Has it really only been a week since last
P-day? I've gathered some evidence and have concluded that time at the
MTC is completely different from time in the real world. I believe one
week here correlates to about 4 years in real time. So as you can guess,
after another week, I'm much older and wiser. By the time I leave the
MTC I should be able to get a senior discounts at restaurants, so yay
for that. Okay, I'm kidding, but seriously the best way to describe it
is the days go by slow but the weeks go by sooo fast. And to best
summarize this week I'm gonna do bullet points for this email.
*
Every Sunday for Sacrament meeting the President of the Branch (which
consists of all the French speakers at the MTC, last week we had about
45-50 missionaries, but we also had 20ish missionaries leave this past
week, to France and Tahiti and we just got 20 more missionaries this
past Wednesday, so you do the math), he chooses 2 random missionaries to
speak in church for a few minutes and he doesn't ask them until like 5
seconds before their supposed to talk so every Sunday is like Russian
Roulette. You never know who it's gonna be and the anticipation killer. I
haven't gotten called to talk yet because my district is still so new,
but I'm betting sometime in the next few weeks my fate will be decided
and I'll have to give a talk in French. Dun dun duuunnnnn. Just kidding
it'd be fine. I'd only die a little inside.
*
There's an Elder in my district who is from Taiwan, his name is Elder
Chih and he's awesome. His english is pretty good, but I feel bad
because he's learning French from English and English from Mandarin, so
you can only imagine the conversations that go around in his head.
Pretty crazy. Anyways, I asked him if he could give me Chinese name and
he said he would! So here it goes, in written Chinese it's pronounced
like "Tho Mai Zhen" and it means Pure Rose and when he told me, my heart
almost exploded. He's so great. He also eats like a Sea Monster,
meaning that he eats like 3 entrees each meal, and he's not a big guy
(right now at least), so I guess we'll see what he looks like after 4
more weeks!
*GUESS WHO WAS IN MY ZONE. Only a
famous Mormon's grand-daughter. Nope not, Donny Osmond, or Ryan Gosling
(he's not practicing I know), BUT THAT'S RIGHT YOU GUESSED IT... MITT
ROMNEY. YUP. Mitt Romney's GRAND-DAUGHTER was in my Zone! She's super
cool and very nice. She's going to Paris, like her father and
GRAND-FATHER (well actually she just left this last week, so now she's
in Paris) and before she left I totally became friends with her. I got a
picture with her, so yup I won the MTC.
*Here's
a few fun things that happened this week with learning French. I was
teaching another lesson (to a fake investigator, AKA my teacher) I was
talking about Jesus and how through him we can be cleansed from sin, but
apparently the word for sin in French "peche" is pronounced very
similar to the words that mean both peach and fisherman. So I ended up
saying "Through Christ we can be cleansed from peaches (and/or
fisherman)." My teacher then gave me this super confused look and I gave
the same look right back to him, it was only later that I came to the
knowledge of my language fumble. ALSO, I once said that "Jesus came INTO
the earth" not "to the earth." So, to clarify, no I don't believe
Christ came into the core/mantel of the earth.
*On a
more spiritual note, for Tuesday night's devotional we had Elder Ronald
Rasband of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles come and speak to us. TALK
ABOUT COOL. It was a very cool experience. Before the devotional we were
asked to read his talk called "The Divine Call of a Missionary" which
talked all about how mission calls are given and the process that takes
place before mission calls are assigned. Then for his devotional, which
was interactive with the entire MTC, we further discussed the divine
call each missionary receives. It just reaffirmed in my heart that I
have been called by God, to be a representative of Christ and to invite
and help others receive His restored gospel. And I've been called to
Montreal for a reason, and there are people I'm supposed to meet there
who have been prepared to hear the glad message of the gospel. WHAT A
TIME TO BE A MISSIONARY!
* On a sad note, one
of the two teachers who's been teaching us for the past few weeks, Frere
(which means Brother in French) Davis, had his last day teaching at the
MTC yesterday. It was really sad to say goodbye because our entire
district has gotten really attached to him, he's the one who's been
teaching us French and the other teacher, Frere Nollet, has been our
investigator. So saying goodbye was very hard. But he left our district
full of hope because all of Wednesday and Thursday he just talked about
his mission (he served in Paris a few years ago), and shared what he
learned from it. He told us that before his mission he was horrible at
English, he hated reading in front of people and barely made it through
high school, and once he got a mission call to France he was excited but
he was also terrified. He said that while he was at the MTC his French
was AWFUL, and that it took him months and months after he already
gotten to France to even become almost comfortable in the language. But
he worked hard. Every single day he studied the language and by the time
he came home, he was more than fluent in French and his English
improved ten fold. He said he knew it was because God filled in the
cracks when his efforts weren't enough and he accredits all of his
success to Heavenly Father's blessings. His story gave me a lot of hope.
Because learning a language is hard. There's been times this week when
I've just been really overwhelmed because we leave for Quebec in only 24
days, and considering how much I've learned and how much I need to
learn before then, it sent some panic signals off in my brain. BUT. In
Doctrine and Covenants Section 6 verses 33, 34 and 36 we are commanded
THREE times by Christ to "fear not," and I'm in no position to not be
keeping the commandments right now, so all I can do at this point is not
fear for the future, but to have faith in Christ and His ability to
bless me. Verse 36 it says "look unto me (Christ) in every thought;
doubt not, fear not." How simple is that. So simple, so beautiful and so
perfect.
If there is one thing that this week
has taught me, it's that blessings come from diligence. And that
specific prayers to God will receive specific answers. So we need to be
specific in our pleadings with our Father in Heaven, and ask him
questions and have the faith that He will answer. Because He does hear
our prayers, He is listening and He will answer them. Maybe not in the
way you want, but in the way you need. I know my Father lives. I know
Jesus Christ is my Savior. Everyday I'm more and more grateful for the
gospel. What a blessing it has been to my life. And that's why I'm here.
That's why I'm a missionary, so I can bring those blessings to the rest
of Heavenly Father's children.
I love you all,
Soeur Thomas
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