The MTC is just marvelous. There are four girls in my room (most have six). Every day or so we teach some "investigators". They are employees of the MTC to help us practice teaching in Spanish. We only speak Spanish. Their names are Constantino and Marcos. Yesterday I told our investigator I would pray for his sunburn. Tomorrow I am going to say "Marcos! I prayed for your sunburn, did you pray to know the Book of Mormon is true?" We think we are pretty funny over here. Our Spanish is really broken so yesterday we were teaching about the Plan of Salvation. My companion, Hermana Biggs from Mesa Arizona, tried to say that the goal is to return to live with our Heavenly Father again. Well.... we only know about ten words in Spanish. We didn't know the word for "goal" so I decided to act it out. I acted out kicking a soccer ball and making a goal. Then our investigators thought they got points for going to heaven. They started acting out cheering. It was really funny. I think we laugh too much in our lessons... Sometimes they just listen to our Spanish and laugh. They fake like they don't know English. " Eh, Constantino! Como se dice trajabador en Englais?" "No se." That is how the conversations go. Hermana Biggs and I just laugh on the inside (sometimes outside) because we know they know English. That sentence was "How do you say hard-working in English?" "I don't know." Hermana Biggs and I are having quite the time with Spanish. Pretty much everyone else took it in high school. I am the oldest person in out district. I am probably the oldest in our zone also. I am also the only one who has never taken a language. There are 5 elders in our district and 4 hermanas. All of the hermanas are in my room. They are super nice. One is from Salt Lake, the other from Albecerque. I tried to tell her that joke from National Treasure and she just kinda looked at me weird. Must never have seen that movie. I thought it was a funny joke.
The MTC is pretty good. I got to go to the temple
today. We did initiatories. It is not weird at all to have a companion. I
kinda feel like I have had a companion forever because I was always
with Megan. At school, at home, at stores, etc. It was good practice. My
companion is really nice, but we are different. She is pretty outspoken
and is just a go-getter. I am more the type that sits and listens and
stuff like that. It was a little challenging at first because she was
just ready to do everything but we have been learning to work together.
It is going a lot better. Yesterday
was pretty cool. We were trying to decide what to teach our
investigators. It was during personal study time and I decided that I
would read Preach My Gospel. During companionship study we talked and we
both had read about baptism during personal study and felt like we
should share that. It was pretty cool because we hadn't talked about it
and baptism seemed pretty random. As far as investigators go, I wouldn't
have thought that these two were ready to hear something like that. We
went in to our lesson and it took a while to start talking about that,
but we finally did and they ended up having a lot of questions about it.
Constantino comes from a Catholic background, so he has been baptized,
but Marcos is Baptist and has never been baptized. We talked about it as
best as we could, but I will admit it is a little challenging trying to
answer questions when I don't really understand what they are saying
and I don't know the words to use in Spanish. Having answers is not
hard. It is knowing the Spanish words that is hard. It is really good
practice to talk to them.
So, I know someone made a joke about sister
missionaries getting leadership positions, but really, they do! Today I
had an interview with the two "Sister Training Leaders". They are
leaving next week, so I wondered if maybe they would ask me to be a new
one. I don't really feel like they will ask me because my Spanish is not
so great. Who knows? My companion Hermana Biggs is the senior
companion. I think that is pretty funny because I am a year older. But,
it doesn't really matter. I think we switch in two weeks or something. I
don't know. We don't even really do anything that needs a senior/junior
companionship because our whole schedule is planned for us already. We
study all day. If we are not studying Spanish, we usually feel really
weird and think we are sinning or something... it is kinda funny.
We met the Branch President (I got to play the piano for Sacrament Meeting on Sunday!).
His name is President Wilkins. He is really nice and knows Spanish.
Gives good advice. The first counselor is Brother Monson, nephew of
President Monson. Second counselor is Brother Driggs. It is exciting! Sunday
was pretty good but felt strange because I didn't study the Gospel for
14 hours like I do on regular days. Right now there are over 4,000
missionaries here. Something funny about the MTC.... so they have a lot
of missionaries (elders and sisters) who are the same age. On the first
day, we went to an orientation. What did they say in it? No jogging
dates! We got to class and they emphasized that we do not flirt with
each other in our district. We are family. Do we flirt with our
brothers? No! It was pretty funny. I am like ... I don't want to flirt
with any of them! They are years younger than me! All the time I see
sisters and elders talking together and me and my companion laugh
because we are seeing this so called "flirting". Really. It is
everywhere. The sisters also get modesty talks every week. I bet the MTC
was really different 12 months ago.
On the first day, we went to a seminar about teaching
the gospel and caring about people. It is really neat here in the MTC
because when we talk about learning a language, we talk about how we
should be focusing on learning for our investigators. It is not about
learning Spanish. It is about bringing others to Christ and we happen to
be doing it in Spanish. In the seminar we talked to a "investigator". I
learned more about how we need to make sure that we are teaching
people, not lessons. We need to listen.
There have been a few moments where I wasn't homesick,
more like lonely. I just wanted someone by me who really loved me
because there is no one here who does. I just thought about my family. I
was sitting in a devotional and the lady speaking said "You aren't
alone. Jesus loves you and is always with you" or something like that.
All the sudden I remembered and just thought about how true that is. I
am not alone. There is always someone who loves me.
I feel like I should be saying something really epic
here at the end... so I will bear my testimony in Spanish. I really am
quite a lot better than I was. It can be hard and discouraging, but it
helps when I pray for the gift of tongues. Yo se que JesuChristo es
nosotros Salvador. Traves Christ, todos cosas es posible. There you go. I
can pray in Spanish also. Hopefully next week I can speak in Spanish.
That would be awesome.
Love,
Hermana Clark
Hermana Clark's district.
Hermana Clark's investigators. She's pretty sure this family is "golden."
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