There are 5 people in my district. Sestra Johnson, Sestra Baird, Sestra Kruel, and Starsi Calderon. Starsi Calderon is our solo Elder, so he either tags along with moj splocnika (my companion in slovak. there are symbols on almost all the slovak words I use, but I have no idea how to add them on a p.c) and I or the other companionship. Kruel is from West Valley (age 24), Baird is from Garden Grove, California (age 20), and Calderon is from finland (age 20). We love our solo elder so much! He is HILARIOUS. (I have pictures of our district but I can't upload pictures on these computers so I will have to send them next monday. Sorry about that) He says the funniest things and the other day we were trying to get him to imitate different accents and it was so funny because he's so good at it. He speaks 5 or 6 languages? I can't remember. It's intense. He does the best in our class.
He speaks swedish and one of the sisters in our district asked him "what's it like to speak swedish?" and he answered "it's like speaking with a potato in your mouth." so I asked "well then what's it like to speak finnish?" and he said "You take the potato out of your mouth."
I don't know why but it was hilarious.
The Language is SO SO SO HARD! No means yes and nie means no. There are no cognates and 50 billion conjugations, vowels change in the middle of words if the words are masculin or feminine, there are masculin animate, masculin inanimate, feminine, and neteur words. (O.O) How will I ever learn this language!?!?! It is so challenging and frustrating. I get overwhelmed becuase we have to teach our investigator and I have so many things I want to tell him, but I just can't because I don't know a lick of Slovensky and all that comes out is French.
BLAGH!
but I got to watch the Joseph Smith movie in French last night which was AWESOME. I realize that I can already understand and very easily explain so many doctrines in french, I can pray, testify, etc. So serving a french speaking mission would have been just like serving an english one. I think the Lord needs me to grow more, but it is so hard.
MTC food is gross... Ryan warned me about the potatoes and orange juice, but he and Camiljo should have mentioned the meatloaf. I can tell that eating the same thing for 9 weeks is going to get very old very fast.
We only have 4 girls in our room though which is nice. (since our district is so small) We go everywhere as a district and people are always suprised with our tiny size :) but I really love them all. Calderon is my favorite and so is sestra baird. (She speaks french and lived in switzerland for a year she's super cool). Calderon and I had a great discussion about socialist europe at lunch for about an hour. It was super interesting to get his view of the picture since he is european.
Our teachers are super nice but they will not speak english to us. Sometimes I have no idea what they're saying. They are very patient with us, especially when we all get frustrated becuase this is the 6th hardest language in the MTC for english speakers to learn. (finish is the first).
We have 1 investigator and his name is Jaro. We have taught him twice now and we are teaching him again tomorrow. (all in slovensky mind you...) He is atheist, doesn't believe in God or Jesus Christ because bad things happen to good people. He likes cars, goes to medical school, is from Bratislava, has a brother but doesn't really have a family. Our first lesson went pretty good but it was so hard! He invited us in and we introduced ourselves, tried to get to know him a little bit (but it's hard in slovak) and I asked him if he believed in God. He said nie! so I said Jesus Christ? and he said nie! and so we were like uh... WHAT DO WE DO!??! So I asked him why and he was just like "bad people". So we asked him if we could pray together. We said a prayer (alllll in slovensky) and then asked if he would pray he just laughed at us! So I was like, please? and he laughed at us again and said we were funny missionaries. So I asked if we could teach him about prayer. We taught him how to pray and then asked if he would pray at the end of the lesson. He said no but he was willing to kneel with us and let us pray. I said the prayer and tried so hard to just invite the spirit and help Jaro to feel anything. We asked him how he was feeling after the prayer and he just shrugged. We were able to set up an appointment and come back the next day. (basically there was a lot of pointing at calendars and watches to try and figure everything out.... but eventually we figured out that we could come back tomorrow at 6:20)
So then we asked him how he had been, how was life, why didn't he believe in God? what does he want from us? what does he want from God? And he told us that if there is a God he wants to find peace. He was peace in his life, which is "pokoi" (which sounds polynesian to me but whatever). So we shared a scripture with him from corinthians that teaches about how God consoles us through prayer and we taught him that God can bring us peace through prayer. We testified of our belief in prayer and shared our testimonies of Jesus Christ. Then we asked, Jaro, did you believe in God when you were younger? and he said yes! Then we asked what happened? and he said bad things happened to (his family? I think. It's all slovak so who knows) so we asked him if he could believe in God again and he said nie. So then I said Jaro, if you want to find peace then you have to pray and believe in God. God is peace. and I shared with him a verse in 2 Nephi that talks about how the devil teaches men not to pray but God commands us to pray. so he asked, so "If I pray, then I will find peace" and we said no (which means YES remember?) and then we said, but you have to pray and really belief and have faith (which are the same word in slovak). So we asked him if he would pray and he said yes!!!! He wouldn't pray with us but he said he would pray that night after we left. He told us to come back monday. (I hope. I wasn't really sure what he said... SLOVAK JE T'ASKY!!! (slovak is HARD!)
So our plan is to teach him the plan of salvation. We think using pictures is a good idea since we don't know much slovak and that we could teach him about Christ and how peace comes through Christ. We want to challenge him to pray morning and night and to see if what we teach him is true. I think we should also challenge him to read parts of the book of mormon because he told us he doesn't believe in the bible or book of mormon.
Sooo that's kind of what's going on in my MTC life right now. Again, respond with dear elders since I will get those before your e-mails. and please have ryan write me.
We also gave our easter eggs full of candy and scriptures yestrday to missionaries just walking around which was great :) I was feeling kind of down, the MTC is rough, so serving people and helping them to have a bright sunny day was great. Sheri Dew also came and spoke to us. She gave a wonderful talk. She talked about relying on Christ and coming to understand how the atonement covers everything, even the small things, and that we need to pray to know what God thinks of us and ask him how the spirit speaks to us, to come to know Jesus Christ, God, and the Spirit on a deeper and more individual level. It was a great speech. We also had Bishop Causse (of the presiding bishopric) and his wife speak to us. THEY ARE FROM FRANCE!?!?! they shared cute little french stories and had the greatest accents. They were amazing speakers.
The spirit is so strong here in the MTC. I have made it my goal to feel the spirit everyday, even P-day, while in the MTC and into my mission.
I love you all, Miss you all, am loving my language classes because it feels like school again! (I will tell you more next week about my companion and our district if I remember or whatever else you want to know)
Sorry for the long e-mail but I hope it lets you see how I'm doing here :) I loved the temple this morning and the MTC is helping me to grow a lot.
see you soon :)
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