Halo! Saya bagus! Apa Kabar? Saya tao Yesus Kristus hidup dan jeruselamat-Nya dan Bapa Surgawi membantu kati.
Hello! I am great! How are you? I know that Jesus Christ lives and is our Savior and Heavenly Father helps us.
I have learned so much in my week here at the Missionary Training Center (MTC). The language is so much fun to learn. There are 11 missionaries in my class, which composes our District. There are several Districts in a Zone. My Districts is on track to learn more of the Indonesian language than most other Districts.
All of my days start out the same. I get out of bed at 6:29 so that I can beat everyone else to the bathroom. Then I come back to my room and do ~20 min of stretching while everyone else is getting changed. I take less time to get ready, so I can still finish by the same time as the other missionaries. We eat breakfast at 7:15. I always have a big glass of water before and after each meal. After breakfast we go back to our rooms to get our supplies and brush our teeth, then go to the classrooms. We have a scheduled class in the mornings, but we haven't had a teacher for the past while, so we do personal and companion study. At 11:30 we eat lunch, then we normally have an hour afterwards to workout. My companion and I use half of our workout time to do calisthenics, then go to the fields and play volleyball for the other half. Afterwards we shower, change, and study more. Dinner is at 4:30 (wayyyyyy to early), then we study again. Class is from 6:30-9:00, but soon we will have class twice a day, the other class being from 8:30-11:30. At 9:00 we go back to our rooms and change. Normally we just hang around and talk. I finish up my calisthenics routine during this time, and then get ready for bed. Lights out at 10:30. Rinse and Repeat
On Sunday was our first devotional. I can't remember the name of the couple who spoke, but they used to be in charge of all 14 international MTCs. They were most recently serving as mission president in some mission in Japan. After the devotional we got to watch a film. My companion and I choose to watch The Character of Christ, a talk from Elder Bednar. I loved it. I learned the importance of turning outward, and not inward. If there is one thing that our Savior did, it was turn outward. He taught us to serve others, and not ourselves. Our District has been working on this. Boy is it hard.
On Tuesday was our second devotional. Elder Feo (??) spoke to us. He is from Italy. I learned that we must plan for others, and not for ourselves. We must also always stand as a light of Christ. Do not be afraid to share the gospel.
I love hearing from all of you guys. Keep writing me. I will try and respond to as many emails as possible. If you are sending me more than one email, please reply to your first email. I receive several letters every day, and my inbox is very full. It makes it so much easier to see who I need to write to if I only have one conversation with each person.
I have three different teachers that teach Indonesian. I can understand a lot of what they are saying now. They only speak in Indonesian to us. I ask them a lot of questions about Indonesia. Let me tell you what I have learned. For the next two years my left hand will be my toilet paper (gross), but on the bright side they have squat toilets. Meals there all cost less than a dollar, and you are being wasteful is you spend more than five dollars a day. There isn't much violent crime there, on account of the strict punishments, but there are a lot of thief and pickpockets. If someone catches someone trying to steal something, it is common for a group of people to catch the thief and beat them up. You can really lose an arm out there. The people are all pretty poor. I can't wait until I get to go and start teaching them!
Know who you are and what you believe in. Stand as a witness of Christ in all time and in all places. Strengthen your testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and constantly convert yourself unto him. Our testimony is our witness of Christ, but our conversion is our outward expression of that faith. It is not enough to simply know, but we must do also.
Here is my MTC zone in front of the Provo temple.
Here is my MTC zone in front of the Provo temple.
