MTC West - Week 4

Last Thursday we took pictures at the temple. I will have a few down there, and I have a couple pictures of my Frenchie friends. I get to speak French with them, but only one of them speaks slow enough for me to understand them. No nose bleeds today, yay! I spoke with the Indonesian missionaries a lot too.

Friday, we learned a ton of new things in Malay. It was nice to know these things, because we were given an oral test on this night to see how fluent we are in the language from 1 to 7. I used the stuff I learned to help me on the test, and I did super super well. I was a little nervous but our teacher told us that most people on average get a 3 before they leave the MTC.  I found out on Saturday, but I got a 5!!! Man, I didn't know I was that good. My teacher told me to reach to get a 6 before my mission, but I doubt that will happen. It's really hard to do that in the MTC....

Saturday, we taught another lesson today and my teacher had nothing bad to say about it. He even struggled to think of ways we could improve. Not every lesson will go this well, though. We have a couple days planned ahead, so we won't have to work so much on Sunday.

Sunday - Really slow day, hurray. I was so glad to take a break from it all. I still did some studying, but I wasn't so stressed. Watched a couple short videos about the lives of a couple members of the church in the 1800s. One was a stone cutter and the other donated a lot of money to help the church in building the Kirtland temple. I got a short nap, which meant everything to me. My eyes are constantly red (not completely) because I don't get enough sleep every night, and the hour of computer time I get hurts my eyes because I'm not used to looking at computer screens.

Monday  went by so fast that I don't remember much of what happened. Before I knew it, I was at dinner eating, thinking that it was lunch time. But I also remember that we had an awesome lesson with our investigator Ng (pronounced like Dung, but without the D). Elder Holland was also directly below me. We hoped that he would eat with us, but his meeting went until after our lunch period. Today we thought of weird rumors like we are going to be reassigned to go to China, because our zone leaders had a meeting with the MTC president, and we thought it was about our flight to Singapore. (We might have a very long layover in Hong Kong, but I'll find out next week!)

Tuesday- So today was really short as well. It was really awesome, I saw Ethan and Brigham at choir today! Elder Andersen spoke today, and he shook hands with some of the people, but I was too far back. It's so nice to see both of them. Ethan seems to be doing well from what he told me, and his companion is a lot like him (I didn't meet him, he didn't come to choir) so hopefully that works out well. Brigham won't be coming to the Wyview MTC where I'm at, unfortunately until after I leave. But I will see him and Ethan once more before I leave.

So Tuesday, we have a 30 minute walk back to our classroom at about 8:00pm, but it was raining a ton! Not enough to get us soaked like in Singapore, but I had my nice watch and camera, so I was worried. I just put my suit over them and walked in it. It was awesome ride back. :D :D

Wednesday I went to get my pills for Malaria, so I found out that I will basically have to take them once a day, and make a spray out of a few items to spray on my clothes every 3 months, so that I don't get malaria. I will have to take these pills even after my mission for a whole month. It's insane. I also bought a Kitab Mormon in Malay! they finally had them in the  book store. I have one on my way to the mail, so it will be still good to have 2, but I was just so excited to get one. My district and I started reading together with an English Book of Mormon so we know what "menggemukakan" means. One other thing I did was laminate my pictures in my wallet so they don't get ruined. 

Anyway, very busy busy week and the next week is even busier. I teach 5 times a week now, and I pretend to be an investigator for another missionary companionship, which is pretty fun to do. :D

I hope you are doing very well and having a nice life. Enjoy school for those that are going to school again. :D I completely forgot that it is coming up.

 Here are a few pictures of my week. :) :)

MTC West - Week 3

I will make a short overview of my week, but I don't have a ton of time. I got more fans on my email than I usually do.

Thursday: went to temple, had a bloody nose all day so I was worried I was going to get blood on the clothes.  Having a hard time breathing.

Friday: 3 people in district are sick, but I'm not as bad as others.  Mixed Malay and Spanish together

Saturday still don't feel very good but better.  Not in mood to run. Learned 100 malay words today.

Sunday went to church.  Shorter than normal sacrament because there are so many other people that need to use the chapel. Learned about 70 words. Tried to pray in Czech.  I like it, because it makes me think about what I want to say.

Monday, really tough day. I don't think people like me too much because I'm learning the language a lot faster. Learned 50 more words. Prayed in czech some more.  I got a hold of some Czech source of learning, so I will use it only when I pray.  I will be good at Malay and Czech while on my mission, and then not be able to speak English.  haha

Tuesday not much happened.  We sang in choir and I finally got picture with Brigham.  Two in our district ate spiders.

Wednesday I was asked if I spoke English because I forgot to switch to English for another teacher.  Taught a lesson today but struggled with what the person was saying to me, which is good.  I need challenged.

So I'm doing good, I still have a stuffy nose, but I'm not sick  anymore.

The other Malay district  got bloody noses, and our district got sick. yayyyyy :D :D

 I also have seen Ryland Rammell, Dallin Eckohawk, and Clark Wilkinson. 200 new missionaries on our campus yesterday, and it's going to have more missionaries on MTC West than MTC normal in October.  It's going to be PACKED.

 Brigham & Jesse

 District

MTC West - Week 2

My schedule switches around from day to day, but it is usually the same almost every day. The schedule is hard when I have 6 hours of class time in a row. Usually it is split up into less time. I am starting to get a little bored in the classroom, because that is where I spend most my day. A lot of districts spend some time outside to study, but my district has made it a rule to stay in the class for it all.

Anyway, my companion wakes up at 6:15 to take a shower. I wake up at 6:20, but I shower the night before to save us all some time. The other 2 in my district, Elder Capener and Elder Strathearn, take showers and get ready about 6:25. we get out of apartment by 6:55 and have our 7am class

We read scriptures for an hour, but we always study based on the needs of our investigators (I have 2 people that I teach) then we have breakfast. There is so much food that I restrict my meals to only one plate of food per meal. 

Gym comes at different times of the day, but I like it at night. The sand on the volleyball court is dried up by then. I run about 0.42 miles with my companion, and then I finish up a mile without him. I am hoping to get to 3 miles by the end of my MTC West stay. We then have 1 hour of language study, which means I learn 30-40 words.

So far, I know how to say "Hi, how are you, and good" in Spanish, Italian, French, German, Japanese, Czech, Russian, Malay, Indonesian, Finnish, Lithuanian, Chinese, Malagasy, Hungarian, and Armenian. I could have spent time working on learning Malay, but oh well. People here get excited if you can speak any of their mission language.

I saw Brigham at choir on Tuesday again. Brigham has asked me a few questions about the new campus that I am at because he will transfer here in a couple weeks. He told me a funny story about how it is hard to speak on "faith" in French, because there are 4 words that are so similar. Faith, fire, liver, and time are the same basically.

Anyway, I am loving it here. The people are really nice. We have a ton of food, and we have really nice teachers. We are probably laughing way more than I have ever done before.

By 9:15, we get our letters for the day, and then we are in our apartment by 9:30 so I can write about my day.

Tuesday night, Elder Richard G. Scott spoke on prayer. IT was amazing. I could feel the Holy ghost so strong talking to me. He taught us that we need to make our prayers to God more like a conversation, rather than a list of things we are thankful for and for things we need. We still can ask for things from Him, but we can all improve on having a better relationship with God.

We get answers from Him in one of 3 ways: 1) Peace and confidence. If we pray and feel peace, then the answer we get is good. 2) We feel confused and uncertain. If we feel a stupor of thought, then it is not correct. 3) We receive no response. This is one test that God gives us to grow our faith, and never give up on Him.

 My District

 

Me and My Companion Elder O'Bryant

MTC West - Week 1

Anyway, today is my ninth day here, and I'm loving it. The week is hard, but it is very valuable. Everyone is learning the language very quickly. I have a fake investigator which I have taught five times in Malay so far. We are going to get a new investigator on Friday, so we can learn more about teaching. I feel like I messed up because I kept forgetting everything to do, because it is so hard to speak in Malay. Elder O'Bryant is my companion. He is from Arlington, Washington, and he has already taken a couple years of college through a get-ahead program. Everyone in my district (there are 8 elders and 1 sister, Sister Wynn) is older than me, I am the baby of the place. Anyway, he likes computer programming, and he is really nice. He doesn't get mad very easily so win-win for me.

So there are two sisters that are in our branch that are going to Greece. One is Finnish and the other is Italian. It was a lot of fun to talk to them, especially the Italian one, for obvious reasons. I learned a little Finnish too.

Whoever said that it gets easier after the first Sunday was lying. I really haven't felt home sick or had a hard time adjusting to missionary life, but the days are still so long, and I can't remember one day from the next. I feel like I have been here for months. 

Jenny Oaks Baker played in our Sunday night devotional!  She gave an hour long devotional. The Sunday is really interesting, actually. It's rather slow, so you get some time to catch your breath after trying to prepare several lessons in a language that you don't know. 

My days are all basically the same, but our gym time is usually different each day. We have 50 minutes to do gym time, and I usually run a couple laps, then play volleyball. The Indonesians, Greeks, and Malaysian missionaries all play it, and it's funny because all the Greek missionaries are from Europe, because visas are impossible to get for Americans. So there is a lot of accents saying "smash it!" in different ways.

I have 2 three hour classes with my teachers, brother Simon and brother Horman.

Every morning, i have personal study, language study, and companion study. We seem to have literally no time to read scriptures for OURSELVES. I have read maybe 10 minutes per day of scriptures, and the rest has been working on PMG, and our lessons for investigators, not to mention Malay. I think once I get the hang of the language, it will be so much easier to read more scriptures.

I saw Brigham! Yup, it was an awesome reunion. I caught him in choir, and we talked for a little bit. He is moving up to West MTC on Sept. 4th, so I will see him for a week before I go.

 Sister Sperry & Sister Olsen going to Indonesia

 Me, Sister Silvennoinen & Sister Tripi - Finish & Italian Sisters

 My District At The MTC

Aku akan pergi dan melaksanakan hal-hal yang telah Tuhan perintahkan.

On 14 March 2013, I woke up thinking that my mission call would be coming that day. My goal was to have the Italian Book of Mormon finished before I get my call. However, I still had 20 pages left of it. I had to finish it, because most likely I would lose some interest in reading Italian and would like to start learning the language that I was assigned to learn. (That is, if I was going foreign. It was my hope, though, to go foreign.)
So, I read 10 pages that morning and came so close to finishing my goal. I would finish it tomorrow, I said to myself. Today is the day, and I can't focus on Italian very well.
Well, suffice it to say that my call did not come on this day. So that night, I finished the last 10 pages of Il Libro di Mormon, and woke up the next day for school. It is now a joke that I didn't get my call because I didn't complete my goal.
15 March 2013, I go to school in anticipation to get back home. I had no word from home until second hour, Spanish class. I had received a picture message of my call. There went my concentration on correcting Spanish tests. I was bouncing off the walls with excitement. I told a few of the people in my Spanish class about it, and within 30 minutes, everybody in the school seemed to know about it. After suffering through school for another 4 hours, I jolly well go on my way home to see my envelope.
Somebody had asked me what the price was on the stamp of the envelope. Not knowing exactly what she meant by that, I began to be curious about what the price would represent. So I kept asking my parents, and they refused to tell me until I opened my packet.
7pm, I opened my packet. I had a couple of my favorite past-Priesthood leaders there, my whole family, along with several of my best friends from all over the world.
Dear Elder Vincent: You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You are assigned to labor in the Singapore Mission...You should report to the Provo Missionary Training Center on Wednesday, July 31, 2013. You will prepare to preach the gospel in the Malay language.
My mind is all over the place. I had never even thought of going to such a place! Just weeks before, a return missionary spoke in my ward, who had just come back from Singapore, and he even bore his testimony in Malay. My thoughts of the language were, "Glad I don't have to learn that language." Oh the irony of that thought.
My friends cheered, congratulated me, and went on their jolly way back home. After everyone went home, I was left with my best friend from the Czech Republic, who was probably the most excited for me, perhaps even more excited for me than I was. Being already away from home for over half a year, she gave me some advice for my mission. Hopefully that advice will be very helpful to me later on.
4 months after my mission call, I head to the MTC to learn the Malay language. This is where my journey begins.
with Janean Vincent, Jerry Vincent, Jeremy Vincent, Jared Vincent, Ethan Schow, Brigham Larsen, Eliška Rzehulková, Michael Bushman, Ted Schow, Diane Schow, Paul Gilbert, Connie Jones, Rick Jones, Matthew English(phone), and Alicia Nixon(skype).