Hello all,
I'm writing from the family history center just down the road from our apartment. This e-mail won't be super long but I have some time to update you on my last few days at the MTC. We came here immediately after we left the Mission office for transfers, and we won't be here super long. Still no pictures because of time, and I couldn't get them to work at the MTC(the computers were super locked down) so maybe on Monday I'll have time. We get 90 minutes a week on P-Day.
I'm in the Prado View Ward, it's in the nose of the bull dog(very west tip of the mission). My companion's name is Elder Camper, he's been out almost a year, he's from Maryland, and seems like a cool guy. I'd heard some really good things about him from the person I stayed with last night so I'm pretty pumped.
I'm writing from the family history center just down the road from our apartment. This e-mail won't be super long but I have some time to update you on my last few days at the MTC. We came here immediately after we left the Mission office for transfers, and we won't be here super long. Still no pictures because of time, and I couldn't get them to work at the MTC(the computers were super locked down) so maybe on Monday I'll have time. We get 90 minutes a week on P-Day.
I'm in the Prado View Ward, it's in the nose of the bull dog(very west tip of the mission). My companion's name is Elder Camper, he's been out almost a year, he's from Maryland, and seems like a cool guy. I'd heard some really good things about him from the person I stayed with last night so I'm pretty pumped.
So now to cap off the MTC. The temple was closed, so P-Day was pretty boring for the most part, a lot of sitting around, laundry, etc. The next day was something called in-field orientation. Basically, it was an all day activity that was supposed to tell us everything about being in the mission field, because up until that point they'd just taught us about teaching. They had things about using the planner and setting goals and finding investigators and street contacting. It would have been like 8 hours of instruction, but luckily we were able to all watch Elder Packer's funeral in the gym on the big screens. That cut down on the time quite a bit, and it picked up the pace a little bit, which was nice. I can't imagine it taking an additional 2 hours. The funeral was also really well done and had some good talks and tributes to Elder Packer. You might enjoy it, seeing as how you've known President Packer as a General Authority all your life.
That Saturday was just a regular day for the most part, though it was our last lesson with our TRC investigator named Dan. We did extend the commitment for baptism, which was our goal, but it didn't pan out. That lesson was probably the best one that we'd taught to Dan, he asked the most questions and communicated the best.
Our Sunday devotional this week was super good. It was all about how you can and should teach through reading the Book of Mormon, and that if we aren't having our investigators read, there is no way that we can be successful. It was a good reminder because when you're new you focus on the lessons so much you forget that the things like prayer and basic scripture study are much more important than memorizing the doctrine like a class in school. He also had his son who was about 11 or 12 walking around the auditorium getting volunteers to read different things. He was down syndrome I believe and he reminded me so much of Kenneth, it was really cool. Also there was an awesome musical number, "Come thou fount of every blessing", and it was played but someone I'd talked to during in-field orientation, so it was even cooler.
That night after the devotional was pretty rough because that night at 230 was when half of our district was leaving. The 4 Ventura elders were leaving, so we took a ton of pictures that night and hugged and said good byes. I wrote each of them a little note on a 3x5 card with some last words of wisdom and stuff to them. I'm going to miss them so much, it barely even feels like we'd only known each other for 12 days at that point.
That Monday was sort of hard, missing half of our people. We spent a lot of time reminiscing and goofing around until the MTC staff peeked their heads in to get us back on course. I did get some really good scripture study in that day though. I'm really regretting that I skipped Alma initially during the car ride because like 75% of Alma is about various missionaries teaching. But now I can appreciate it a little bit more I guess which is good. We also taught our last lesson to our teacher pretending to be a mock investigator and it was easily the best lesson we'd ever taught. Maybe I'll tell you more about it later, I've got to wrap things up now.
P-day is on Monday so I'll answer your questions and tell you about traveling and California then.
Elder Cornaby
"Get on your knees and pray, then get on your feet and work." -Gordon B. Hinckley
That Saturday was just a regular day for the most part, though it was our last lesson with our TRC investigator named Dan. We did extend the commitment for baptism, which was our goal, but it didn't pan out. That lesson was probably the best one that we'd taught to Dan, he asked the most questions and communicated the best.
Our Sunday devotional this week was super good. It was all about how you can and should teach through reading the Book of Mormon, and that if we aren't having our investigators read, there is no way that we can be successful. It was a good reminder because when you're new you focus on the lessons so much you forget that the things like prayer and basic scripture study are much more important than memorizing the doctrine like a class in school. He also had his son who was about 11 or 12 walking around the auditorium getting volunteers to read different things. He was down syndrome I believe and he reminded me so much of Kenneth, it was really cool. Also there was an awesome musical number, "Come thou fount of every blessing", and it was played but someone I'd talked to during in-field orientation, so it was even cooler.
That night after the devotional was pretty rough because that night at 230 was when half of our district was leaving. The 4 Ventura elders were leaving, so we took a ton of pictures that night and hugged and said good byes. I wrote each of them a little note on a 3x5 card with some last words of wisdom and stuff to them. I'm going to miss them so much, it barely even feels like we'd only known each other for 12 days at that point.
That Monday was sort of hard, missing half of our people. We spent a lot of time reminiscing and goofing around until the MTC staff peeked their heads in to get us back on course. I did get some really good scripture study in that day though. I'm really regretting that I skipped Alma initially during the car ride because like 75% of Alma is about various missionaries teaching. But now I can appreciate it a little bit more I guess which is good. We also taught our last lesson to our teacher pretending to be a mock investigator and it was easily the best lesson we'd ever taught. Maybe I'll tell you more about it later, I've got to wrap things up now.
P-day is on Monday so I'll answer your questions and tell you about traveling and California then.
Elder Cornaby
"Get on your knees and pray, then get on your feet and work." -Gordon B. Hinckley