Alex seems so grown up and it has only been 3 weeks. I can't believe it! He has changed a lot already and is finding his true self. The person God wants him to be and I kind of like it!
Well, hello. It's weird to think that it's only been three weeks. I feel like I've been here and known these elders for several months. One of them left to Guatemala (there's a three-week, six-week program where he goes to the Guatemala MTC (actually it's the CCM) for the latter six weeks. It felt like someone was going somewhere after a school year or maybe a semester. It's kind of how military men talk about their time with their platoon in basic. Well, there you go.
Do you remember Sister Keller? She had a daughter in Mom's young women's class and that daughter is a teacher at the MTC. She recognized me by my name in a teaching activity. I guess you did something right. She went somewhere Spanish.
Did you see Brennan? Holy cow. He's done. It hasn't even been that long, I think. And now he's all bomb and wants to go to college and stuff. I sort of want to be there for his wedding but I accept that that's unlikely. Meh.
How am I? I don't know. I have never gotten up at this time for more than four or five days, but I don't feel it usually. I had some issues staying awake in slow meetings but that's almost passed. We eat well, but the food is getting repetitive and what we hear about from Chile seems a little better. I've been running every day and lifting whenever I can make it into the gym and the basketball courts are full. I do play that sometimes, surprisingly. It turns out you like most sports as much as you do them, some less, some more. I still prefer lacrosse though.
You probably know this already : dear elders get to me the day you write them, but if you email, I have to read it before replying. So send as much as you want throughout the week, while I can read it off a computer, and I'll reply on email only. When I'm out of the MTC I get about twice as much time, so it will be better then.
I don't think I've ever used the gift of the Spirit like it was given me when I was confirmed before now. I get impressions on a daily basis about what to study, what to do, and what to avoid. I think it has to do with having a little quietness every so often. You only hear it when you show the faith to be quiet enough. It's not because He couldn't turn the volume up if he wanted to.
We're teaching a fake investigator tomorrow. He's "from Saint George, going to Dixie, and has a job with the city." We studied to find what to teach him, and we didn't come up with anything meaningful. Then a teacher taught us to study for the investigator, pursuing his questions and needs, only using PMG as a guide and simplified resource. We had a lesson plan with scriptures in a few minutes that was the best we've ever had. (This is, of course, in Spanish, to make it more ridiculous.) We teach tomorrow. If I was doing some ridiculous message of the week, I say this: Study to help others. That's the deal here on earth, you know. I could be someone you'll don't think you'll ever teach - but that preparation could be what allows the Lord to bring to pass a converting work through you.
There's a movie on my computer's desktop I want you to watch. This 'you' is a plural 'you', which does exist in spanish. It's about finding happiness now, not when something is done. I lived like that as long as I can remember, and let me tell you it's not the way to live. Work as hard as you can, so you will not regret anything, but then, enjoy people and things when you are not working. Don't feel guilty for not working more. You deserve it if you worked hard enough.
Elder Alex C Crist
Things I'd like:
Ties (They're the only way I can express my individuality. And I could use more variety. Three or so could really make things more interesting.)
More chapstick (That bee kind)
Pictures : small book? Nothing fancy, I don't think
Cake - no. No. There's a lot of food here already. I don't think I can use any more for a few weeks.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
P-Day #2
P-Day #2
Alex has been in the MTC for 13 days! (It seems much longer) It is hard to believe. The family won't let me leave cookies in a tree or show up at the Temple on Sunday when all the missionaries are milling around. I want to see him and have him tell me to my face he is doing well but... I may just have to sneakily do something!
September 21, 2010
We'll see what I think of.
We got into a Tuesday-wide arms race to get a good laundry stop this time and we prevailed, but we ultimately got up at an insane 5:30 to beat the other missionaries soundly enough to not fight or get in line for washers. It's never dryers; there's like three times as many. Which makes no sense. Whatever.
There's a really handy word in Spanish, 'pues.' It simultaneously means 'yes,' 'well,' and 'anyway.' So when you say pues, you say "Yes... well, anyway..." Good transition. Handy.
Pues, everything is keeping up to its normal insane pace and heavy spirituality. I haven't really had a desire to watch TV or anything. Music is enough. I'm focused like never before. We do this, and we do it all day, every day, without a chance to rest, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I don't think this is the hardest material I've ever studied, but learning it, speaking it freely to real people, being rolled like a doob several times before catching on to the right ways and doctrines to teach is a growing experience. We are up to a 5-7 minute message in Spanish about the Restoration. We only don't speak Spanish in meals, usually. Or today.
It's almost becoming too much. The language center of my brain is tired and makes mistakes in English very often. For some reason, I have problems remembering when double letters exist, and also those strange three-vowel syllables like the end of simultaneous. I have to spell check them.
Pues, on a normal day, we get up at 6:00. Most missionaries get up at 6:30, but we like the free showers. My companion is always dressed before me, he's one of those fast people. We go to breakfast, which is usually some entre, but most people get cereal and fruit. Then it's usually to class until perhaps lunch, so that's three and a half hours or something. The scedule changes every day, but that's usually how it goes. Usually that class is Missionary Directed Time, sort of a general study time, of which there is about three hours a day. Sometimes it's split up, sometimes all together. A missionary has to get through one hour of personal, companion, and language study each. I don't like personal study because I get bored with it really fast.
My experience with Spanish is really noticeable. If I may, I'd say that I probably was sent to that class to help others as well as learn. I didn't really learn anything for the first week beside Gospel words and things. We've done two kinds of past conjugations, one for instantaneous events and one for habitual or background events. Sort of a "At a time when there was a lot of religious excitement (that's one), Joseph Smith prayed to know which church to join (the other one)," if you will. Neither is really hard to use and the brevity you get compared to English is remarkable. Throw in some pronouns and you can get through a sentence with two words. Lo hacer'e means "I will do that."
Then lunch. Same idea as breakfast, but it gives people serious gas. Serious gas. Not me so much, but I experience plenty of it. Gym is usually about then. I usually play soccer on the big field for the exercise, but sometimes volleyball. I don't eat very well here, I think, but I've tightened my belt regardless. Then class, dinner, and class again. Sometimes a meeting with the Zone, which is about a company-sized group of maybe 4 or 5 districts of 6-12 missionaries. They come and go very often.
Then we plan the next day and talk about how it went. It usually takes about 20 minutes. We have that much to talk about, surprisingly. We contact other missionaries and teach lessons to fake investigators. I'll just some up what I've learned about it so far with this: you have to care about them. You have to care about them for the Spirit to be there at all. Once you have that, it's hard to go wrong.
Pues, I can write on Tuesday with email, then during the week. Dear elders get to me the day you write them, so do those whenever. Sorry, time's almost up.
Alex has been in the MTC for 13 days! (It seems much longer) It is hard to believe. The family won't let me leave cookies in a tree or show up at the Temple on Sunday when all the missionaries are milling around. I want to see him and have him tell me to my face he is doing well but... I may just have to sneakily do something!
September 21, 2010
We'll see what I think of.
We got into a Tuesday-wide arms race to get a good laundry stop this time and we prevailed, but we ultimately got up at an insane 5:30 to beat the other missionaries soundly enough to not fight or get in line for washers. It's never dryers; there's like three times as many. Which makes no sense. Whatever.
There's a really handy word in Spanish, 'pues.' It simultaneously means 'yes,' 'well,' and 'anyway.' So when you say pues, you say "Yes... well, anyway..." Good transition. Handy.
Pues, everything is keeping up to its normal insane pace and heavy spirituality. I haven't really had a desire to watch TV or anything. Music is enough. I'm focused like never before. We do this, and we do it all day, every day, without a chance to rest, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I don't think this is the hardest material I've ever studied, but learning it, speaking it freely to real people, being rolled like a doob several times before catching on to the right ways and doctrines to teach is a growing experience. We are up to a 5-7 minute message in Spanish about the Restoration. We only don't speak Spanish in meals, usually. Or today.
It's almost becoming too much. The language center of my brain is tired and makes mistakes in English very often. For some reason, I have problems remembering when double letters exist, and also those strange three-vowel syllables like the end of simultaneous. I have to spell check them.
Pues, on a normal day, we get up at 6:00. Most missionaries get up at 6:30, but we like the free showers. My companion is always dressed before me, he's one of those fast people. We go to breakfast, which is usually some entre, but most people get cereal and fruit. Then it's usually to class until perhaps lunch, so that's three and a half hours or something. The scedule changes every day, but that's usually how it goes. Usually that class is Missionary Directed Time, sort of a general study time, of which there is about three hours a day. Sometimes it's split up, sometimes all together. A missionary has to get through one hour of personal, companion, and language study each. I don't like personal study because I get bored with it really fast.
My experience with Spanish is really noticeable. If I may, I'd say that I probably was sent to that class to help others as well as learn. I didn't really learn anything for the first week beside Gospel words and things. We've done two kinds of past conjugations, one for instantaneous events and one for habitual or background events. Sort of a "At a time when there was a lot of religious excitement (that's one), Joseph Smith prayed to know which church to join (the other one)," if you will. Neither is really hard to use and the brevity you get compared to English is remarkable. Throw in some pronouns and you can get through a sentence with two words. Lo hacer'e means "I will do that."
Then lunch. Same idea as breakfast, but it gives people serious gas. Serious gas. Not me so much, but I experience plenty of it. Gym is usually about then. I usually play soccer on the big field for the exercise, but sometimes volleyball. I don't eat very well here, I think, but I've tightened my belt regardless. Then class, dinner, and class again. Sometimes a meeting with the Zone, which is about a company-sized group of maybe 4 or 5 districts of 6-12 missionaries. They come and go very often.
Then we plan the next day and talk about how it went. It usually takes about 20 minutes. We have that much to talk about, surprisingly. We contact other missionaries and teach lessons to fake investigators. I'll just some up what I've learned about it so far with this: you have to care about them. You have to care about them for the Spirit to be there at all. Once you have that, it's hard to go wrong.
Pues, I can write on Tuesday with email, then during the week. Dear elders get to me the day you write them, so do those whenever. Sorry, time's almost up.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
First P-day
We were waiting all day on Monday to get an email and there was nothing. So sad! but thankfully I opened the email and yay, a message. It sounds like he is doing well and is happy. We miss him but this is where he wants to be.
I don't think I've ever been busy like I am. There are days when I don't get to choose what I do until 9:30 at night having gotten up at 6:00. (We get up at six to get showers and stuff first. Seven and a half hours is still enough.
I'm going to try to mention some stuff that isn't coming in my paper letters. I sent some because I wasn't sure if I'd get to email for a few weeks. (Turns out the Elder I had asked about it thought I meant laundry... weird story, really.) Turns out I do every tuesday for a half an hour.
Getting up early isn't as bad as I thought it would be now, but it was for the first three days. My being has adjusted to it and now it's really just what I do. I suppose I just moved my schedule four hours earlier. I was sore from gym too for that time, which made it worse, of course.
My teachers are sort of a straight-man funny-man combination. One, Hermano (Brother) Shelline worked at Pizza Factory two years before me in the same very store! He's the straight man. He is pretty serious and calm. He focuses more on words and the things we need to memorize for contacting and teaching lessons. The other, the funny-man, is Hermano Maughan (Mon). He's rather... animated. He jokes every other sentence and is primarily concerned with grammar concepts and non-rote speaking to use between memorized phrases. The way things are taught here is first you memorize some phrases to make yourself functional, and then learn the construction the next week or so. We've already covered about a semester of college spanish. Los Hermanos have promised we will speak effectively in five weeks. And pass for natives in five months. And I believe them.
Here's something for you to memorize like I did:
To invite others to come unto Christ by helping them recieve the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, Repentence, Baptism, Recieving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end.
or
Invitar las personas venir a Cristo a fin de que el Evangelio Restaurado mediante fe en Jesucristo y Su Expiacion, la Arrepentimientos, el Bautismo, la Recepcion del don del Espiritu Santo, el preservar al fin.
I memorized those before I got to my room the first night.That's not because I'm me. It's because I'm His.
Sorry to write so shortly. Our time is timer-limited on the computers. Until then.
Love
Elder AC Crist
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Gone!
Alex was dropped off yesterday and everyone told us it would be like kicking him to the curb. They were right. We got in line at 12:43 and were done and gone by 12:47. It was crazy! I like to think they know what they are doing and they give the missionaries a sense of urgency with stuff to do right away, but there was hardly any time for last hugs or advice or anything. Apparently that should all be done before the actual drop off time! So, two years seems like a lifetime right now but I am confident that it will go by quickly. Well, reasonably confident. It takes a little, read a lot, of time to get used to the idea of him gone. He will be great though so that gives me a little peace. Today I was thinking about him and it already seems like he has been gone for a while. I cannot believe we dropped him off yesterday! This will take getting used to!
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