Sent: Tuesday, November 7, 2017
Hi everyone!
I have had another great week at the MTC! It has been so cool, with
Halloween, snowing today, and of course all the things we usually do at
the MTC. We got new Le Ocean speaking elders on Wednesday, and that was
pretty cool. My district also gets to host
again on Wednesday for the incoming elders and sister. We have also
finally reached a point where new coming English speaking elders don't
leave before us! English speaking elders only stay in the MTC for three
weeks, most languages stay for six, and Asian
languages and Finnish (I don't know why Finnish is in this category)
stay for nine weeks. That means before this week, some people coming in
every week end up leaving before us. It is actually fine, all things
considered, but it is always kind of funny when
an English speaking elder or sister at the end of their third week says
"finally I am leaving! I have been here forever!" and then those of us
who are there for nine weeks say "you don't even know the meaning of
forever." Seriously, if they think three weeks
in the MTC is slow, try nine while learning a new language!
Anyways, as mentioned before, we just had Halloween! For Halloween,
I wasn't expecting to really do anything, since I am in the MTC, but
that night some elders in my residency decided to dress up. I might not
have joined in, but one elder offered to dress
someone up as an angel with an extra sheet he had. I volunteered.
Afterwards, a few of us decided to go trick or treating around the
building for fun. The residency has four floors, and we are on the top
one. We started on the second floor for some reason,
and the elders there really appreciated us dressing up, so they gave us
a bunch of candy. Then we went to the first floor with similar results.
Things were looking pretty good until we got to the third floor with
the Japanese elders who were annoyed at us
for making noise. They tried to throw stuff at us, so we made a hasty
retreat. Then we went back to our floor and enjoyed our loot. I will
attach a photo of most of the trick or treaters below (one person is not
in it since he changed out of his costume before
we took the photo). Also, I was the only person with a real bag for my
candy, since I had it left over from a package from my parents. Everyone
else used pillow cases. It really turned out to be a lot of fun, and it
was really unexpected.
Now getting back to the more normal part of the MTC, I continue to
enjoy my stay here. There is still a lot to do, but the MTC is well
organized. Of course the teachers and staff are all good as well as the
buildings and usually the food. Although speaking
of the food, I think I have mentioned how bad the meatloaf here is.
Well, while I didn't enjoy it, I did have to give the MTC credit for
serving the "scariest meal" they could for Halloween dinner, the
meatloaf. It is edible, but no body actually likes it.
Actually, yesterday they had a survey about the food, and pretty much
my entire district filled it out with decent marks on the bubble side of
the survey (rating things by bubbling in your answer), but when it came
to the back side, we all wrote bad comments
about the meatloaf. We had one group one we did together where we wrote
comments ranging from "please get rid of the meatloaf" to "for the sake
of all that is good in this world, don't serve the meatloaf ever
again!" In fact, one elder in my district actually
wrote a poem about how bad the meatloaf was, saying it was made by and
of the devil. His was a little too extreme, but I think you get the
point on how much we don't like the MTC meatloaf. As for the other food
here though, I actually like most of it, and
it is all you can eat. On top of that, there is a large variety of
drinks from soft drinks to juice, and there is always a freezer with ice
cream sandwiches and similar items in it. I think that is enough talk
about food for one week.
Now for the real stuff. I am continuing to work on getting down the
language. It sure isn't easy, but I now feel like I can understand the
majority of what others say to me, and I feel like I know enough
Vietnamese to answer questions. By the way, in the
MTC they have something called TRC (No, I don't know what that stands
for) where you get to teach a member who speaks Vietnamese a lesson.
That has been going well enough, but apparently in your seventh week
they try to ramp up the difficulty by having you
do it over Skype! It is hard enough to understand them in real life,
let alone over a bad sound system online. Well, Elder Morris and I
actually did a pretty good job with it, so that is good. Also, something
I am really excited for is that since it is hard
for Vietnamese people to pronounce English names, we get Vietnamese
names! Our teachers apparently already prayed about it together and have
selected our names, but they won't let us know what we are until our
name tags are made. We were informed of it last
week, so hopefully they come in this week. I can't wait to find out
what my Vietnamese name means!
Gospel studies continue to go well here. No apostles this week, but
we have still had good speakers. On Sunday, we got to hear from the MTC
choir director. He is a really good story teller, and he told us a
bunch of interesting stories about the people
who wrote the hymns, ranging from someone who was blinded as a baby, to
W.W. Phelps who put Joseph Smith in prison, but later repented and was
allowed to return fully to the church after excommunication. By the way,
I did try choir for one week here, but I
think that I probably won't continue with it, as I prefer using that
time to study from the Book of Mormon. Believe it or not, it is actually
hard to find excess time to study on most days, and choir practice is
on the two days I get extra time, Sunday and
Tuesday (P day). Of course we get one hour of personal study every day,
but if I am going to finish my current reading of the Book of Mormon
before I leave the MTC, I need every extra moment I can get. For those
of you who are curios, I believe I am now around
Alma chapter 20,or about halfway through. Also, I have now officially
watched all of the MTC exclusive videos. This week we watched one from
Elder Uchtdorf, and yes, when the talk was recorded he was not in the
first presidency yet. I really have enjoyed all
of the MTC exclusive talks, and would encourage anyone who goes to the
MTC to watch those before they go to one of the movies they can see
anytime like "Meet the Mormons". However, since I have now seen all of
the talks, I feel like my district will want to
see a movie movie next week, which I guess will be fine. The talks
though are just so cool to see since they are directed towards the
missionaries.
I have been taking a lot of photos this week, since my mother keeps
telling me she wants to see more photos with me in them. She said
considering almost all of my photos I have sent so far are in my
residence, she would think I was in a prison cell or
something. Well, I now have a lot more photos and will be attaching
some of them with this email.
By the way, for a more spiritual note for those reading this email,
my companion and I recently taught a lesson in TRC comparing the people
of Limhi in Mosiah chapters 21 and 22 with the people of Alma in Mosiah
chapters 23 and 24. It is really interesting
to see how different of responses the two people have when they are put
in bondage. I relate it to how we act when we have trials. Are we like
the people of Limhi who rely on our own strength, and only approach God
when we fail and realize we can't overcome
our trials ourselves, or are we like the people of Alma, who approach
God from the beginning and who bear their trials with patience and a
cheerful attitude? I would like to challenge anyone out there to try to
make time to read these chapters and think of
how differently they approached their situations, and how God helped
them accordingly. And yes, this is something I happened to some across
in my personal study recently.
Well, I feel like I have exhausted this week pretty well. Of course
there is always more I could write about, but I feel like "what I have
written sufficeth me" to quote the scriptures. Thank you all so much for
continuing to check in on me and my progress
on my mission. I know that what I am doing is truly the Lord's work and
that he is looking out for me.
Thank again!
Elder Watson
P.S. I think I mentioned this at the top of this email, but it
actually snowed today! It was quite exciting considering I didn't get a
lot of that in Arizona. The other elder in my district from Arizona,
Elder Hansen, was especially excited to see the
snow and was running around like crazy in it. I wasn't running around
as much, but I found it really cool and certainly was out in it for a
while. Too bad it didn't stick though, but I am hopeful it will snow
more in the future and it will stick then. Till
next time!
P.S.S. The four photos attached show me next to some of the murals
in the new building and by a statue of Samuel Smith, the first
missionary. With the murals, I am pretending to be a part of them. The
first one is me looking down at Jerusalem with Nephi,
wondering how we can get the plates. Then I am sitting with the Brother
of Jared as the stones are lit. In the third one, I am gesturing for
the children of Israel to keep moving as we cross the Red Sea. That one
is my favorite. The final one is me by Samuel
Smith, who not only shares my calling as a missionary, but also my name
(Samuel Smith Watson). I will also send an additional email with this
one with more photos, I am just doing them separately since Gmail won't
let you send more than 25MB without using
Google Drive.
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