May 22, 2012

Hi there!

 

Well this week was great until last night when I started feeling pretty sick, but no worries, I shall shortly recover and be back up to Ghengis Khan speed! A cool experience this week happened on Tuesday and carried over to Thursday. My feeling about an important speaker was right and Elder L. Tom Perry of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles came and spoke to us! He was terrific, but besides that he was a very direct answer to a lot of my questions. Let me explain: Our real investigator had asked us about the priesthood the last time we had met with her. Elder Perry spoke to us on May 15, 2012 -183 years to the day that the priesthood was restored in these latter days. At first I did not think much of it, as the microphone was having problems and we had uncomfortable seats, so I just listened and enjoyed the atmosphere. Then I had a miraculous realization, that this talk was for my companionship and Bothoraa! I began scribbling furiously in my frantic endeavor to capture every segmental of each word so that we could effectively teach about God's power! I took down several pages of notes and we were able to construct a clear, coherent and need-meeting lesson. I am grateful for the mindfulness of The Lord in all things.

 

I have had many cool experiences like that in my 7 weeks here. Thank you for all of the letters everyone and thank you siblings for your comments! Here are some good thoughts rocketing YOUR way Keneddy! I will try to answer all your questions, mother, while maintaining the mysterious nuance surrounding the institution in which I now reside and thrive in. Zaa, A normal Sunday is typically as follows:

6:30 get up (duh)

7-7:30 eat

7:45-8:00 play prelude

8-9 sacrament (I gave a talk this week and performed a special musical number :)

9-11:10 personal study (yes, it is exactly from 9-11:10 and all other need be times are taken literally. The MTC is a machine, and boy, is it oiled!)

11:10-12 priesthood session

12-I am full:00 lunch

I am full:00-1:00 zombie walk to the classroom

1-1:45 Interviews with branch presidency/personal study

1:45-2:45 District meeting. Here I will take a related and necessary tangent. With that smooth segue, here it is: A companionship is 2 or 3 elders in the same district grouped together and they live together and must always be within sight and hearing of one another (with few exceptions) A district is 1 or more companionships that arrived and depart on the same day as each other and are going to the same mission. There are 5 Elders (2 companionships) in the Mongolia Ulaanbaatar district at the MTC. A zone is a group of 1 or more districts that live on the same floor, or in the mission field this will be all the districts in a designated goegraphic boundary. The Elders in my Zone here are going to Malaysia, Indonesia, Madagascar, Mongolia, Alaska and Colorado. There are some terrific men and women here preparing to serve the Lord.

2:45-4:15 Temple walk. Yes, we do get to walk outside of the fences around the house of the Lord and enjoy the sunshine. There have been Jewish protestors out there for the past 4 weeks, and we have been instructed not to make any verbal, or non-verbal contact with them. IT IS SO HARD FOR ME NOT TO, !! I want to be thier friend! But I am being obedient.

4:15-5:15 choir

5:15-6:00 dinner

6-6:30 get ready for the devotional. I must confess this is time that we get our sillywillies out. This week we played FREEZE! So we and the elders going to Madagascar are in this hall with a class room and that classroom has a 2-way mirrior. When we turn off the light in the classroom the people in the observation room cannot see anything, because they keep the light on in thier room. So we took turns posing in the classroom with the lights off, then when we were set someone else would flip the light on so that the elders in the observation could see the final product. We repeated and rotated for a good half an hour. There were some really hilarious scenes!

6:30-8:00 get seats, sing prelude music and then listen to the devotional

8:20-9:30 watch a church movie

9:30-10:30 get ready for bed and go to sleep.

Yes, I am taking pictures, but my camera is pretty stinking awful. I will try to send you some in the mail if I can get them printed, but no promises. Yes'm I have been keeping a journal. Our native Mongolian investigator is quite a coincidence, but we are thankful for this wonderful opportunity to prepare and apply immediately what we are learning. FInally, my favorite part of the day is classroom instruction with the teachers. We just got a new teacher who is from Mongolia and she is really helping us work hard to understand every word. It is a good thing. Her accent is flawless.

 

I am running short on time, so I need to wrap up. Oh, I also like gym. But, we took English teaching class this week, and I am a certified English as an International Language teacher! I had a great time learning about teaching and I have seen it help me already in my Mongolian learning and study as well as teaching our other investigators.

 

Life is good. Sorry about your wrist Jackson. and since when do you go to school dances!? Not as good as stake dances, but still fun if you do 'em right, which I am sure you did! Still no word on our visas, and is there anything I need to do with the law, mom? keep me posted! I will communicate again in one week!

Be happy! -Elder Chandler