The MTC can be very Thai-ing

Day 35
June 27, 2017 Tues
Provo, UT


Picking up from last Tuesday several good things occurred..  We finished the day with a great devotional by President and Sister Hallstrom from the Presidency of the Seventy. Choir that day was great, because in the "sneaked-in" gospel lesson Brother Egget gives, he covered the exact 3 topics I was studying that week!

This last week as a whole wasn't so great, as I was hit by the worst of my sickness that continues to affect me (I still have a cough). I got a blessing on the worst day of it, and I felt tons better the next day. I lasted through it knowing that I was going to get sick sooner or later, and that I'd prefer to be sick while in the MTC vs Thailand.

A new technique they've introduced is that we've started teaching each other now. My companionship has been assigned to teach Sister Engstrom (Maddie) and Sister Roberts (Mckall).  They in turn practice teaching on us. When we are being taught, we are supposed to take on the role of a nonmember or convert we know well enough to become, and we are supposed to react as they would and progress as they would.  This also helps give us time to think it through from a perspective member's eyes to gain a better understanding of how we can approach our lessons.  Maddie is great, because she already has such a firm and bright testimony of Christ that she actually helps us out in lessons at times when Mckall, who grew up a member, brings up any of her issues (which are many). I decided to take on my best friend from home, Megan (though I go by Max), and it has not only been so much fun already (6 lessons so far, 3 from each companionship) but it has brought me a greater appreciation and love for Megan, whom I had the awesome opportunity to baptize about 2 years ago.

We finished our last TRC (Training Resource Center) yesterday and that was a mess - it's where we teach short lessons to member volunteers in Thai.  A little back story, besides us missionaries, new missions presidents and their wives are being taught by General Authorities on campus, which they call MPS (Mission President Seminar).  One of the activities they do is practice being a mission president on us missionaries so they come to some of the classrooms for 1.5 to 2 hours and teach and interact with us.  This unfortunately messed up our normal routine as it took up our first class block yesterday, and is taking up time today which really threw off P-day scheduling - almost sacrilege :) 

While we were lucky enough to be selected to participate (we hosted President and Sister Orton going to the Oregon Eugene mission), because of this, we weren't supposed to do TRC's. But they came and told us we were still doing it ... 5 min after we were supposed to be there. We all rushed and freaked out a little bit, having nothing prepared and no time to do so. But we fervently prayed, and went in. We taught two members we've taught before, Brother Brown and Michael. It's always fun to chat with them as we do for the first few minutes. Then I went through my study journal looking for something to teach, pausing and thinking about 2 different scriptures. In the first lesson, my companion separately chose and began reading one of the 2 scriptures I thought about (prompting #1 confirmed). In the second lesson, I opened my scriptures and they landed on the exact page of the other scripture I was thinking about (prompting #2), so of course I went for it. It was so cool to base our lessons completely on spiritual direction.

Right after this, back in class, our teacher shuffled us up and we had 5 minutes to prepare to teach a lesson to our assigned person. Sister Hall taught me first, and it was right on the mark. So freaky how applicable it was to some of my thoughts almost like a bit of a chastisement from up above.  When it was my turn to teach, I left my direction up to Him.  I opened the scriptures, then turned to wherever I felt prompted and ended up on the Testimony of Joseph Smith. I read it, felt prompted about a few lines, and use that as my basis as I taught her. She had similar thoughts and reactions that it was applicable to answers for her thoughts at the time.  

For choir, we are singing Praise To The Man for the anniversary of the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, which is today. It was already so powerful in practice on Sunday, because there are so many missionaries in there, singing together as a whole really brings the Spirit.  

Part of the reason today's schedule was so busy, is because this is our last week to go to the temple before it closes the last month we are here. So really, it is our last chance to go to the temple for the next 2 years. It was a great parting experience- we did initiatories and endowments. There were so many people in the latter, that we actually exceeded capacity within the room (they had to go get an extra chair, so 81 people).  This was after having moved the last two dozen people into the next session. It was crazy. But I paid great attention to everything, savoring the final opportunity of attending the temple for a long while.

I think that is about it for this week. We are officially past the halfway mark. We have outlived several waves of English speakers, including people I hosted in the first 2 weeks. The easier languages that arrived with us are leaving in this upcoming week, and we will continue to outlast English speakers for another week or two.

p.s.  Since I am adding this part so late, I will talk about the BOMB devotional we just had. To start, we had ten of the twelve Apostles on the stand- Elder Oaks conducting, Elders Holland, Christofferson, Renlund, Cook, Ballard, Stevenson, Rasband, Anderson, and their wives. Elder Bednar and his wife spoke. Sister Bednar opened with a testimony covering many topics, and Elder Bednar gave a beautiful sermon on what the word means, and how to apply it and put it in our hearts. It spoke to all, and was a super powerful spiritual experience

Love all!

--

Elder Montague

All my study materials

Another day of class