MTC Week 2

My district at the temple this morning

It's been an amazing week this week! TONS of language study, and lots of lessons with our "investigator." We've been so stressed about our language studies, that we haven't been focusing on much else. We still have been doing some studying in the scriptures and Preach My Gospel, however, we've mostly been occupied with writing scripts for our lessons. As we've gotten more comfortable with the language, we have been able to do more of other things. Yesterday was our first lesson with out any notes, though, and it went really well! We, of course, aren't super comfortable with the language yet, and we spoke in super broken French, but we still were able to understand everything she asked and were able to answer her questions fully! The gift of tongues truly is a very real thing.

One of our favorite study spots

The language classes have been pretty difficult, but our teacher, Soeur Hunt, is great. She pushes us really hard and moves very fast, but it encourages us to learn very fast. It's crazy how much we've been able to learn in the short week we have been here. We have great study materials that are pretty good at teaching phrases, and after we get familiar with the phrases we are able to understand some of the grammar concepts and can then tweak phrases to say pretty much whatever we want (if we know the vocab) fairly easily. It's been such an amazing experience!

My first Sunday here was AMAZING. We had really great normal church meetings, but then we had a few interesting meetings and devotionals after the regular church stuff. Elder Bednar and his wife came to speak to us at the evening devotional! It was such an amazing experience and it was awesome to hear them speak. He was able to answer a few of the missionaries' questions, and he is so good at answering even the most complex doctrinal questions in simple terms so that everyone can understand. He really is such a smart and amazing man. On Tuesday we had another evening devotional, and Elder Satati (I think that's how you spell it) from the Quorum of the Seventy and his wife came to speak to us as well. It was such a great talk, and he was able to make us feel much more confident as missionaries.

My district

My district is getting really close and it is such a blessing. We all get along super well, and it's like having a second family which makes things much easier. We have been spending a lot of time together, and it's a very good thing that we're all friends. My companion and I are able to have tons of fun experiences, along with lots of spiritual experiences as well. He and I are really getting along.

Every P-Day, our zone goes to the Provo Temple early in the morning which is such a fun and amazing experience. I would have mentioned it last week, but I forgot to take pictures so I knew that my mom would get mad at me, had I mentioned it and not sent pictures. But I was better this time and remembered to bring my camera so we took a few.

Some of the Elders in my district with the Canadian flag

I can finally see why people often gain a lot of weight in the MTC... The food is actually really good, and you can eat basically as much as you want, and some Elders eat A TON. I've been able to restrain myself for the most part, and I exercise every day, but it is still very hard to control myself when I have an all-you-can-eat cereal bar.

A quote from "The Office" that I wrote down on the board and everyone
apparently loved - super applicable to teaching lessons!

Like my brother Andrew, I have been sleep walking and talking a lot recently, according to my roommates. Apparently, I stared out the window for like 15 minutes one night. I got up twice and turned the lights on to get ready at 1:00 and 3:00 AM another night, and I started going through my roommates' closets another night... I really need to figure out how to stop! Luckily they all just mess with me and think it's funny, so it's not a big deal. I just hope I stop waking them up all the time!

The cover for our next album

Anyway, I'm having such a fun time here. Everyone has been so great, and it's making the adjustment a whole lot easier. The spirit is so strong here and it has been such a great experience so far. Until next week! Bonjour!

Love,

Elder James