Mike can write an email once a week. He emails his mother, who then forwards them to me (thank you Debbie!!). The MTC is really structured and Mike basically summarized his routine for the two months in his first email. “We pretty much wake up, study, eat, class, study, eat, class, class, class, class, eat, class.” That’s only partly true; that’s basically all they do every single day, but he always has so many funny stories and wonderful experiences he shares. The remainder of this post are some of my favorite stories and pictures from him that he had sent home during his time at the MTC.
Mike’s companion is Elder Stewart and he LOVES him. It sounds like they have so much fun together.
“I am so happy I got the companion that I did, because he is hilarious and awesome. He gets so mad at me for being so good at Spanish, but he always keeps a positive attitude and is such a good kid. It is really good to have him around. And since each room is made for 4 people, and we came in with a trio, and since one of ours left, we have a whole 4 person room to just the two of us. It is so fun haha.”
“In funny news this week, Elder Stewart and I are in the MTC Choir. Because we are good singers? No. Because next week on Christmas day, we are all anticipating someone high up in the church to come, and choir has guaranteed good seats hahaha. It is actually way fun though. We sang at the devotional (just a thing every Tuesday where someone speaks) and we were on the big screen and stuff singing our little hearts out. A tonnnnn of people in there cant sing, but when that many people are singing, it really doesn’t matter haha. It sounded good to me! So that’s pretty sweet/funny. Elder Stewart can nottttt sing to save his life, so I love sitting next to him and hearing him A. be completely off and whisper to hide his voice or B. not sing at all. Cracks me up.”
“Elder Stewart is seriously so funny. I have to be like his mom sometimes here because sometimes he will either not know how to do things or will just do things without thinking them through, and I have to reign him in haha. I don’t know if I said this, but I had to teach him to laundry which was hilarious haha so thank you mom for making me self sufficient. There is a sickness going around (which I will talk about in a second) so Elder Stewart decided to arm himself with vitamin C. Makes sense right? Not when you take 8 500mg tablets of vitamin C. He took EIGHT! Because he wanted to be extra healthy? No. Because he took one, really liked the taste, and started to pop them like they were skittles until I told him to stop hahaha. It was so funny. I caught him downing some nyquil, then 3 minutes later trying to take sudafed AND ibuprofen. Like literally opening the containers to get all the pills together. I’m not sure if he’s trying to kill himself, or if he doesn’t realize that just because each box says it will help with different symptoms doesn’t mean you have to take 5 of each type of medicine you have haha. It is seriously so funny. He always goes "oh...you’re probably right. Thanks!" and then just moves on haha.”
Mike spent Christmas in the MTC this year. I sent him a “Christmas in a Box” package full of his favorite treats and his mom sent him a new camera for the mission and some other gifts.
“I had my first white Christmas, and I'll be ok if it was my last. Snow is cool and all, but I’m over it haha. You can get anywhere in the MTC under a covered walkway, but the snow was seriously going up, down, left, and right. No bueno. It was miserable. I was like frozen to the core. They did a really great job of making it not feel as lame as most of us thought being away from our families would be. Christmas Eve, we ended class like sometime in the afternoon, and that night we had a Fireside(which is where some speaker just comes and gives a talk) and a performance of the Nativity scene. That was way funny because they actually used a real baby for baby Jesus, and it started WAILING, so the mom came on stage and grabbed it out of the little manger, and then "Mary" reached under the straw and pulled out the baby doll stunt double. Twas hilarious. After that, they said "we are going to watch a movie! who wants popcorn?!" And we were all confused because how do you get 2037 missionaries popcorn?? All of the sudden they bring in like 40 giant black garbage bags filled to the brim with individually wrapped bags of caramel corn and started chucking it everywhere. It awesome. Then we watched "A Christmas Carol" and went to bed. We all had presents from home that we left wrapped so we'd have presents Christmas morning. We woke up, unwrapped, and just started messing around with all our gifts. After that, we ate breakfast, and went to devotional. They always bring someone special for holidays, and today Elder Russel M. Nelson of the Quorom of the Twelve Apostles came and spoke. So that was good. We (me and Elder Stewart) sang in the choir which was awesome. We sang "Where Shepard’s Lately Knelt" and a cool arrangement of "The First Noel" and it was awesome. Russel M. Nelson said we were more magnificent than the Tabernacle Choir. And we got on the big screen. Soooo I guess you could say we are a kind of a big deal around here. I've always been such the singer, Kim can testify to that, so it just comes so natural for me to be in the choir. I have found my true calling. Chiste. (joke). Oh, speaking of singing, we always sing hymns in Spanish now and its like my favorite thing in the world. So be excited for that when I get home. My recent favorite is "Mas Cerca Dios De Ti", or as you gringos would say "Nearer my God to Thee". So fun haha. For the rest of the day, we just had more food and candy, had one more talk by a famous painter, and then watched "A Wonderful Life". We left 2 minutes in because I was about to die of heat exhaustion in the gym haha. Anyways, Christmas was good! It was definitely different from what I am used to, but it was an awesome experience.”
“During our first class on Wednesday (December 5th), our teacher didn’t speak English even once. Pretty much full immersion haha. I can understand Spanish reallyyyy well. Like oddly well, I am surprising myself haha. The speaking part is ok, but I can pretty much always get my point across, even though I probably sound super dumb. We were told Wednesday night that we would be teaching a fake investigator (someone curious about the church) on Friday night TOTALLY in Spanish. 3 days here and we were teaching totally in Spanish. How nuts is that?!”
“Like I said, we have been teaching a fake investigator this past week. It is a teacher here acting like he one of the investigators from his mission. He doesn’t break character at all, meaning he doesn’t speak English or help us whatsoever. It is crazy. We prepare lessons and try to memorize all these lines teaching him all these different concepts of the church, but then he asks us questions. My companion just looks to me to answer because he has NO clue what he is saying and somehow I am able to have full on conversations (in broken Spanish) and am able to get my point across well enough that he is able to understand. It really is a blessing to have the Spirit with us as we teach and to say things that we honestly didn’t even know we knew how to say.”
“I definitely have a HUGE advantage here being a convert to the church. I am able to relate to our investigators because I know exactly how they are feeling. It is honestly such a cool upper hand to have to know the answers to all their questions that they are having and be able to tell them how I found the answers. My testimony of this gospel really grows and grows every day. I am overwhelmed with the feeling that I know that this is where I am supposed to be. And I will definitely come back better for it. I am so excited to be able to go out and help people find the joy that this gospel has brought me and continues to bring me. I am loving it here.”
“I think that’s a huge reason I am so successful right now with the language, because understanding people during lessons and knowing what you want to say to them but not knowing exactly how to say it realllyyyy requires you to rely on the Spirit to help you teach, and I feel like I’m doing a good job of that right now. It is amazing to go through a lessons and come out having no idea how I just had a 30 minute conversation in Spanish with someone when two weeks ago I would only say one line of Spanish.”
“It is so funny being a convert here. First of all, the fact that I got baptized like a year ago makes people think I am so cool for whatever reason haha. Second of all, people are ALWAYS asking me "what did you think when the missionaries were teaching you this principle?" or "what would you have wanted the missionaries to differently when they taught you this?" so I'll do my best to answer them and help them out with ways they can reach the investigators and then they'll say "awesome thanks...now can you help me say that in Spanish?" So I get to like double help haha. Its a fun perspective to have because a lot of the kids here have no idea what it feels like to not understand the doctrine of the church, so they just preach at people and recite things from preach my gospel and don’t do anything to relate to them and then wonder why they aren’t keeping commitments or doing anything we ask them to do haha. I’m definitely grateful for the experience of being converted in to the gospel now, rather than being born in to it. Its really the best of both worlds.”
"When we are in the lesson teaching through the spirit, I always end up saying a ton more than I thought I knew how to say. It is a way cool experience. But I’m ready to be done here. I want to deal with real investigators instead of fake ones now haha. I’m so excited to get to Honduras. Its amazing to think that there are people down there praying for help in their lives, and me and Elder Stewart are spending 15 hours a day preparing to be the answer to their prayers. It really is a humbling thought.”
Mike has LOVED his time in the MTC but is beyond excited to get to Honduras. He has such a love for the work and never stops being upbeat and happy. He is off to do amazing things!!
