would like to respond to my letter please please please do!! I also have a Facebook account as I am now required to as a missionary. I would send you my mailing address but I am going to be in a completely different place by the end of the week, so I am going to send out my new address next week. One of the pictures attached is my score. "4" is considered intermediate low.
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