3rd week of March email

hey 

so this week has been crazy, first my comp. was sick then i was sick, and then i got sick again! i spent two days holding down NO food at all! that was horrible! sleep, tract, sleep, teach a lesson, sleep, throwup, throwup, throwup, sleep, tract. the real missionarys just keep spreading the germs with the word! i actually threw up every meal 100% for like 2 days it was horrible!  we did get to meet a new investigator recently. He is Armenian! so he immediately invited us in and tried repeatedly to make us food(we had just been fed!) so he invited us back for dinner! we ate Armenian food and talked a lot about just everything and then shared a gospel message! it was pretty fun and a huge change of pace for us. overall it has been a LONG week.

Questions to ask a missionary:

how are your member lessons going?

what can we do to help?

will you teach us the first vision?

when can we have you back?

these things will boost a missionarys moral! and allow them to practice their teaching

just treat them like you would treat me at the dinner table. to often it feels like we are on display at the dinner table, but if you treat them like family they will be right at home

Questions not to ask a missionary:

how long have you been out?

what is your favorite food?

what do you not like?

how is your family at home?

March 14th email

so this week was kinda slow

my comp got sick so i actually spent a LOT of time cooking, i made a lot of treats and even made pulled pork this week!

other than that i spent a lot of time studying sorry there isn't more to tell.

this details hungry mom enjoyed a glimpse of Isaac's kitchen!

on the upside this week i met Elder Bednar( one of the 15 most important people in the world!) he is one of the 12 apostles (Isaac wanted me to insert a link about apostles here) that was really powerful and amazing he helped us to know how to better be missionaries! and blessed us that we will never fall away from the church as long as we continue to study the scriptures! that was really powerful! so it has been a fairly exiting but boring work.

--------------------------

I had some questions I'd emailed him that I wanted answers to.

What do you do at the food bank?  How long are you there?

i spend 3 hours every Wednesday putting together peoples food packages.  

What food treats do you want instead of candy?

trail mix

beef jerky

guy food i guess

Where is your companion  from?

my companion is from twin falls idaho

What did you eat for breakfast?

i did not eat breakfast this morning! too busy with studying the abrahamic covenant

Peppers, Tongans, and the homeless.

Isaac's breakfast

Isaac's pet palm tree

Street view in front of Isaac's apartment building
"it is a really big place!"

this week was eventful

thus i will name this weeks email

Peppers, Tongans, and the homeless.

we started this week just like any other week. we started the day with our studies, then as we began to go out to talk to people NOBODY wanted to talk to us! then we got a break, there where a couple of 20 year old guys outside of a house picking  peppers! we where so exited to have someone who wanted to talk to us! so we started talking, about 30 seconds later i was offered a pepper... naturally i accepted, this was tiniest narliest pepper i had ever seen! being the smart young man i am i just threw the whole thing in my mouth and popped it! i started crying like a baby, my nose started running, and i started thinking about eating the grass... grass has water right? not only that but then they wanted to talk for like 10 minutes, THE LONGEST 10 MINUTES EVER! i was going through heat syndromes for the rest of the day! i had the AWESOME opportunity to attend a tongan baptism! i understood like 3 words it was awesome! those guys can SING oh my goodness it is crazy. it is a crazy experience to feel the spirit while you can understand nothing of what is being said! then last night while on the way home from a lesson a homeless guy started talking to us, so i was like ok cool i can talk to you for a while. little did i know this would culminate in a HUG, that was the biggest strongest hug that ever happened to me! you can blame my companion for that one!

i am having a blast out here! and i am exited to serve in a tongan ward sometime!

Here's some of the question and answer session we had:

What library are you at?

none of the above we found some computers at the apartment complex!

What do you do for lunch?  How often do the members feed you?

we get fed nearly every night.  we usually back at the apartment for lunch. i cook so much out here i love it!  i am cooking everything from scratch! so much fun

but i would appreciate a cook book if you can find a good one

Did you get your packages?

yes i did thank you!

did you ever find my sweatshirt?

I'm actually cold here now that i have climatized!

Has anyone been mean to you?  We watched an LDS movie last night, one mans treasure, and in it, someone threw a slushy out the car window on the elders, I realized something like that could happen to you.

i have ppl yell at me everyday! but that is alright.  i know that i am doing a good job when there is adversity! ppl are mean all day that is just a fact of life

Have you done any service?

i went and did service at a food bank last wed. actually!

What's the farthest you've ridden your bike in a day?

i rode 20 miles saturday...no hills, it's very flat here

we also have a car though for when we have CRAZY days!

my first week in the field

i started of my week by meeting my new companion! he is elder smith he has been out 20 months and i am pretty sure that i will kill him(be his last companion). i am in Ontario! it has not yet been colder than 75 degrees outside during the day yet, it is really weird to see all the people wearing scarves and sweaters in so much heat, but i guess I'm a Washingtonian born and raised! i have already met so many cool people.  i met my first investigator and found out he is a mechanic! while we where talking i found out that he has a 96.5 supra in his garage! an awesome car, i managed to weasel my way in to see it on our second visit! a beautiful car to say the least. we have a "grandma" she is a investigator that we go see when we can, she is not necessarily progressing but we where able to help her move along with our visit this week! my companion and i where what is called whitewashed into an area! this means that the other missionaries where transferred out of the area and we where both transferred in! this is a very stressful experience because without missing stride we have to pick up where they left off and continue the work! to make matters even harder we don't even talk to the old missionaries! but we are finally starting to get a grasp on what is happening around here. i am loving the work and i am growing rapidly! like no kidding i grew an inch in the MTC! some of my slacks look a little funny now! 

a tired missionary

elder Dickson

Incoming photo

Isaac with the missionaries he went out to the mission with as well as his mission president and wife.

Leaving the MTC

There won't be an email this week because Isaac is traveling out to his mission on his Preparation day.  But, even better than an email, Isaac got to call me today when he got to the Salt Lake airport.  He'd been in the MTC for 12 days but said it felt more like 3 hours.  He was excited by what he'd accomplished at the MTC; teaching seven "investigators", serving as a zone leader (his duties included instructing an elder on the importance of body deodorant), giving a few blessings to other missionaries, and visiting the Provo temple.  17 missionaries from his district left the MTC together to fly to his mission.  He's been told that when he arrives in California that he will spent the night at the home of the mission president before meeting his assigned companion and moving in to his apartment.  It sounds like the mission home is going to be a full house with 17 missionaries arriving on the same day!

Each mission is presided over by a mission president.  He and his wife are asked to serve for three years to manage the mission.  The process of becoming a mission president is not like that of becoming a missionary.  A missionary begins the process of going on a mission by approaching his priesthood leaders, expressing a desire to serve, and filling out the required paperwork.  A person can not ask to be a mission president; it is something that comes from inspiration through church leadership.  One day your phone rings and you find a church leader wants to meet with you.  An interview or two later, you are invited to give up three years and move to your assigned area.  Dode's uncle was asked to serve in Mexico City a few decades ago.  He, his wife and all the kids moved down there for the three years.  In July  Dode's cousin and her husband will be leaving in order for her husband to serve as a mission president to the Africa Uganda Kampala mission.

The mission president is responsible for training and overseeing all the missionaries serving in his mission.  He meets regularly with them to see how they are doing, he offers pep talks and council as needed.  He is also the person Dode and I would call if there was an emergency at home (like a death in the family) that we thought Isaac needed to hear about from us in person instead of in an email.  The home the mission president and his wife live in is called the mission home.  17 missionaries arriving at once, being served dinner and breakfast and spending the night in the mission home must be interesting.

There is also an office for the mission.  All of Isaac's letters and packages go here, then they are delivered to the missionaries scattered throughout his mission.  There is usually a retired couple serving a mission who serve in the office with the mission president, overseeing the logistics of the apartments that are rented for the missionaries, cars the missionaries drive, mission finances etc.  Dode's Aunt Viv and Uncle Dave are serving a mission doing that in Maryland right now.  A few young missionaries are also asked to serve in the mission office for part of their mission, they are called Assistants to the President.

Isaac and his companions ended up having extra time at the airport when their flight was delayed two hours.  Isaac had a couple really nice things happen to him while at the airport.  He ordered lunch at one of the restaurants and when he tried to pay, he was told that someone else had already paid for his meal.  A little later, he was watching over everyone's bags while the other missionaries got food and made phone calls and someone came up and handed him $100 and told him to buy a meal for his companions and himself.  He was absolutely blown away that people would be so nice to him.

Photos from the MTC

Isaac sent me some photos from the MTC, I added the commentary.

Isaac with his MTC companion Elder Mann

blurry selfie of my boy

Isaac engaged  in some light reading

his room at the MTC.  There are three sets of missionaries sharing this room.

a view of his desk during class time

his classroom

his desk in his room

one of the MTC cafeterias

Learn more about the MTC at this link

Here's an interesting article about the MTC link

Some facts about the MTC from 2007, the numbers are much larger now!

Provo MTC by the Numbers

2,443—Missionaries in the Provo MTC the day the New Era visited. The number ranges from 1,700 to 2,700.

4,300—The most missionaries the Provo MTC has had at one time.

3, 8, or 12—Weeks a missionary will spend in the MTC, depending on the language he or she is learning.

324—New missionaries who reported to the MTC the day we visited. Between 200 and 500 arrive each Wednesday.

300—Average number of missionaries who participate in the MTC choir.

50—Languages taught at the Provo MTC, including Icelandic and Malagasy.

26—Languages MTC meetings are translated into for missionaries learning English as a second language.

2,700—Service people, including employees, service missionaries, and volunteers, who keep the MTC running.

15—The smallest number of missionaries in a branch. The most is 75.