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