MTC Week 3

Dear Everyone,

Halfway there. We now have a river running through the classrooms of main campus. We teach our investigators outside, under the shade, with trickling water in the background. Paradise. We had a very powerful experience with one of our investigators. We have been working on asking inspired questions. It is a teaching fundamental to ask good questions. German questions are super easy to formulate because to make a statement into a question you switch the verb and the subject. But finding the right question that will cause your investigator to ponder is very difficult. It is also very important. It helps your investigator to discover the truth for themselves. We have been really struggling to help Michael because of his background. He finds everything we teach "kommisch" or strange. He doesn't feel comfortable praying, and feels like a lot of the evidence that we see of God's hand in our lives and feelings that confirm spiritual truths can come from ourselves. But he kept saying something that really caught my attention as we prepared for the lesson yesterday. He asked about the commandments. When I asked him why, he had said that he wanted to know how they would change his life. So at the proper moment during the lesson yesterday, (In which Elder Lawyer actually took up half of the time speaking! I was so proud.) I asked him how he wanted our message to change his life. We sat there for five minutes in absolute silence, with nothing but the sound of wind in the trees and trickling water. (I really love that. Can you tell?) He thought about it. And then he gave us an answer. He said that he wanted a message that would help him not to feel so alone. A message that would make him happier and bring him peace in his life. A message that would bring him security. He told us his needs. We told him that that was what our message offered, but he had to act. We then invited him to read next chapter of the Book of Mormon (he has already read the first) with a question in mind. We promised him an answer. There is no chapter that is invaluable. We do this every week when we read as a district from Das Buch Mormon. We haven't even made it to chapter two, but we have received answers every week. I challenge everyone to try it. Pray beforehand. Ask for an answer. It will come. Die Gnade sei mit euch. 

sincerely, 

Elder Perez

Two weeks down!

Dear Everyone, 

Two weeks down and four to go. The comparison of the MTC to spirit prison was wrong of me. I'm sorry. Main campus is spirit prison. Here at west campus, we live in spirit paradise. The atmosphere is far nicer than at main campus. We have private (relatively) showers, and better beds. So forgive my mistake. This is part of the repentance process. Everything is going fine for me. I don't find the MTC particularly difficult, given the advantage of five years of learning German. It is very much like school, only less work. Not to say that I am not working harder, just less, if that makes any sense to you. We had a wonderful devotional last night from a member of the Seventy. After devotionals, we meet together as a district for what we call a devotional review. It was a powerful spiritual experience. We stopped teaching the investigator that I told you about last time, and we have two new ones. One, MIchael, has never heard of God. He doesn't know anything about him. Which makes him very difficult to teach in German. "What is a spirit?" "Ach, tja..." I managed to pull out an answer that he understood. He is also much more enjoyable to teach than our other investigator because he is played by a different teacher than Alex, and our new investigator, Viorel. He actually responds to our questions and is thoughtful. That makes all the difference in teaching an investigator because you can't know whether or not they understood if they won't respond. There is a lot less to report this week than the first week because we have reached a point where it is a pattern and what we do is pretty regular. Get up. Go to gym. Personal study. Breakfast. (or vice versa depending on the day) Classroom time from 10:30 to 1:30. Lunch. Classroom time from 2:15 to 5:15. Language study for an hour. TALL (the church's equivalent of Rosetta Stone) for an hour. Study till nine. Planning and then bed. Rinse and repeat. Sundays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the only variety, and Tuesday's not so much, only the devotional. I am sad that I haven't seen most of my friends who are serving missions because they are at main campus. I only go there for about an hour a week. But all is well. Can't wait to get to Germany. Hope everyone else is doing fine. Die Gnade sei mit euch.

sincerely,

Elder Perez 

First week at MTC

Dear Everybody,

I am sorry that I haven't sent any personal communication to anyone. I don't have contact information, and I left the email list in my apartment today. This is my first P-day, so there are still a few bugs. Let me tell you about the MTC. I have no idea what it is normally like. I am on west campus, which is very different from the main campus that most people go to. We have better rooms, showers, beds, food, and a lot of other things. Basically we live in the former freshman dorms. The problem is that we are the first German missionaries to be on west campus. We still don't have all of our materials, (hopefully we can get those today when we go up to the temple and main campus) our computers aren't fully set up, our teachers don't know the schedule, and because of the new training times, there are no experienced Elders who have been here for a long time to show us what to do. We have one, Elder Cole who has to stay because of recent surgery for another three weeks, so we are lucky, but he isn't in our district, so we don't always see him. Our branch is a good 17 missionaries. We have three sisters. Six of the 17 are going to Berlin, including my district. The rest are going to Frankfurt. You teach a lesson on your second or third day here to someone who roleplays being an investigator. That was an interesting experience. My companion, Elder Lawyer, had no German experience before coming to the MTC. Let's just say, I taught the lesson, and he sat there looking wide-eyed at the investigator and I. It is actually weird typing in English because I only use it when my zone doesn't understand the what I am saying, or I have to express a complex idea. Our classes are in German, and I read mostly in German switching to English for clarification. We have a lot of study time, gym everyday, and hours of class time. Our district leader aptly put it. "The MTC is like spirit prison." Studying the gospel, going through our planned schedule, ours in a classroom, room inspections, the sound of the megahorn stating that gym time is over. (We don't actually have a gym yet. Those are being built.) And lots of missionary work is being done. The food is slightly better. It is weird that I have already been here for a week. New missionaries came in today. We were the welcomers when only a week ago, we were the ones being welcomed. For those of you who are preparing to come on missions, my word of advice is to study Preach My Gospel even more than you have been, and get used to studying. You have about 8 hours the first real day here for study. Not even joking. Get used to it. And study your language. A lot. And don't be afraid. We are taught to invite investigators to be baptized on the first missionary discussion. That can be a bit intimidating. (Not really. All they can do is say no.) The MTC is a place that can really prepare you, but it is up to you. No one holds you accountable for how effectively you study or if you do. (except maybe your companion if you have a good one) Learn exact obedience. Lastly, learn how to deal with not having any privacy, ever. You are never without your companion. But it's good. It looks like I am going to be here for six weeks. I am doing everything to try to get it shortened, but there is the problem of, if I leave, Elder Lawyer is without a companion. Wouldn't want that to happen. He and I are flying together and we are going to make it through our MTC experience together.Tomorrow is lesson number five with our "investigator". We are going to invite him to be baptized. (We didn't the first time because we didn't know we were supposed to. And I was the only one talking. Our investigator like to make it hard for us by giving one word answers.) Here is to hoping that we can manage. Thank you all for your prayers. Die Gnade sei mit euch. 

sincerely,

Elder Perez

P.S. My mom is running a blog about me and my adventures. She works really hard on it. Ask her about it. It's great.

 

September 4, 2013 Evan enters the MTC

Grant needed to go to school the day that we took Evan to the MTC, so they said their goodbyes early in the morning.

We had heard that when you drop

missionaries off at the MTC there is 

not much time to say goodbye.  We went

across the street to the Provo Temple where we took pictures and gave lots

of hugs before we dropped Evan off.

Elder Perez

Elder Perez heading to the MTC.  There was an Elder to greet him and we said a

brief goodbye.  He was so excited.