February 28, 2013 - Last P-day at the MTC! (hopefully)

Hey everyone! 

As an interesting little tidbit, right now the MTC is pretty much at peak capacity. It's as crowded as it normally is during the summers. But this summer there's 8000 or so missionaries expected to report. Right now we have about 3500 missionaries and by then they think they'll be able to house about 4800 missionaries. They are going to send about 1200 missionaries or so to the MTC opening up in Mexico. Pretty much all spanish speakers, whether or not they are serving in the states will be sent there. They are then going to house the other 2000 missionaries in a second facility here in Provo. We've heard that they might be taking over some of the stake centers during the weekdays so that they can teach missionaries, but it'll be interesting to see what they actually end up doing. 

I don't think I've mentioned it before but I'd actually joined the MTC choir for the past three weeks. (The choir sings the musical number for the Tuesday night devotional). Besides having fun singing, the one really good benefit of joining the choir is having a guaranteed seat at the main room for the Devotionals (There's so many missionaries here that we have to have one/two overflow rooms in a different building).  Which was really great last Tuesday because Elder M. Russell Ballard came to speak!  My district was extremely happy that we were able to hear an apostle speak before we left the MTC (not saying that there was anything wrong with our seventies speakers, but there is just something about an apostle).  He pretty much just reconfirmed how we know more than we think we do and that what we really need to do is develop that relationship with the Lord and be able to work through His spirit.  One thing that I was thinking about was 3 Nephi 11 (which Elder Ballard read aloud to us) and what it meant for the Savior to come to the Americas. This chapter is really one of the happiest in the Book of Mormon.  There is just a certain spirit that we can get from reading those words that Jesus is the Christ and that He is the Savior of the world. 

My time at the MTC certainly seems like a whirlwind, but it was most definitely worth it.  The ups, the downs, everything served a purpose.  It served as preparation (and a bit of that refiners fire) for my time in Sweden and I'm excited to serve.  I want to see the little changes in people's lives that indicate that they are drawing ever so nearer to Christ and that they are becoming better versions of themselves.  I do want baptisms, but the most important thing is just serving.  Loving the people.  Doing all that I can to follow the promptings of the spirit.  The little things are what matters most in the end.  I am grateful and happy to do my part. 

I do know that this church is true.  Jesus Christ is our Savior and I am so grateful for all that He has done.  Life is difficult at times, but those difficulties help us grow.  Thank you for all that you've done for me! 

 

February 21, 2013 -11 days left at the MTC!

Yep that's right, only 11 days left to Sweden (or "11 dagar till Sverige" på Svenska). We're supposed to be getting our travel itineraries sometime within the next two days, so I'll keep you posted in that regard. I know that I will be able to call you while I am at the airport at some point so once I get my schedule we can coordinate somehow.

But Jared that's super exciting! It's funny because I've been talking to the Brazil missionaries in my building and pretty much no one is getting their visas right now. So it's a HUGE blessing that you already have that. Even the ones that have been in the Provo MTC for 6 weeks because of visa delays are being temporarily reassigned to other missions because the visas are taking so long right now.

As for my experience here, the Swedish is coming. I know that we're improving at a "hastened" rate. I'm not sure if I told you before but at Week 2 at the MTC when we taught those returned missionaries at the TRC they said that our Swedish was better than many of the people the worked with as they were leaving the MTC. When we taught at the TRC last week, we again heard how amazing our Swedish is.

In other news, my companion was called to be our new Coordinating Sister (which is pretty much the female equivalent of a Zone Leader, but there's only one and not two, so I'm not one if that makes sense). I get to support her in her new calling of helping the other sisters in our zone, which I'm glad to help in whatever way possible.

I ran into Maddie Cleveland the other day and she had no idea that I was here! She's loving it and is looking forward to heading off to Argentina later.

I gave a talk last Sunday. The way my branch does it is that every week we have a general topic and everyone is supposed to prepare a 3 to 5 minute talk on that topic. Then, right after sacrament the Branch Presidency announces which two missionaries get to speak about 5 seconds before they are supposed to come up. And I was chosen last week to speak on "Enduring to the End"; I can't give you a full description of my talk since honestly all I had written down was the references to the two scriptures that I would want to share. I shared 2 Nephi 31:20, and talked about how it is important to not just bear with whatever we face, but to do so with hope. I love the imagery of light. Light is just a symbol of hope, whether it is that the sun will rise each morning or of the lighthouse acting as a beacon in the middle of the storm. I talked a bit about how Christ is the light we need to follow. I correlated this with D&C 50:24 " That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day." I then shared my testimony of the Savior and what he means to me. How I am so grateful for all that he has done and that I look forward to the day when I can thank him personally for what he has done for me and what he was willing to do for everyone. I know that I was called here for a reason and I am grateful to serve him.

Anyway I have about 30 seconds left so I just wanted to say that I love you all and thank you for all of the support you have given me within the last month. I really do appreciate every bit of it.

MTC - February 14, 2013 - Week 3

Hey Everyone!

I officially passed the half way point here at the MTC! It's a bit daunting really, but I know that we are making great progress in regards to learning the gospel and learning Swedish. As of yesterday I was officially made the Junior Companion, after being Senior Companion for three weeks.

Last Saturday we had an amazing lesson with our "investigator." Our first lesson didn't go so well, between my companion and I not understanding everything he was saying and the fact that we didn't really know how to explain what baptism was in Swedish. After that interesting experience, we took the time to seriously ponder and pray about/for him to see what we what we could do to best meet his needs. We came up with a general lesson plan where we talked about God, the importance of Christ, the Atonement, following Christ and how baptism is key to following Christ. We wanted our investigator to desire baptism by the end of the lesson, but we thought that he wouldn't be completely prepared by the end so we extended a sort-of halfway commitment (along the lines that as you learn and pray about the things we teach, will you follow Christ example and be baptized?). Before we even finished the question, he said "Yes! When?" My companion and I just looked at each in surprise for a second before she asked hesitantly, "You want to know when you can be baptized?" (Well in less words than that, but you get my meaning.) Our investigator grinned and repeated, "When?" We quickly extended a date of March 9th and he eagerly agreed. Once we closed the lesson and started to head back to class, our teacher called us back to talk about how awesome the lesson was. He pretty much told us that we can make such an event a typical first lesson.

Other than that, Swedish is coming. I've noticed improvements in the lessons my companion and I teach. Last Friday we had "TRC" appointments (which are return missionaries/church members from Sweden acting as themselves), and the second return missionary sister we taught told us that our grammar and pronunciation at two weeks is better than many of the people in her district when they had left the MTC. It just goes to show how much the Lord is hastening His work. He's definitely preparing His missionaries for the tasks that He wants them to complete.

We had Gregory A. Schwitzer of the Seventy on Tuesday and a Mark J. Lusvardi give the MTC fireside on Sunday. My companion knows a lot of people in the MTC actually since she's from Provo. There seems to be some 50 or so missionaries she knows here. The main messages were the importance of charity/just loving the people, baptism, and conversion. It's like that phrase "Give of yourself by forgetting yourself."

My group of 32 missionaries headed to Sweden with some of our teachers!

MTC - February 7, 2013

Hey Everyone!

I'm already through a third of my time here at the MTC!  Strange isn't it?  It's funny, I have ran into David Boggs a couple of times since I've been here.

Everything has been extremely busy.  We have two new investigators now (my companion and I have officially taught 7 lessons in Swedish now).  Our first "investigator" was actually our second teacher, who's only been back from Sweden since Christmas, and now our new investigators are both of our teachers.  How the investigator thing works is that our teachers think back to an investigator they had while in the mission field and act in that part while formulating answers depending on the spirit.  We have two new "investigators."  We've really only had the chance to just meet them, but it's interesting because we have to start completely from scratch with one investigator (who pretty much knows who Christ is, but otherwise doesn't know anything).

Mainly we've been learning more about how to study more effectively and how to begin teaching.  One of our teachers was able to give me some good ideas on how to study the language better.  It's a bit time consuming now, but it will become extremely effective once I get to know Swedish better.  Basically I just need to read everything that my companion and I might need to talk about in our lesson (in both English and Swedish), then I need to come up with a list of all of the Swedish words I want to use (starting with what I already know, before looking up others).  Then I need to write out what I want to say in simple English sentences before translating as much as I can without looking it up.  Then I need to double check those Swedish sentences and practice saying that a billion, okay more like ten, times each.  It's interesting though, I definitely understand a lot more Swedish that I expected.  I can understand most of what our investigators are saying, but I definitely have a difficult time forming sentences on the spot.  It's funny because the usual lesson dynamic is that my companion will be rambling answers (in a good way =)) in Swedish while I find the words that she needs while I interject with my testimony every now and again.  I definitely know where to find everything, I just can't quite piece it together effectively quite yet.  But it will definitely come with time!

Our Tuesday devotional speak was Elder Don Clark from the Seventy.  He mainly spoke about the importance of conversion over baptism into the church.  Basically, he said to remember the individuals, not numbers, which is what we have always talked about.

Otherwise, I've been a bit sick and I'm definitely allergic to Utah, but I've been doing my best to try to concentrate regardless.  I wanted to share a brief scripture that I really liked this week.  3 Nephi 15:12 "Ye are my disciples; and ye are a light unto this people..."  I actually used this scripture for my first spiritual thought in Swedish.  I like it because it's example of what we are as missionaries.  We are representatives of Christ and it is our responsibility to be that light to God's children.  It's definitely a reminder of what I am here to do.

On an interesting note, if you click that "When do I serve?" link on lds.org, it opens to a page about missionaries.  One of the missionaries is one of my teachers when he was on his mission in Sweden 2 years ago!

Even if I have my Rapunzel "Tangled" moments, things are certainly settling down and I'm getting into the swing of things.