MTC week 1

Wednesday Arrival

Getting dropped off at the MTC is a pretty exciting and somewhat overwhelming process. First your Nana drives you into the basement parking garage where you give her a quick hug, apologize to your mom for having to take the last picture ever in front of a dimly-lit cement wall, then you are hurriedly swept away by a smiling young man in a white shirt and tie who got here 3 weeks before you did but he already seems like a veteran. Your bags are taken from you, your identity is redefined to 'Elder Halverson', and you are greeted in dozens of different languages by jubilant missionaries all over the place. You are quickly shown to your room (6 beds in a military-style dormitory), then rushed off to your class where you are assailed with rapid Chinese from a short Chinese woman who you assume will be your teacher. You sit in the classroom, smiling and trying to take it all in while one by one the other missionaries in your class come in and sit around you. You dwell in the the reassuring fact that they're all in the same boat. You read the name card on your desk, written in Chinese characters and in English letters 'Hai Zhanglao' 'Elder Halverson'. Pretty awesome!
"Where's my companion?" you wonder, immediately following which two young men walk in, both looking about as excited/overwhelmed as you are. You quickly realize that you are responsible to be within sight and hearing for not one but TWO missionaries for the next 9 weeks.
That's right I have two companions, Elder Ramsey from Wyoming and Elder Brenchley from Utah. Both are elite basketball players, Elder Brenchley is playing at Utah State after his mission. The Lord knew I wanted to play a lot of basketball on my mission and gave me the perfect 3 on 3 team for pickup at the MTC. 
So now I've got my two companions and we go throughout the day, shuffled from classroom to classroom, while spiritual thoughts, encouragement, and just a lot of information is thrown at us. The whole time there is an underlying feeling of joy and confidence that this is where I'm supposed to be. I know I'm making it sound super stressful but really it was a super great day and I'm so excited to be here. The Lord makes me feel at peace and has helped me adapt so quickly. I know this is the right place for me.


How the day is structured more or less:
6:30 wake up
get ready
7:15 breakfast (in the cafeteria, the food is similar to a 4 star hotel)
7:45-8:15 planning for the day with companions
8:30-11:30 Chinese class
11:30-12:15 Lunch
12:15-1:30 Personal study (scriptures, Chinese, etc)
1:30-4:30 Chinese Class
4:30-5:15 dinner
5:15-6:15 exercise time (I would play basketball but the gym is closed this week so I've done a lot of push ups and pull ups)
6:30-9:30 Chinese class or Workshop where they teach us how to teach
9:30-10:30 get ready for bed
10:30 lights out asleep

In between each event I am studying flashcards to learn Chinese

As you can see we learn a lot of Chinese. I feel like I'm worse at English now because I speak and think so much Chinese.

Waking up at 6:30 really proves I'm dedicated to being a missionary. My companions and I are in a District with 11 missionaries, two Sisters and nine Elders. We are all learning Chinese together. All but two (including me) have studied Chinese before or lived in a Chinese speaking country. We got a ton of language materials like the Bible in Chinese and a lot of grammar and vocab books. I'll have no shortage of things to study. Class is fast-paced and there are very high expectations set. There is a sense of urgency to learn the language so that I will be able to teach effectively. It truly STRETCHES my brain to its full capacity to try to learn this new language but it's really rewarding. I'm grateful for the Lord who is supporting me and it really does require a lot of faith for me to know that I was called to learn this language and the Lord is supporting me and knows I can do it. Throughout the day I sometimes feel discouraged and sometimes feel really good about it. Overall whenever I feel discouraged I just push through and show the Lord my faith. It is so empowering to know that I am here on the Lord's time and as His servant and that I am truly dedicating my entire life to this work for 2 years. I'm so excited about it. I love the challenge and it is certainly the hardest thing I've ever done to just be diligently working ALL the time, but it's so rewarding and I love making progress. 

After 3 days here, I could teach a lesson in Chinese, speak and introduce myself, say a prayer, and I had learned over 100 words. Something very amazing that we learned in a workshop this week was that the Defense Language Institute (largest and best government language place) turns out their students with about a 6/10 fluency rate after 72 weeks. This is the highest rated language institute in the world... except... THE MTC! The MTC turns out missionaries with a 6/10 fluency rate in just 9 WEEKS. The government people apparently come to the MTC sometimes to figure out how we do it. The truth is, it is not us it is the Spirit giving us the gift of tongues as we work hard to do the Lord's work. It's truly amazing and I can feel the effects as I randomly remember words and string them together to teach. 
My companions and I did a practice lesson the 4th day here and it went well. I feel such a love for the people I will teach even though I haven't met them yet. I feel such a great confidence to do this work. That is how I can push through the challenges of learning this language and being in this new life- because I know there it is truly the best thing I could be doing right now. 
Sunday was a really spiritual day. We don't have Chinese classes but instead have church and lots of gospel classes. We also had an amazing devotional with a lot of the apostles who were here this week to teach new mission presidents. It was the most apostles that have been here in a long time, pretty much all 12 were here! Elder Holland spoke to us and told us that the meeting with the missionaries and the apostles was the most important meeting in the world because we are doing the Lord's work. That is so amazing. 
It's hard to remember specifics, I've only been here 5 days but it feels like so long. I can feel the Lord shaping me to be a better person as I turn my entire life to him. I love dedicating myself and I truly love being a missionary. I am learning now what the means, because it's definitely not easy. It's really hard to do this at times but I am just so happy and faithfully push through those challenges. The Elders in my District are great guys too and it's been fun to get to know them. Since we're all in it together it makes it fun when we try to speak Chinese to each other. 
Anyway, I would love to get emails from everyone! I can read them throughout the week and then respond on Mondays. 
Awesome first week!

Elder Halverson
Hai Zhanglao




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Backflips at the Sydney Operahouse

Image
Hey everybody hope you're having fun with the snow and the cold, it's in the 80s here in Australia. We had another good week and honestly a lot of cool moments. The biggest thing I'm learning right now is how to rely on the Lord and always trust that He has a plan for us even when we can't see it for ourselves. We had an amazing opportunity to go to the Sydney Operahouse and watch a performance. Our mission president authorized it and sent all us missionaries from the city to go see an acrobatics show. It was so awesome, seeing people do flips and stuff was so exciting and reminded me of my life back home where I was always jumping off cliffs and bridges and stuff. It was the first time I've gone to a show and said all my side comments in Chinese, since half the missionaries there were the Chinese ones. It was a great experience to do something 'touristy', and it's forever crossed off my Sydney bucket list. I went on a trade off with E...
Read more

Corona Ball

Image
Hey everyone,  Situation is definitely crazy but spirits are high. So we got moved to some random suburb outside the city and got quarantined. We can only go out if we have a scheduled lesson, so we do most of our lessons on video call. It's been fun to still be speaking Chinese to all my new friends I've made here. I love learning Chinese so much, it's been one of the biggest blessings of my mission. This week has been so weird, we've spent a lot of time inside. After we studied the scriptures as much as we could and called everyone on our phones, we were still left with a lot of time. So we made up a sport called Corona Ball so we can get some exercise.  My mindset is just to do my best and trust that the Lord has a plan. I know He's got this all figured out, and I don't need to know exactly why the world is facing this crisis right now. There are blessings to be found everywhere. For example, before we got quarantined, we got to help a guy fix a f...
Read more

Pet Cemetery

Image
Hey everyone, just in case you are wondering, the fires here in Australia are getting better. There were some really smoky days last week where we weren't allowed to go outside, but other than that it's improved. Everybody in the country and a lot of the people in the world fasted for rain last week. The next day, it rained. It was a huge miracle and since then we've had the rain we need. Thank you for the prayers.  So, what about the missionary work? Well, it's been pressing forward and we've had some cool experiences.  The first one is about a giant spider. Well all my jokes at the beginning of my mission about seeing giant spiders finally paid off. There I was at 6:32 AM, stumbling into the bathroom, grabbing my toothbrush, sitting there brushing my teeth not even thinking straight and still trying to open my eyes. Then I look over and a foot away eye level with my head is this massive spider it's as big as my hand and I was no longer asleep after ...
Read more