MTC Week 5 - All the Apostles

Time flies so weirdly here at the MTC.... so I'm so sorry this email, isn't in a chronological order 😓

All the Apostles:
So fun fact, what happens when you have a mission presidents seminar and ALL of the Quorum of the twelve visit the MTC.... AT THE SAME TIME. We saw Elder Bednar and Elder Ballard touring the buildings (we were trying to be obedient so we had to forlongingly walk past them and stare down at them from our classroom window...) BUT last Tuesday was the commemoration for the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith, and guess who showed up????? 10/12 and most of their wives!!!!! I've never seen a bunch of missionaries get so quite 😂. Since I'm in the choir, we all got to sing "Praise to the Man", which was such an amazing experience! And then Elder Bednar spoke on what the "Word of God" was, and how we need to "Treasure it up in our hearts continually".... So good!!!! I'm so lucky to be at the MTC at this time!

All the Mission Presidents:
With all the mission presidents here we got to be Guinea pigs. The new mission presidents for Cote d'Ivoire came with his wife and taught us EN FRANCAIS!!!! Sooo awesome, my French was terrible, but Soeur Perry and I got to teach them in front of the class, nerve racking, but an awesome experience! President Benine and his wife are from the Democratic Republic of Congo and they are some of the nicest, intelligent, spiritual people I've met! They had so many great insights on how to improve my teaching, and my French! They also were able to explain to us how to look at our teaching from the
investigators perspective (all en francais, the gift of tongues is so real)!

Picture of our District with President Benine and Sister Benine

After the devotional Tuesday, we were able to have our district meeting with President and Sister Sorenson who are going to be the new mission presidents for the Paris, France mission. They're from Santa Barbara! We had an amazing discussion. Heaven Father truly prepares amazing people to do His work 😃

All the Scheduling Problems:

So fun fact, since my district has been here for a week longer than I have, and my mission presidents has zone conference next week, I get to stay in the MTC for another week and a half. So I'm flying out on July 12!

Funny story... SO when I realized I didn't have my flight plans I had to go to the travel office. They told me to go see my District President, which was in T1 (which was closed down to missionaries because the mission presidents seminar was in that building) but they let us in 😃 (no unfortunately I didn't get to talk to/ see any Apostles while I was in there, but it was still cool). My District President is President Smith and he's actually the best! He got a hold of my mission president and was able to contact a lot of people to get my schedule sorted out!

 However it was super funny because apparently most missionaries go to see their district president when they're fighting 😂 so while I was talking to President Smith, Soeur Perry was in the waiting room and another district president stopped by. He asked her if I was having melt down and she was so confused. After I was done talking the other district president was still there and we finally told him it was a scheduling issue. We also laughed it off, but they still asked us to say something nice about each other 😂 (which wasn't hard because Soeur Perry is the actual best)

Anyway basically I'm not so sure what my schedule is going to be yet (they'll tell me later today), but it definitely was an interesting part of my week!

Infield Orientation:

So yesterday we had infield orientation (usually you go a few days before you leave, but as my District is leaving I got to go!) it was 9 hours, but totally amazing! We did this amazing case study about member missionary work that occurred in the Boston Massachusetts Mission (shout out to Julie) they showed us statistics on member referrals and honestly, members at the best and most effective missionaries! We're set apart to teach people, but it's really the members and ward who are there to support people. I really learned a lot, and it changed my perspective on missionary work, and I felt more confident about contacting 😄 something that one of the teachers said about contacting (applies to talking about the gospel in general) is that when we don't speak up, we're basically taking that person's agency away from them by thinking that they wouldn't want to hear the gospel ". I know that Heavenly Father puts people into our lives for a reason, it's up to us to have the courage to speak up!

On French:

Yikes..... So it's getting better... I think? The good news is that I don't believe I've said anything offensive yet! (That I know of...) funny things people have said:

My teacher: Et puis, nous allons aller à T3.....hahaha!!! *T3 in French is said Tay-Trois which sounds exactly like Tais-toi (Shut up!)

Someone in my District during a lesson: "qu'est-ce que vos péchés?" She meant to say "penses" which means thoughts, but instead she said "what are your sins?"

Someone else: "nous pouvons voulez vous..." He meant to say we can help you, but basically what he said was "we can want you".

Me and Soeur Perry: our investigator (first lesson) "Est-ce que vous étes les Temoin Jehovahs?" Us: "Oui". We honest to goodness couldn't hear her, but she asked us if we were Jehovahs Witnesses.....and we said yes.....yikes.....

On MTC craziness:

So when you hit about week 2 you get sick of all of your clothes.... SO you end up lending and borrowing clothes to the max. Also you're mother becomes Sainted because she made dresses for your entire district (and then some).

Me (wearing Soeur Stuki's dress) Soeur Ortiz (wearing my dress) and Soeur Stuki (wearing my shirt and skirt).

Anyway, I'm doing great! I hope everyone is well! I guess my scripture for this week is Alma 32. I know that when we have faith we are able to receive the blessings that God has for us! I love you all!

Love,

Soeur Smith