Picture From Sienna

The Sister in the middle is Sienna and she is in our ward.  She leaves the MTC today, but sent home this picture in her email yesterday and her mom shared it with me.  Any little bit of news or picture makes me so happy!  Thank you Liz (and Sienna)!

MTC - Week 1

Hi Mom and Family!

Sorry I wasn't able to email this morning. We only had time for laundry in the morning, so I had to hold off on email. It was great to not have to get up at 6:30. We slept in a whole hour, and then just had a really calm morning. SO nice.

Side note, I've sent like 2 different hand-written letters to home, have you gotten either yet?

Those pictures were great. That is a beautiful picture for Dad's office, and the giant fork is almost classy. Just give it a try, I support the girls in this decision to hang a giant fork somewhere.

I'll go ahead and answer all your questions now!

We lucked out with our visitor yesterday: Elder Bednar! He was fantastic. He said, "We're going to go ahead and do something historic here, so bear with me." Then, he distributed 200 cell phones to the 1600 missionaries in the gym, and put a phone number on the screen. Then he said, "Any question you've ever wanted to ask an Apostle of the Lord, go right ahead and text it in to that number. I'll pick the best questions and answer them for all of the missionaries here." It was so cool. Then he just spent like 2 hours answering questions for us all. It was awesome. I wrote them all in my journal, but I'll highlight a few of my favorites:

The first question was, "Why do I feel so inadequate?" He said that this was an example of an excellent and inspired question, voicing something that every missionary was surely feeling right now. He then went on to say that the reason we sometimes feel like that is because we are beginning to understand the scope of our call as missionaries with a responsibility to save those we teach. He said that if we don't sometimes feel inadequate, then we're crazy. He continued on to say that feelings of inadequacy are good things inasmuch as they lead us to rely on the Savior. He told us that he knew he didn't have the qualifications to be an Apostle, but that the Lord had called him and, the Lord would qualify him. It was a really great opening question, and it really set the tone. He was completely open and honest and it was so interesting to see him in an unscripted light as more of a person than anything else. Very fun. My other favorite question was one about his favorite scripture. He said that he had no specific favorite scripture, rather, favorite themes. He told us his most favorite theme was the phrase one-by-one, used in reference to how thew Savior taught people. Extending it out, he told us that we need to teach like the Savior did, and help bring individual souls unto Christ. Even if you're teaching a family of 7, we should eb teaching 7 individuals. It was a new perspective. He told us that the phrase one-by-one appears six times in the Book of Mormon, and he challenged us to find the six instances. He also said that you're disqualified if you use LDS.org. I found one already in 3 Nephi. But he told us it's a mission-long challenge to read through the whole Book of Mormon cover to cover and find and mark those six instances of the phrase. So I think that's something I'll be looking for. 

Next questions:

There are 4 of us going to Kiribati. Myself, my companion Elder Davis, and another companionship of Elder McCormick, and Elder Mattison. We're all really young for our zone, we're all 18, but lots of our zone members are in their 20's. So it's an interesting dynamic. We do have grammar books. Having learned Spanish, I really just want to focus on structures and learn how to build sentences on our own, but so far our teacher has just emphasized sentence memorization so we could teach our lessons, so I'm not where I want to be per se. I'll get there, but I don't know any real rules yet so it's tough.

My typical day includes getting up at 6:30, showering, getting ready, etc. Breakfast starts at 7, goes til 7:30. Our class starts at 8, and so we have a half an hour to study on our own. Our class time throughout the day is in three sections, 2 supervised one unsupervised by our teacher. First block is from 8-11:30, second block is from 12:30-4:30, and third block goes from 5:30-9. Lunch and dinner are obviously between blocks. Two blocks are always language study, and for a half hour in one of those language study blocks we teach our progressing investigator in Kiribati. The other block is spiritual study, from Preach My Gospel. Our teacher is always present for two of the blocks, but the other is unsupervised. So we have busy days, and long hours in the classroom. We're not allowed back into our residency halls until 9:30, and then we have one hour to get ready for bed, write in our journals, write letters, etc. Then lights out at 10:30. It's a long day, for sure. 

Sundays are somewhat calmer, we have sacrament really early, before breakfast. And then we have all of our blocks unsupervised that day, with no language study emphasis. We can basically do whatever we want. We also don't have Sunday school, just sacrament and priesthood. It's nice to get a nap in the classroom, or to catch up on scripture study. P-days are great. We do laundry, email home, and sleep. But we have to be ready for third block, so after dinner it's basically another normal day. But it's still great. I definitely needed it.

In terms of anything I need, I can't think of anything really. Maybe a flashlight? Also, one of those ridiculous sleeping mask things that covers your eyes would be great. That's make it easier to sleep. Thanks!

I loved my stocking. It was full of wonder! I've decided I'm a grown up now, because I saved the letters for last, and they were my favorite. But I did like the toys and the candy, thank you so much! All of the doges were funny. I couldn't pick a favorite I don't think. They made me laugh.

My companion is nice, and he is clean. There's only four of us in our room, but there's enough room for 6, so we actually have a decent amount of space.

Surprisingly, no one else in my zone went to BYU before coming here. Everyone is from a polynesian Island, Australia, or they went to Utah State. It's super weird. But not a big deal I guess.

This language literally has no pattern to it. As far as I've gathered, as long as you have a pronoun, a verb, and a subject, you can put them in any which order you want. It's super confusing. And, the letters aren't always pronounced the same. So Spanish hurts me in that regard. Verbs are conjugated based on who the recipient of the action is (the object of the sentence, I guess?), so it's backwards from Spanish. In the end, I think knowing Spanish will help me, because I have that understanding of how to apply rules and change things contextually. I just don't have the tools to do it in this language yet. 

Side-note! Knowing Spanish in general has been super useful. I got to be a translator for a day! There was a companionship on the second day here that was a floor below us comprised of an Elder from Korea, who spoke broken English, and and Elder from Mexico who spoke only Spanish (Mexican, according to his companion). They literally couldn't communicate. And it was a huge problem, because all of the Spanish-speaking Elders, Sisters and teachers are at the MTC-West campus over in Wyview. So no one here spoke Spanish. And as a result, I got to tag along to their class and do some translation for this Elder from Mexico. They ended up getting an assistant teacher from MTC-West for their class so I didn't have to go back anymore, but it was so fun. Being around all kinds of languages made it super easy. I slipped right into Spanish, and I apparently made sense to this Elder. It was great. I think I could've gone Spanish speaking after like two weeks at the MTC. It was fun.

Thanks for the package heads-up, I'll be on the lookout. It's okay, I'll re-read the Christmas letters some more. Have so much fun with the Hammonds!

Thanks for texting Kalani. I've been worried about her this week especially. Tell her I say hi. 

Hopefully you get this and can respond somewhat quick! Sorry it's such a long email. 

Love you all,

Dallin

*He was able to send one more email later in the day as he had not used all his time.  Ed and I had sent quick responses to his morning email.  It's quite a story about Elder Bednar...

Mom and Dad,

I'm sorry I was already gone when you replied! Probably just barely missed you. I'm very sorry. I'm very sorry you haven't gotten my letters! I wrote lots, I hope they end up coming to the house. Hopefully it's just a delay from the holidays maybe? 

Dad - It truly was fantastic. It was crazy how he could just speak on any random topic we threw at him. Another funny anecdote: at the end of the devotional, right before the elder to give the prayer got up, Elder Bednar got up and stole the microphone. He said, "Elders and Sisters, we have had 199 phones returned to us. We just counted twice. Does it really seem smart to steal a phone from an Apostle? Go ahead and put up your hand, we'll just count it as a mistake by the ushers. Otherwise, there will be consequences." It was SO scary. This kid's hand shot straight up, it was so funny. Anyways. I'm glad you got those scratches out! That car needs to be looking good for when I get back, right? Just kidding. 

Class starts in 15 minutes. I'm sorry for no pictures, they asked us not to upload today because it was a double p-day for Thursday kids like us and Wednesday kids from yesterday because of Christmas, so there would have been too much strain on the MTC servers. 

I love you all, talk to you next week!

Dallin

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

We have 20 minutes to email today, and we got lost on our way so it's closer to 10. We get to email home tomorrow too though, so I'm not too worried.

I love you all! Life is going very well here. I'm adjusting to the schedule and I'm not dead tired anymore. I'm also not drowning in the language anymore, I'm picking it up. In fact, our teacher didn't let us use notes the last time we taught our investigator, just a dictionary. It was lots of fun. The spiritual highlights have definitely come from teaching Taonakira (our investigator). He's technically one of our teachers, but we didn't initially know that, and it was super great to feel like we were really helping someone who needed it. And I feel like we still are. 

I miss you all. I'm interested in hearing from you all what's going on at home! I hope things are fun. I'm sorry Christmas has been so busy for dad, and not as exciting. I understand I'm the life of the party, but do your best without me :)

My companion is a nice guy. He's from Logan, and his name is Elder Davis. Our other district members are nice guys too. Elder Mattison is from Arizona, and Elder McCormick is from Colorado. We get along well.

Our zone is all of the elders going to Kiritbati, the Marshall Islands, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu, Phillippines, etc. We have like 12 different languages going on all at once in our residence hall, at varying levels of competency. It's so funny. We're also definitely the most chill/intimidating zone in the whole MTC. Our district of 4 American kids is the only white kids in the whole zone, everyone else is Polynesian, Australian, or a Kiwi (from New Zealand). It's a fun atmosphere. Everyone gets treated like family, and it's been so nice.

Last night at the Christmas Eve devotional we got to hear from Elder David F. Evans of the Seventy, and his wife. He also serves on the Missionary Executive Council. It was awesome. His wife talked about her first Christmas having just sent Elder Evans off on a mission to Japan, and how important messengers are to her, because they enabled her and her husband to stay in contact. She then extended the analogy to us as missionaries, acting as messengers and bringing people closer to each other and to Christ. It was my favorite talk so far (on a couple levels :))

Elder Evans then spoke about the huge power letters from Dads have, discussing specifically Mormon and Moroni's correspondences in the Book of Mormon. It made me proud of my dad for being such a good example, and following the spirit like those prophets.

I'm out of time, but I'll be able to email you all tomorrow as well! Keep your phones on you, that's probably the fastest way to get the notification that I sent my email. I have 60 minutes tomorrow, but I can split it up. So I'll probably email in the morning, and then again later in the afternoon if my plan goes well. I'll be sure to include a report of the devotional from whichever apostle it is that comes tonight. Send me questions or things you want to know, otherwise I'll just wing it.

I know I'm where I'm supposed to be. I love you all, thanks for your support.

Love,

Dallin

Missionary Cousins

My sister-in-law, Shawna, posted the nicest thoughts about Dallin and Ben serving missions at the same time.  They are 6 months apart and spent almost every day together from age 2 to 10.  We are so grateful for our cousins and extended family.  Look at these adorable boys and link to Ben's mission blog here.

Missionaries Have Special Christmas At The MTC

Here is an article that Dallin's girlfriend, Kalani, sent to me.  It made me cry and smile at the same time.  I'm so happy he gets to have this experience.

"PROVO -- Imagine celebrating Christmas Day with your mind and heart focused on Jesus Christ. Orem resident Stephanie Palmer said that's what her daughter will be doing Wednesday at the Missionary Training Center.

Sister Kayla Palmer entered the MTC Dec. 18. She will be serving in the Ohio Cincinnati Mission. Before she leaves, she will get to experience what few missionaries or even general membership of the church will experience -- spending Christmas with LDS Church General Authorities.

Palmer will be one of just less than 2,000 missionaries that will join together on Christmas, according to Cody Craynor, church spokesman. Missionaries who live and study at the west campus will come to the main campus for the day.

"Though not with their families, missionaries in the Missionary Training Center have many opportunities to reflect upon the Savior including his birth, perfect life and infinite atonement on Christmas," Craynor said. "On Christmas day, missionaries will join together for several gatherings including video presentations, a talent show, a special Christmas dinner and a devotional with a general authority of the Church."

If there is one downside to spending Christmas in the MTC, it would be that missionaries will not be able to phone home.

"Missionaries at the Provo Missionary Training Center do not call home on Christmas. However, they are given an opportunity to email their families," Craynor said.

While Stephanie Palmer said she is a little sad she won't be able to get a phone call from her MTC missionary, it's ok because of what she will get in return.

"I think it will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, a Christmas to remember," Stephanie Palmer said. "I've heard Christmas in the MTC is wonderful. A day spent with general authorities and a day spent focused on Christ."

Returned missionary Thomas Larsen, of Lindon, said, "I was in the MTC for Christmas and it was my best Christmas yet. It was one of the most amazingly spiritual experiences of my life."

Elijah Batemon remembers his MTC Christmas.

"It was a great experience. Two of our Christmas presents were Elder Holland and Elder Bednar. The best part of being there for Christmas was they kept us pretty busy, so most people didn't have time to get homesick," Batemon said.

If tradition continues, all the Elders will receive a tie. Gifts for sisters have varied. The ties are donated by an unnamed international businessman."

Genelle Pugmire - Daily Herald, Provo

MTC

Dallin reported to the Missionary Training Center Wednesday, Dec. 18th.  We were pretty sad the 24 hours leading up to dropping him off, but the actual drop off wasn't too bad.  Everyone had warned us about how difficult is was going to be (of course) and I was prepared for the worst.  I guess it's good to have those sort of expectations, because when we drove away and I was wiping tears I felt OK.  Dallin was all smiles.

It was hard not to be excited by the atmosphere.  Twice as many missionaries as usual were checking in due to Christmas falling on the next Wednesday.  People were EVERYWHERE taking pictures, hugging, crying (mostly just moms), directing traffic, smiling, and wishing well.  We had wandered around the temple waiting for our drop-off time and had been laughing and taking pictures.   I think Dallin was so tired of saying goodbyes to everyone that he was anxious to just get out of the car.  He asked me to keep it together until he was gone and I mostly made it (a tear or two may have slipped out while he was watching).

Ed and I both had a good cry in the car, but mostly we just felt so grateful that he was choosing to serve a mission.  Grateful that he was where he needed to be.  Grateful that he has so many friends and family supporting him.  Grateful for the awesome experiences we will get to hear about from him.  Grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

... and grateful that instead of counting down until the day he leaves we now can begin counting the days until we get his first letter, or our first Mother's Day call, or maybe even his first tropical Christmas next year.  I'm not quite ready to start counting the days until he is coming home... but I am looking forward to sharing this experience through his letters and pictures.

As I promised, here are the standard pictures in front of the Provo temple and with his suitcases heading off with Elder English.

Goodbye to the Roommates

Dallin really lucked out with great roommates this semester.  He didn't know any of them before rooming together, but they were good friends and had a great time.  Right as he was leaving they handed him a baggy of "junk" - each person had selected a special trinket that he's taking to Kiribati to bury in the sand.  Aaron is leaving for a mission in North Carolina in January and the rest will leave in the Spring/Summer.  We can't wait to hear where they are all going!

I'm not really sure  how to explain the bear... but he seems to be an integral part of their apartment.

Almost Ready!

Dallin is almost ready to report to the MTC (Missionary Training Center) tomorrow.  He just finished his last final, the apartment is mostly packed and the suitcases are almost full.  We have his official MTC address which will work until he leaves Jan 27th for the islands:

Elder Dallin Seguine
Jan 27 MIR-MAJ
2007 N 900 E Unit #78
Provo, UT  84602

The addresses for after Jan 27 are on the side bar.

Check out the awesome pharmacy I am sending with him!  Yep... I'm that crazy mom.  Benadryl can save a life you know.  All the rest just makes me sleep better at night... and the closest real medical care is in Fiji!



We just need to get his last haircut, pick up a few last items, and say a tearful goodbye to a wonderful girl.

I'm so grateful that Ed and I were able to come here and get him ready.  Thanks Mom!  What a whirlwind week for him.  I know he is exhausted, but hopefully a good night sleep tonight and the excitement of the MTC will invigorate him!

Tomorrow look for the classic Provo Temple and walking with your suitcase pictures :)

Dallin's Mission Call

"Dear Elder Seguine:

You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  You are assigned to labor in the Marshall Islands Majuro Mission.  In addition to your calling to share the gospel, you will be assigned to serve in the Kiribati Mission Region.  It is anticipated that you will serve for a period of 24 months.

...you will prepare to teach the gospel in the Kiribati language...

...as you devote your time and attention to serving the Lord, leaving behind all other personal affairs, the Lord will bless you...

...your purpose will be to invite others to come unto Christ...

...Greater blessings and more happiness than you have yet experienced await you as you humbly and prayerfully serve the Lord in this labor of love among His children."

It was a busy day after the call arrived.  The original plan was to overnight the envelope to him, but he couldn't wait one more day to find out where he was going!  We came up with a new plan.  We called family members and got some on a conference call and some on a google hangout.  We then carefully removed the letter (the girls made sure no one peeked), scanned it, and emailed it to him when everyone was ready.  Here is the video of him opening the email and reading his call.



Dallin is so excited to serve in the Marshall Islands and is grateful for so much love and support.
Here are a few more pictures from that day.

Send Me an Email

Due to the fact that Dallin will be serving out of the country, this blog must be made private if we want to post any pictures of the people he meets.  No worries though... all you have to do is send me an email at seguinephilly@gmail.com and I will send you an invitation to view this blog any time you like.  The privacy settings will begin shortly after he enters the training center on Dec 18th.
Thanks!
Jen