This week has been pretty big and pretty busy! First of all, TRAVEL PLANS! I got them on Thursday so I know my travel itinerary!! I'm flying from SLC on Monday and I'll be in my beloved mission on Oct 4th! I'm supposed to go straight to whoever's picking me up at Berlin so we can be on our way! GAAH!! I'm beyond excited and nervous! I think for me it was really REAL that I'm going to Germany now w/ my travel plans in my hands. I'm excited to finally just find and teach people, because sitting around all day studying doesn't feel worth it for the past couple of weeks. But Sis. Nelson and I have goals to pick up our game to make the most of this up-coming week and just blaze through w/ full speed.
Since I'm leaving on Monday, I do get a Pday on Saturday, so if you need to respond to me about travelling or JORDO'S MISSION CALL(!!!!) I will get to read that info then! I think I'll just try to call and hope someone picks up! Otherwise, I do have your cellphone numbers written down just in case, but yeah, I really don't have a set time or a "for sure" time that I can call, so fingers crossed!
News about the MTC, they're doing a lot of rearranging, so when Jordo goes to the MTC (if he's going to Provo), it'll already be different then when I was here; they're moving a lot of medical, travel, ect. services all in one building, which looks pretty nice.
Also, another Apostle came into town, and this time it was Russell M. Nelson!! We are sure lucky; 3 apostles in one MTC experience! Maybe we'll get one last special speaker before the big GC. He made a joke that the Brethren are all really excited but also really looking forward to it being over, understandable, ja? This one was really cool, because they have this special edition of the Ensign all just about the Book of Mormon and each and every missionary got a copy--all from the Quorum of the Twelve! It's pretty cool to get a gift from them, especially Russell M. Nelson! It's got a lot of useful info that I plan on using to help my investigators. I'm pretty happy w/ that!
Speaking of investigators, something really weird and puzzling happened this week, and I'm hoping you guys can give me your ideas about it. We were teaching two investigators played by two of our Elders (Tom & Brandon), Tom being Atheist and not really interested, and Brandon being very attentive. We were teaching about the Plan of Salvation and only had 20min to teach, and when the deutsch isn't that fast, it doesn't feel like very much time! Anyway, literally in the last three minutes, my Mitarbeiterin, Sis. Nelson was bearing her testimony and then started asking Brandon how he felt and he of course said good. Then literally out of no where she asked him to commit to baptism! I was honestly really shocked, because we haven't taught them much, and we haven't even give a clue as to why baptism is essential (yet) and she just really pulled it out of no where. "Tom" actually just busted out laughing and I was just SHOCKED. We hadn't planned to commit anyone any time soon, and I felt like I just missed a train or something. Brandon actually said yes. I'm still sort of confused, and I mean that, as in, how can I feel when I'm teaching that I should first teach then commit, and Sis. Nelson feels the spirit telling her to commit and fill in the blanks later? Can the Spirit teach two different ways at once? I felt like in that lesson there wasn't any companionship unity at all, because we were on seperate pages. After, Sis. Nelson was hurt because of everyone's reactions and actually started crying so we had an emergency comp inventory. I think she was upset w/ me because she felt a prompting and I didn't support her, and I tried explaining that I don't feel like I can just COMMIT everyone left and right until they know or have a better understanding of what they're really committing to; there's a difference between committing to read the Book of Mormon, going to church, trying to pray versus baptism. I don't know if I wasn't connected to Spirit and missed something or if I'm not being bold enough, but both of us were really frustrated, because well Sis. Nelson thinks she was right, and honestly I thought I was right. We did make goals on trying to study more together and pray that we can sort of work better as a team, but she was mad at me because I thought we needed more companionship unity and she thought we were totally fine. Sis. Nelson as a person is quite wonderful and knows her stuff--doctrinal and deutsch, but we both look at teaching in two different ways and I don't think any of us have learned 100% on how to just mesh the two. She likes to go fast, and I like to explain. You know me; I talk and talk and talk! But some of this stuff they've never heard of before and I feel like you have to understand certain things to understand other things, y'know? I'm also aware that it's different w/ each and every investigator, but these two that we were teaching were 17yr. olds and committing to baptism after lesson 3 seemed a little rushed. We have since moved on, but I'm still wondering what exactly happened, and tell me if I'm wrong, definitely!
This week was pretty great, because I got to be a Host Sister, or basically helped welcome newly arrived sisters find their dorm rooms, books, classes and companions! The sister who helped me on my first day helped me feel really excited to finally be here, so I tried having the same effect. It's amazing how organized and wonderful the MTC runs that every question has an answer; it's really a place of "order."
This past Sunday was also our last regular Sunday, so as tradition, the districts leaving a week from today got to sing a musical number in Sacrament mtg and we chose "We'll Bring the World His Truth" or "Wahrheit Verkundet"--since we sung it auf deutsch! Translations from English to Deutsch and sometimes back to English fascinate me, probably more than my district thinks it should, but when I read certain things auf deutsch, the particular word they use is sometimes easier to understand, or maybe unlocks a deeper meaning than I imagined.
Something fun I did this week that might interest the boys; we vaccumed four sets of staircases on Saturday for our usual service, but the vacums we used were actually strapped to our backs like backpacks, and we call it "ghostbuster-ing"--it was pretty fun! The Elders were pretty jealous we got to use them, but they're kinda heavy if they don't sit on your back right.
Also, a quick thanks to Grandpa and Shirley for their card! I really appreciated the notes and just hearing from them! Thanks! Danke!
Something sort of funny (I think) that happened this week was some of the Elders asking Elder Dagry, our Frenchman about France. They were also referencing to Ratatouille a Pixar film, and asked if rats really get to cook in France. Without missing a beat, E. Dagry waves his had nonchallantly and says in his ridiculous accent, "Of course, of course!" We, our entire deutsch zone really gets along well and I think the new missionaries are realizing that the MTC can be fun if they make it so!
Well, I think that's just about it! I counted out all the lessons that I've taught since being here and Sis. Nelson and I have given 52 lessons so far (not including TRC) and with the lessons we'll teach this week, we'll rack up a total of 59 lessons! That's a lot of bearing of testimonies! It's pretty fan-freakin-tastic!
I'm so excited for Jordo's call! eeeee! <3
I miss and love you all! I'M GOIN' NACH DEUTSCHLAND, YO!
love,
Sis. Whit
About Me
- WhitMissionBlog
- Wie geht's! As a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Berlin Germany mission, I'm bound to have lots of fun experiences!
Monday, September 26, 2011
Monday, September 19, 2011
Countdown for Whitney
This week has gone by soooo fast! And I have two weeks until I fly out til Deutschland! And probably exciting for you, I get to call you in two weeks as well! I think it'll be super grand to listen to General Conference just before we fly out--get that extra boost and all! Apparantly we just watch conference and the rest of the time we get to do laundry, pack, or whatever--I don't think it'll take me too much time to pack because I don't have SO much stuff and I've been careful not to accumulate any more that I have to besides all the fun books I get to carry around.
Well on Tuesday for our devotional we actually had *another* surprise speaker, Elder Ballard! We were really lucky to hear from ANOTHER apostle within our MTC stay, and so that was pretty dang neat. It came at a good time, because I was thinking to myself that I was getting the language down (no fluency, and yes, still some accidental dansk!) but I get more and more excited to leave. However he talked mainly about making really good goals and to use our time to the best of our advantage, instead of wasting today thinking about tomorrow. So I've been trying to make the most of what I have at the MTC before I regret it! Not that I'll be in Germany wishing that I could be in the MTC, I think only free laundry would be something that I miss (and yes, feel free to laugh at my cheap-ness). But as Bro. Luna told us auf deutsch, "the food here is the test, but in Germany, it'll be the reward."
On Wednesday, all of our new deutschers came! We're now 28 strong and they're already starting off on the right foot; they can already pray and bear their testimony, which it's amazing see happen to them, but amazing to realize that it's happened to me as well. I could tell that a lot of them were sort of wide and bleary-eyed from the first couple of rough days going cold turkey on all that's "Babylonisch" but today they seem very happy. And they're all really awesome! We have two sisters, Sis. Kapplani and Floyd, Sis. Kapplani is from Albania and has a super powerful testimony, and Sis. Floyd is from Georgia (the state) and she's absolutely hilarious. We had two other sisters, but they fast-tracked. We warned them it'd be tough and they're already coming to us asking if we can help them practice teaching because they hardly get any chance to teach auf deutsch! We also have 11 Elders, two from England (to a total of 4 Brits!!) and one from France, Elder Dagry. He's actually pretty funny, and energetic. He's not at all French-snobby, because I try saying easy French to him like "merci", "aur revoire" "bonjour" or whatever to be nice and he doesn't think my accent is aweful! Elder Dolben says my British accent is by far the most horrid thing he's heard. I'm pretty sure he used those exact words, but it's REALLY easy to push his buttons; the other Elders take care of that. Since I'm the Coordinating Sister, I got to help them with their welcome orientation meeting by helping the zone leaders teach about how to have good companionships and comp inventories, so that felt pretty cool. We also took them on a tour of the campus, so it feels weird already knowing everything there is to know and them asking questions and such.
Before all of that, though, they all introduced themselves and shared their testimonies which ended up taking an hour because of their testimonies! It was super powerful and it was a weird feeling for me; I've only felt it once or twice, but I felt like I was super-charged with the Spirit, I literally felt everything from my fingertips to my toes just humming. I had all this energy--I felt like I could do anything! And it was from their strong testimonies; there were a few Elders that shared that they didn't really know why they were on a mission, but they knew the Church was true and it was a good enough reason to go. Another Elder said that he'd been innactive since he was 12 and had just come back to church a year ago, and I thought that was really grand of him to come after a really rough time in his life. I got to share my testimony last and put all this energy to good use. I don't remember much, except my prayer to be bold as I share my testimony was definitely answered. Words were just coming out that I had no intention of saying, but glad I did. I shared with them that if they just invite the Spirit and let him do the talking, they can say the things they yearn to say in a language that's foreign and strange to them, but it'll touch those who listen. And for the Elders that seemed finally daunted by the idea of a mission--and pretty much anyone--the MTC wasn't built for perfect missionaries; if they expected us to be perfect, I'd already be in Germany right now. But the MTC is to help us achieve our goals and to make our weaknesses become strengths (Ether 12:27). And we wouldn't even be on this Earth if Heavenly Father thought we were perfect. We're here to learn who we are, who we want to be (or be like) and move in that direction. Everyone has a weakness, but everyone has a purpose to be here and to achieve something. But we've been promised in the scriptures that through Christ and his Spirit, we can accquire the characteristics and talents and desires that we need and want! So needless to say, I have deep respect for our new arrivals. And surprisingly enough they think I'm pretty cool! They open up to us really well and it's really easy to get everyone included in and enjoying the MTC together.
As for our investigators: drumroll! Nikolaj our wonderful investigator is committed to baptism since last Tuesday! Hoooooooly meine gute that's a grand feeling. He's not even a real investigator but it makes me incredibly happy to see his progress. He's already cut down his smoking intake from 20 cigarrettes to 10 within a week; he has enough faith-power to send off a space shuttle, meine gute! Even Michael is making progress. We gave him the baptismal committment, but since his progress is vastly much more slower, we invited him to be baptized once he has recieved the answers about God that he's been looking for, and he said yes! We're being patient with him, but he's opening up to us more. I think that he's hesitant because his wife wants nothing to do with the church and I wonder if he thinks the Church might make his marriage more difficult, but we keep telling him that if this is the case we can talk to her and answer her questions. In the real world I'm sure we would've already met her and taught her, so it's weird being in the MTC and having to act out everything like that, I guess. But I mean, 2 months ago he didn't think that when he prayed there'd be someone else on the other side. I'm honestly not sure how much that's changed, but he actually prays, and he prays with us. He even asked us in our last visit, "does it hurt God that I don't believe in him yet?" Which I'm not sure how to look at it, because why would he care about someone's feelings that he "feels" doesn't exist? I've been learning to see progress in everyone and everything, even if it's not punch-in-the-face evident. So yeah, FORTSCHRITT! Der Fortschritt and die Wahrheit are my favorite deutsch words so far (besides the wonderous "meine gute") and pretty soon I'll send pictures that are evident of that!
Another big thing this week: a visit from BBC??? Ya, stimmt! BBC came to the MTC, and specifically OUR zone to do some sort of new story/study thing concerning Mormons. Apparantly there's some sort of rule going around Europe asking the missionaries not to talk to people on buses, and I guess that intruiged the BBC people to learn more. They've come specifically to know what exactly we do in the MTC and why we serve missions. I think because there are more world leaders and such that are members of the church, they thought that we are serving missions as some sort of Business training to be world leaders. As cool and how true that could be, (because what we do learn makes us bold leaders) some of the Elders in our zone got to tell them that we're actually just here for anyone else besides ourselves. And I'm sure they were really impressed! It was cool to know that the BBC came to President Brown and he reccommended they talk to the Japanese and Deutsch missionaries, and so we must be doing something right! They mainly talked with the Elders in the other district, so this was all sort of from someone else, but yeah, pretty cool! I don't know when that'll be public or on the web; they told the Elders they'd give them the info, but we're sure it'll be another few months. I'll try to get the info soon, so you can take a look at it and pass it around!
Well, I think that's just about it for this week! Our goal is to Speak Your Language/ SYL for as much as humanely possible! It's fun to deutsch anyway.
Until next week! I miss you tons!
Love,
Whit
Well on Tuesday for our devotional we actually had *another* surprise speaker, Elder Ballard! We were really lucky to hear from ANOTHER apostle within our MTC stay, and so that was pretty dang neat. It came at a good time, because I was thinking to myself that I was getting the language down (no fluency, and yes, still some accidental dansk!) but I get more and more excited to leave. However he talked mainly about making really good goals and to use our time to the best of our advantage, instead of wasting today thinking about tomorrow. So I've been trying to make the most of what I have at the MTC before I regret it! Not that I'll be in Germany wishing that I could be in the MTC, I think only free laundry would be something that I miss (and yes, feel free to laugh at my cheap-ness). But as Bro. Luna told us auf deutsch, "the food here is the test, but in Germany, it'll be the reward."
On Wednesday, all of our new deutschers came! We're now 28 strong and they're already starting off on the right foot; they can already pray and bear their testimony, which it's amazing see happen to them, but amazing to realize that it's happened to me as well. I could tell that a lot of them were sort of wide and bleary-eyed from the first couple of rough days going cold turkey on all that's "Babylonisch" but today they seem very happy. And they're all really awesome! We have two sisters, Sis. Kapplani and Floyd, Sis. Kapplani is from Albania and has a super powerful testimony, and Sis. Floyd is from Georgia (the state) and she's absolutely hilarious. We had two other sisters, but they fast-tracked. We warned them it'd be tough and they're already coming to us asking if we can help them practice teaching because they hardly get any chance to teach auf deutsch! We also have 11 Elders, two from England (to a total of 4 Brits!!) and one from France, Elder Dagry. He's actually pretty funny, and energetic. He's not at all French-snobby, because I try saying easy French to him like "merci", "aur revoire" "bonjour" or whatever to be nice and he doesn't think my accent is aweful! Elder Dolben says my British accent is by far the most horrid thing he's heard. I'm pretty sure he used those exact words, but it's REALLY easy to push his buttons; the other Elders take care of that. Since I'm the Coordinating Sister, I got to help them with their welcome orientation meeting by helping the zone leaders teach about how to have good companionships and comp inventories, so that felt pretty cool. We also took them on a tour of the campus, so it feels weird already knowing everything there is to know and them asking questions and such.
Before all of that, though, they all introduced themselves and shared their testimonies which ended up taking an hour because of their testimonies! It was super powerful and it was a weird feeling for me; I've only felt it once or twice, but I felt like I was super-charged with the Spirit, I literally felt everything from my fingertips to my toes just humming. I had all this energy--I felt like I could do anything! And it was from their strong testimonies; there were a few Elders that shared that they didn't really know why they were on a mission, but they knew the Church was true and it was a good enough reason to go. Another Elder said that he'd been innactive since he was 12 and had just come back to church a year ago, and I thought that was really grand of him to come after a really rough time in his life. I got to share my testimony last and put all this energy to good use. I don't remember much, except my prayer to be bold as I share my testimony was definitely answered. Words were just coming out that I had no intention of saying, but glad I did. I shared with them that if they just invite the Spirit and let him do the talking, they can say the things they yearn to say in a language that's foreign and strange to them, but it'll touch those who listen. And for the Elders that seemed finally daunted by the idea of a mission--and pretty much anyone--the MTC wasn't built for perfect missionaries; if they expected us to be perfect, I'd already be in Germany right now. But the MTC is to help us achieve our goals and to make our weaknesses become strengths (Ether 12:27). And we wouldn't even be on this Earth if Heavenly Father thought we were perfect. We're here to learn who we are, who we want to be (or be like) and move in that direction. Everyone has a weakness, but everyone has a purpose to be here and to achieve something. But we've been promised in the scriptures that through Christ and his Spirit, we can accquire the characteristics and talents and desires that we need and want! So needless to say, I have deep respect for our new arrivals. And surprisingly enough they think I'm pretty cool! They open up to us really well and it's really easy to get everyone included in and enjoying the MTC together.
As for our investigators: drumroll! Nikolaj our wonderful investigator is committed to baptism since last Tuesday! Hoooooooly meine gute that's a grand feeling. He's not even a real investigator but it makes me incredibly happy to see his progress. He's already cut down his smoking intake from 20 cigarrettes to 10 within a week; he has enough faith-power to send off a space shuttle, meine gute! Even Michael is making progress. We gave him the baptismal committment, but since his progress is vastly much more slower, we invited him to be baptized once he has recieved the answers about God that he's been looking for, and he said yes! We're being patient with him, but he's opening up to us more. I think that he's hesitant because his wife wants nothing to do with the church and I wonder if he thinks the Church might make his marriage more difficult, but we keep telling him that if this is the case we can talk to her and answer her questions. In the real world I'm sure we would've already met her and taught her, so it's weird being in the MTC and having to act out everything like that, I guess. But I mean, 2 months ago he didn't think that when he prayed there'd be someone else on the other side. I'm honestly not sure how much that's changed, but he actually prays, and he prays with us. He even asked us in our last visit, "does it hurt God that I don't believe in him yet?" Which I'm not sure how to look at it, because why would he care about someone's feelings that he "feels" doesn't exist? I've been learning to see progress in everyone and everything, even if it's not punch-in-the-face evident. So yeah, FORTSCHRITT! Der Fortschritt and die Wahrheit are my favorite deutsch words so far (besides the wonderous "meine gute") and pretty soon I'll send pictures that are evident of that!
Another big thing this week: a visit from BBC??? Ya, stimmt! BBC came to the MTC, and specifically OUR zone to do some sort of new story/study thing concerning Mormons. Apparantly there's some sort of rule going around Europe asking the missionaries not to talk to people on buses, and I guess that intruiged the BBC people to learn more. They've come specifically to know what exactly we do in the MTC and why we serve missions. I think because there are more world leaders and such that are members of the church, they thought that we are serving missions as some sort of Business training to be world leaders. As cool and how true that could be, (because what we do learn makes us bold leaders) some of the Elders in our zone got to tell them that we're actually just here for anyone else besides ourselves. And I'm sure they were really impressed! It was cool to know that the BBC came to President Brown and he reccommended they talk to the Japanese and Deutsch missionaries, and so we must be doing something right! They mainly talked with the Elders in the other district, so this was all sort of from someone else, but yeah, pretty cool! I don't know when that'll be public or on the web; they told the Elders they'd give them the info, but we're sure it'll be another few months. I'll try to get the info soon, so you can take a look at it and pass it around!
Well, I think that's just about it for this week! Our goal is to Speak Your Language/ SYL for as much as humanely possible! It's fun to deutsch anyway.
Until next week! I miss you tons!
Love,
Whit
Monday, September 12, 2011
Another week from Sister Whit
I woke up this morning wondering how a week has already rushed by, meine gute! All the other weeks seemed to take their time, but this week was just a whirlwind.
We have 4 "investigators" from now until Oct 3rd, and so every study moment we have is needed. Two of them are played by our own Elders, just to practice our deutsch, but ultimately to learn what it's actually like to be on the other side of the lesson. It does give you a different experience of wondering how certain things are recieved and perhaps better ways of phrasing things so it's not confusing, or saying the right things that they need to hear. So we're also teaching two Elders and we're being taught, lots to do!
We're still working with Michael and Nikolaj, both of which are making Forshritt! We've been learning to be better at noticing/reading their actions beyond what they say, but their body langauge and the things that they *don't* say. For example, Michael has gone to church now for 3 Sundays in a row--VERY very wonderful for a person who didn't believe in God 6 weeks ago. He even took his family, which we technically can't teach because we're just training, but that was a big deal for me; that he'd been listening to our lessons and wanted to take his wife and two daughters to church, too. He told us in our most recent lesson last Saturday when we were giving him the lesson about the Gospel of Christ, that he did want to have faith in God. He said that when we spoke we had hope in our eyes that no matter what comes our way that we trusted it would work out and we would be happy. He said he wanted this hope, and that's why he's been letting us come. The Spirit was quite strong!
Also, I'm still working on the prospects of being a "bold" missionary. With Nicholaj, he's coming to the point that we give him a chapter, and he just keeps reading! He loves Alma's chapters and you can tell that he turns to the scriptures, to us, and to prayer for his answers. We've also been teaching him about faith and repentance, and we're very close to teaching about baptism, and when we've answered his plethora of baptism questions, we're going to ask him to be baptized when he knows for himself it's true. Kinda scary, right? What I mean, is that we've been building this trust and he's trusting us enough to go w/ a "member", "Uli" (or one of the other teachers) to church this past Sunday, aaaaand, we committed him to keep the Word of Wisdom, or stop drinking and smoking!
I've never had to do that before, and I felt slightly afraid, because we were putting a lot to the test, I felt. What if he told us to leave? But I felt the words coming out that everything we've taught him, he can test for himself and if he feels good inside then he can know it's the right thing to do--and I applied that to smoking. I told him that Heavenly Father wants to speak to him, not just speak but have a conversation with him--and it's hard to do so when smoking has him under its thumb. We read with him parts of the Word of Wisdom, but also the promises towards the end, and promised him that he can do anything he sets his mind to if he relies on the Lord. And for someone who had doubts if God really existed a few weeks ago, he seemed ready to take the plunge. I know it will probably be very hard, but I know he's a trusting individual; he listens and gives faith a chance. It was one of my favorite lessons, because I felt almost like Christ was sitting in between Sis. Nelson and I, giving us the courage to tell Nikolaj to change his ways, but also giving him the courage to take the challenge. If I could do a victory dance after, I would've! Sis. Nelson seemed not too bothered by the idea of asking Nikolaj to do so many things, but the Spirit gave me courage, and looking back, I think we introduced everything and the whole lesson--it wasn't planned but it went so smoothly and yeah, it was powerful.
So yeah, I'd definitely say that was a highlight of the week; we taught 9 lessons this week and we're probably going to teach the same amount this upcoming week.
I'm also glad that you got/liked the pictures. I've actually gotten some letters this week and people mentioned them, so I'm happy that everyone's hearing about all the new things I'm doing here. I think half way through the week I've been wanting time to slip by so I could get to Germany as soon as possible, knowing all the great things I have to look forward to, BUT I'm sure w/ 9 lessons, plus not-so-perfect deutsch, the next three weeks left will be much needed.
Something that was pretty funny this week; we had another devotional by Bro. Heaton, who's WWAAY involved w/ the MTCs and how to better teach. Well actually I remember telling you about this last week, but I forgot the funny part. He had three missionaries come to the stage, two as themselves and one as an investigator. He then asked the MTC presidency to come and represent the Godhead. He had President Brown come as Heavenly Father, his counselor as Christ, and when he asked for the third one to come up, he said, "And what do you think you'll represent?" and of course we're all thinking the Holy Ghost, but the second counselor said without missing a beat, "The Adversary!" It was pretty funny. But no, he was the Holy Ghost.
Every day is studying, learning, and teaching, in that order! We learned the genative case this week and it amazes me how much we can learn in the MTC--seeing how good ol' Herr Behr never taught genative, even when I was in German 4. I don't think the other Germans realize that; things just make sense here as far as the language, and in six weeks we can teach people in German, joke around in German, I can read the BoM and Bible auf deutsch and we can even have Sacrament meeting--all auf deutsch. It's wunderbar!
And speaking of wonderful, this week we fiiiiiiinally get new deutschers! Since I'm the Coordinating Sister, I got the magic list of everyone coming, and it looks like we'll have 18 new missionaries, four of them being sisters! So we get to bask in their glow and help them survive their first week of the MTC and realize that they can do it! If I can survive I think anyone can! :P
And I think for Jordan, and even the other boys or anyone else nearing a mission, it's just as tough as everyone says it is. You will have a totally different lifestyle and there's a weakness or trial for every single missionary; it happens. Or maybe I should say, it's only as hard as you make it. It annoys me when others complain about how they're struggling w/ certain things, but they don't do anything about it. I'm not perfect w/ German, so I just speak it more so it's more comfortable. Teaching isn't all that easy either, but I plan out thins, think of questions, and rely like crazy on the Holy Ghost. But if you just sit there and think the MTC is out to get you, then yeah, the MTC is hard; only because you're dragging your heels. I've heard stories through devotionals that there are a few missionaries here that reported to the MTC and have already experienced one of their parents passing away. I certainly couldn't bear of that idea; trying to serve knowing that when I get home there'll be one less person to greet me. But THEY can do it, and they're staying to work and do what they promised to do. If they can do that, I can certainly go about doing my work!
And I also know for a fact, that the harder it seems, it's probably because Satan's trying to hold you back from making miracles. Every once in a while I get discouraged, but I feel like it's because someone knows that I'm about to make a difference in someone else's life in some way in the next 18 months. I felt it before getting my call, after getting my call, and now while in the MTC; it happens to everyone, and I know it's because there are more and more of us who are willing to be our best and drop everything that Satan tries to use against us to make miracles in someone else's life. I know I certainly can't do it alone. I've found that scriptures like Ether 12:27 and Romans 8:38-39 to be very powerful for me and for my investigators. Oh, also I can't remember the reference in the D&C but my favorite scripture is "Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not." The right thing to do is hard sometimes because Satan knows that they'll bless you and they'll bless everyone around you. And as the scriptures say, Satan only wants us to be miserable, confused, hopeless, depressed and wicked because he'll never get the chance to be happy like we can. So if it makes you feel any better, Satan's jealous that you get to serve a mission and get blessings! Mom & Dad, if that's too blasphemous, don't post it on the blog! :P
I send my love to everyone and hope everyone is doing well and that each week gets better and better. I can't wait to tell you about our new deutschers!! I miss you, Family!
love,
(Sister) Whit
We have 4 "investigators" from now until Oct 3rd, and so every study moment we have is needed. Two of them are played by our own Elders, just to practice our deutsch, but ultimately to learn what it's actually like to be on the other side of the lesson. It does give you a different experience of wondering how certain things are recieved and perhaps better ways of phrasing things so it's not confusing, or saying the right things that they need to hear. So we're also teaching two Elders and we're being taught, lots to do!
We're still working with Michael and Nikolaj, both of which are making Forshritt! We've been learning to be better at noticing/reading their actions beyond what they say, but their body langauge and the things that they *don't* say. For example, Michael has gone to church now for 3 Sundays in a row--VERY very wonderful for a person who didn't believe in God 6 weeks ago. He even took his family, which we technically can't teach because we're just training, but that was a big deal for me; that he'd been listening to our lessons and wanted to take his wife and two daughters to church, too. He told us in our most recent lesson last Saturday when we were giving him the lesson about the Gospel of Christ, that he did want to have faith in God. He said that when we spoke we had hope in our eyes that no matter what comes our way that we trusted it would work out and we would be happy. He said he wanted this hope, and that's why he's been letting us come. The Spirit was quite strong!
Also, I'm still working on the prospects of being a "bold" missionary. With Nicholaj, he's coming to the point that we give him a chapter, and he just keeps reading! He loves Alma's chapters and you can tell that he turns to the scriptures, to us, and to prayer for his answers. We've also been teaching him about faith and repentance, and we're very close to teaching about baptism, and when we've answered his plethora of baptism questions, we're going to ask him to be baptized when he knows for himself it's true. Kinda scary, right? What I mean, is that we've been building this trust and he's trusting us enough to go w/ a "member", "Uli" (or one of the other teachers) to church this past Sunday, aaaaand, we committed him to keep the Word of Wisdom, or stop drinking and smoking!
I've never had to do that before, and I felt slightly afraid, because we were putting a lot to the test, I felt. What if he told us to leave? But I felt the words coming out that everything we've taught him, he can test for himself and if he feels good inside then he can know it's the right thing to do--and I applied that to smoking. I told him that Heavenly Father wants to speak to him, not just speak but have a conversation with him--and it's hard to do so when smoking has him under its thumb. We read with him parts of the Word of Wisdom, but also the promises towards the end, and promised him that he can do anything he sets his mind to if he relies on the Lord. And for someone who had doubts if God really existed a few weeks ago, he seemed ready to take the plunge. I know it will probably be very hard, but I know he's a trusting individual; he listens and gives faith a chance. It was one of my favorite lessons, because I felt almost like Christ was sitting in between Sis. Nelson and I, giving us the courage to tell Nikolaj to change his ways, but also giving him the courage to take the challenge. If I could do a victory dance after, I would've! Sis. Nelson seemed not too bothered by the idea of asking Nikolaj to do so many things, but the Spirit gave me courage, and looking back, I think we introduced everything and the whole lesson--it wasn't planned but it went so smoothly and yeah, it was powerful.
So yeah, I'd definitely say that was a highlight of the week; we taught 9 lessons this week and we're probably going to teach the same amount this upcoming week.
I'm also glad that you got/liked the pictures. I've actually gotten some letters this week and people mentioned them, so I'm happy that everyone's hearing about all the new things I'm doing here. I think half way through the week I've been wanting time to slip by so I could get to Germany as soon as possible, knowing all the great things I have to look forward to, BUT I'm sure w/ 9 lessons, plus not-so-perfect deutsch, the next three weeks left will be much needed.
Something that was pretty funny this week; we had another devotional by Bro. Heaton, who's WWAAY involved w/ the MTCs and how to better teach. Well actually I remember telling you about this last week, but I forgot the funny part. He had three missionaries come to the stage, two as themselves and one as an investigator. He then asked the MTC presidency to come and represent the Godhead. He had President Brown come as Heavenly Father, his counselor as Christ, and when he asked for the third one to come up, he said, "And what do you think you'll represent?" and of course we're all thinking the Holy Ghost, but the second counselor said without missing a beat, "The Adversary!" It was pretty funny. But no, he was the Holy Ghost.
Every day is studying, learning, and teaching, in that order! We learned the genative case this week and it amazes me how much we can learn in the MTC--seeing how good ol' Herr Behr never taught genative, even when I was in German 4. I don't think the other Germans realize that; things just make sense here as far as the language, and in six weeks we can teach people in German, joke around in German, I can read the BoM and Bible auf deutsch and we can even have Sacrament meeting--all auf deutsch. It's wunderbar!
And speaking of wonderful, this week we fiiiiiiinally get new deutschers! Since I'm the Coordinating Sister, I got the magic list of everyone coming, and it looks like we'll have 18 new missionaries, four of them being sisters! So we get to bask in their glow and help them survive their first week of the MTC and realize that they can do it! If I can survive I think anyone can! :P
And I think for Jordan, and even the other boys or anyone else nearing a mission, it's just as tough as everyone says it is. You will have a totally different lifestyle and there's a weakness or trial for every single missionary; it happens. Or maybe I should say, it's only as hard as you make it. It annoys me when others complain about how they're struggling w/ certain things, but they don't do anything about it. I'm not perfect w/ German, so I just speak it more so it's more comfortable. Teaching isn't all that easy either, but I plan out thins, think of questions, and rely like crazy on the Holy Ghost. But if you just sit there and think the MTC is out to get you, then yeah, the MTC is hard; only because you're dragging your heels. I've heard stories through devotionals that there are a few missionaries here that reported to the MTC and have already experienced one of their parents passing away. I certainly couldn't bear of that idea; trying to serve knowing that when I get home there'll be one less person to greet me. But THEY can do it, and they're staying to work and do what they promised to do. If they can do that, I can certainly go about doing my work!
And I also know for a fact, that the harder it seems, it's probably because Satan's trying to hold you back from making miracles. Every once in a while I get discouraged, but I feel like it's because someone knows that I'm about to make a difference in someone else's life in some way in the next 18 months. I felt it before getting my call, after getting my call, and now while in the MTC; it happens to everyone, and I know it's because there are more and more of us who are willing to be our best and drop everything that Satan tries to use against us to make miracles in someone else's life. I know I certainly can't do it alone. I've found that scriptures like Ether 12:27 and Romans 8:38-39 to be very powerful for me and for my investigators. Oh, also I can't remember the reference in the D&C but my favorite scripture is "Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not." The right thing to do is hard sometimes because Satan knows that they'll bless you and they'll bless everyone around you. And as the scriptures say, Satan only wants us to be miserable, confused, hopeless, depressed and wicked because he'll never get the chance to be happy like we can. So if it makes you feel any better, Satan's jealous that you get to serve a mission and get blessings! Mom & Dad, if that's too blasphemous, don't post it on the blog! :P
I send my love to everyone and hope everyone is doing well and that each week gets better and better. I can't wait to tell you about our new deutschers!! I miss you, Family!
love,
(Sister) Whit
Monday, September 5, 2011
Halfway there....
Hey Hey Family!
I'm glad that I heard from you and also from some good friends this week; I look forward to mail just as much as anyone would for Christmas! The Elders found this randomly large pine cone and they think that it somehow gives them extra luck as far as getting letters, and I hope they're mostly joking. But it was "bequeathed" to them by some Elders that have already left, so I think it's just a way for them to have some kind of fun at the MTC!
I'm basically at the 1/2 mark; I've been here for a month and I have a month to go! I'm itching to finally do some "real" work and more than anything eat REAL food.
I'm glad you got my pictures! I hope you posted the fun ones on the blog so everyone can see how exciting the MTC tries to be! :)
As for the happenings of this week! Last Monday evening, of course after I wrote you, the Sister's Residence Hall fire alarm went off and of course the building had to evacuate, but this was at 9:30 when everyone is done for the day. So it's dark outside, luckily for us, we barely got back from class so we already had our backpacks and such, but the lawn we were sitting on had all these sisters in PJs and some of the not-so-bright ones had robes and towels because they wanted to sneak into the showers first. Bet that felt nice and chilly! It was just comical for me because you have those girls, others reading scriptures with flashlights, and even Elders, because the main floor of our Residence Hall has classrooms, and they were out there, too. SINGING. It was just weird. And then of course I hear about some earthquake up in the D.C. area? No one tells me about things that happen outside of the MTC! Will you promise to let me know if the world ends? haha And apparently Beyonce' is pregnant? One of the sisters is apparently still in the know!
But as school started for all my BYU friends this past Monday, it made me really miss school and all the people that are a few blocks away. I'm over it now, but it feels so weird being so close, yet so far. And I just miss being a student and learning and being a part of campus, because it's really a home away from home.
But I felt better on Tuesday, because of something particularly awesome. Our zone leaders got a call from our Branch President (or our bishop) "suggesting" we get to our Tuesday devotional on time because "one of his favorite speakers might be there." So our zone leaders gave us the thumbs up to eat dinner an hour early so we can get seats. Our Elders were practicing their German because they SO thought it would be Elder Uchtdorf and they wanted to blow him away with a month's worth of deutsch, and I kept hoping someone cool would come because we were waiting forever in a growing line for seats and I'd hate for them to be disappointed and take it out on the zone leaders. BUT we definitely were NOT disappointed. Elder Holland came to speak! I didn't realize it until then, but General Authorities don't come w/ notes, he just spoke from the heart. He kept apologizing for going over the allotted hour, but I was thinking, "Go ahead, I've got 'til 10:30!" which of course is lights out time! He spoke mainly of his love for missionaries and how we are respected by so many people, so even though we are nowhere near perfect, (although he said, "well your parents might think you're perfect, now that you're out of the house!") we should still do justice to the calling of a missionary. He said if there was a symbol of the church, it would be a pair of missionaries, which I thought was cool; I'd always imagine the SLC temple or something. It was just interesting to see him go from saying funny lines like, "I've got one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel!" to calling us to repentance in the only way Elder Holland knows how. The last portion was actually a Q&A with questions already gathered (although how cool would it be to ask him directly about just about anything??). It was just totally amazing, and we had great seats, too! By far my favorite part was a musical number at the closing, a duet performed by two ASL sisters. One of them was the one learning ASL and sung the words they were signing, but it was one of the most moving and beautiful performances I'd ever seen.
As for the rest of the week, we taught 6 lessons total w/ Michael and Nikolaj (I think his name is Nikolai but I prefer spelling it the dansk way!) plus two lessons at the TRC. For those who don't know what it is, we go and talk to volunteers that speak deutsch and we give them a lesson very much like when missionaries visit families and give a lesson after a meal (only no meal, just Tootsie Rolls--not the same!) You get to meet lots of cool people; either RMs or elderly RMs, or just people who know deutsch. For example, Brigitte was this elderly lady who spoke great deutsch but she said she was from Sweden. I said, "Meine Mutti kommt aus Dänemark!" And she asked me if I spoke dansk--in Swedish (which I can still understand!) and I responded in a blend of dansk/deutsch. It was something like, "Ja, jeg taler ein bißchen dansk!" Speaking of dansk, I got a dansk hymnbook at the Bookstore! They have all sorts of stuff in other languages, and I definitely wanted one of those; maybe until I get my dansk dictionary back, I can use it to remember my dansk. Reading it of course it like old times, but as I've been hoping, deutsch is really on the brain. Our goal is to only speak deutsch in class (even though it's not required yet) and speak deutsch during lunch. You can tell the difference! The folks in the TRC told me that my deutsch was really good, which made me feel really good. It's weird to think that a few weeks ago I was frustrated that I could only think in dansk and now I'm frustrated that I might be losing it! I'm sure if I serve by the border it'll come back and I can learn all the church words. I still know how to pray in dansk, which I sometimes do.
Ack, I don't have much time left for writing so I'll scurry!
Since you know how much I enjoy the British accent, you can imagine that I get a kick out of our English Elder, Elder Dolben. He told us the other day that before the mission he used to wink all the time, especially during church and stuff, and he and the other Elders have started winking at each other (NOT to us!) for fun. But here's the best part! He was explaining it and said something to the effect of "there's nothing like giving someone a real good cheeky wink"! I was dying, I laughed so hard! So we say cheeky wink all the time. Maybe I should've gotten my call to England! We have fun learning about all the things they say and don't say in England. Apparently they DON'T say "'ello govenor!" all the time. or "Cheerio!" or whatever. Quite a disappointment. Apparently when watching "football" they call certain good shots a "tasty" shot. They use "tasty" to describe cars, football, jokes, things like that. But women are "fit" if they're good-looking. Ah, Elder Dolben. He still doesn't understand my enjoyment of all things British, and apparently he thinks that all American girls think about is Harry Potter thanks to me. haha
Okay, and lastly of all, Sunday! Since we're the only sisters, I actually volunteered myself to play piano for sacrament meeting. I'm sure you and Sis. Carson will be proud of that! I had to practice before, though, but I didn't do nearly as bad as I thought. It's not that daunting to play piano with an 18-person crowd on Sunday. Which meant all of us, every single one of us (including the presidency and their wives) got to bear testimonies, the missionaries speaking auf deutsch, of course! It's pretty grand. What we say is simple, but at the same time very true.
My last bit of info is that this week we'll have two new investigators, but they'll be played by our own Elders. Until we leave, we'll be teaching other, only we're pretending to be people we know to know what it's like to be an investigator and such. I won't say who I am, but it's a dear friend from high school! I'm not a meanie, much to the relief of whoever's teaching Sis. Nelson and I (we're both investigators being taught at the same time). So yeah, doubling in investigators for the last month!
I miss you all a ton and think about you (but not all the time otherwise I'd be in trouble!) I'm constantly learning new things and I'm constantly trying to teach what I learn! Just as long as I co-teach w/ my Mitarbeiterin and the Holy Ghost, I can't go wrong.
Have a great week, until next Monday!
love,
Whit
I'm glad that I heard from you and also from some good friends this week; I look forward to mail just as much as anyone would for Christmas! The Elders found this randomly large pine cone and they think that it somehow gives them extra luck as far as getting letters, and I hope they're mostly joking. But it was "bequeathed" to them by some Elders that have already left, so I think it's just a way for them to have some kind of fun at the MTC!
I'm basically at the 1/2 mark; I've been here for a month and I have a month to go! I'm itching to finally do some "real" work and more than anything eat REAL food.
I'm glad you got my pictures! I hope you posted the fun ones on the blog so everyone can see how exciting the MTC tries to be! :)
As for the happenings of this week! Last Monday evening, of course after I wrote you, the Sister's Residence Hall fire alarm went off and of course the building had to evacuate, but this was at 9:30 when everyone is done for the day. So it's dark outside, luckily for us, we barely got back from class so we already had our backpacks and such, but the lawn we were sitting on had all these sisters in PJs and some of the not-so-bright ones had robes and towels because they wanted to sneak into the showers first. Bet that felt nice and chilly! It was just comical for me because you have those girls, others reading scriptures with flashlights, and even Elders, because the main floor of our Residence Hall has classrooms, and they were out there, too. SINGING. It was just weird. And then of course I hear about some earthquake up in the D.C. area? No one tells me about things that happen outside of the MTC! Will you promise to let me know if the world ends? haha And apparently Beyonce' is pregnant? One of the sisters is apparently still in the know!
But as school started for all my BYU friends this past Monday, it made me really miss school and all the people that are a few blocks away. I'm over it now, but it feels so weird being so close, yet so far. And I just miss being a student and learning and being a part of campus, because it's really a home away from home.
But I felt better on Tuesday, because of something particularly awesome. Our zone leaders got a call from our Branch President (or our bishop) "suggesting" we get to our Tuesday devotional on time because "one of his favorite speakers might be there." So our zone leaders gave us the thumbs up to eat dinner an hour early so we can get seats. Our Elders were practicing their German because they SO thought it would be Elder Uchtdorf and they wanted to blow him away with a month's worth of deutsch, and I kept hoping someone cool would come because we were waiting forever in a growing line for seats and I'd hate for them to be disappointed and take it out on the zone leaders. BUT we definitely were NOT disappointed. Elder Holland came to speak! I didn't realize it until then, but General Authorities don't come w/ notes, he just spoke from the heart. He kept apologizing for going over the allotted hour, but I was thinking, "Go ahead, I've got 'til 10:30!" which of course is lights out time! He spoke mainly of his love for missionaries and how we are respected by so many people, so even though we are nowhere near perfect, (although he said, "well your parents might think you're perfect, now that you're out of the house!") we should still do justice to the calling of a missionary. He said if there was a symbol of the church, it would be a pair of missionaries, which I thought was cool; I'd always imagine the SLC temple or something. It was just interesting to see him go from saying funny lines like, "I've got one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel!" to calling us to repentance in the only way Elder Holland knows how. The last portion was actually a Q&A with questions already gathered (although how cool would it be to ask him directly about just about anything??). It was just totally amazing, and we had great seats, too! By far my favorite part was a musical number at the closing, a duet performed by two ASL sisters. One of them was the one learning ASL and sung the words they were signing, but it was one of the most moving and beautiful performances I'd ever seen.
As for the rest of the week, we taught 6 lessons total w/ Michael and Nikolaj (I think his name is Nikolai but I prefer spelling it the dansk way!) plus two lessons at the TRC. For those who don't know what it is, we go and talk to volunteers that speak deutsch and we give them a lesson very much like when missionaries visit families and give a lesson after a meal (only no meal, just Tootsie Rolls--not the same!) You get to meet lots of cool people; either RMs or elderly RMs, or just people who know deutsch. For example, Brigitte was this elderly lady who spoke great deutsch but she said she was from Sweden. I said, "Meine Mutti kommt aus Dänemark!" And she asked me if I spoke dansk--in Swedish (which I can still understand!) and I responded in a blend of dansk/deutsch. It was something like, "Ja, jeg taler ein bißchen dansk!" Speaking of dansk, I got a dansk hymnbook at the Bookstore! They have all sorts of stuff in other languages, and I definitely wanted one of those; maybe until I get my dansk dictionary back, I can use it to remember my dansk. Reading it of course it like old times, but as I've been hoping, deutsch is really on the brain. Our goal is to only speak deutsch in class (even though it's not required yet) and speak deutsch during lunch. You can tell the difference! The folks in the TRC told me that my deutsch was really good, which made me feel really good. It's weird to think that a few weeks ago I was frustrated that I could only think in dansk and now I'm frustrated that I might be losing it! I'm sure if I serve by the border it'll come back and I can learn all the church words. I still know how to pray in dansk, which I sometimes do.
Ack, I don't have much time left for writing so I'll scurry!
Since you know how much I enjoy the British accent, you can imagine that I get a kick out of our English Elder, Elder Dolben. He told us the other day that before the mission he used to wink all the time, especially during church and stuff, and he and the other Elders have started winking at each other (NOT to us!) for fun. But here's the best part! He was explaining it and said something to the effect of "there's nothing like giving someone a real good cheeky wink"! I was dying, I laughed so hard! So we say cheeky wink all the time. Maybe I should've gotten my call to England! We have fun learning about all the things they say and don't say in England. Apparently they DON'T say "'ello govenor!" all the time. or "Cheerio!" or whatever. Quite a disappointment. Apparently when watching "football" they call certain good shots a "tasty" shot. They use "tasty" to describe cars, football, jokes, things like that. But women are "fit" if they're good-looking. Ah, Elder Dolben. He still doesn't understand my enjoyment of all things British, and apparently he thinks that all American girls think about is Harry Potter thanks to me. haha
Okay, and lastly of all, Sunday! Since we're the only sisters, I actually volunteered myself to play piano for sacrament meeting. I'm sure you and Sis. Carson will be proud of that! I had to practice before, though, but I didn't do nearly as bad as I thought. It's not that daunting to play piano with an 18-person crowd on Sunday. Which meant all of us, every single one of us (including the presidency and their wives) got to bear testimonies, the missionaries speaking auf deutsch, of course! It's pretty grand. What we say is simple, but at the same time very true.
My last bit of info is that this week we'll have two new investigators, but they'll be played by our own Elders. Until we leave, we'll be teaching other, only we're pretending to be people we know to know what it's like to be an investigator and such. I won't say who I am, but it's a dear friend from high school! I'm not a meanie, much to the relief of whoever's teaching Sis. Nelson and I (we're both investigators being taught at the same time). So yeah, doubling in investigators for the last month!
I miss you all a ton and think about you (but not all the time otherwise I'd be in trouble!) I'm constantly learning new things and I'm constantly trying to teach what I learn! Just as long as I co-teach w/ my Mitarbeiterin and the Holy Ghost, I can't go wrong.
Have a great week, until next Monday!
love,
Whit
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