Excerpts from Garrett's Third Letter from the MTC

Well, this week has been great.  I won’t bore you with the usual details of studying Khmae and the gospel.  I will just say that both are going well and that they are improving everyday.   

Every Wednesday we exchange our sheets for new ones.  Last Wednesday I made the mistake of grabbing the packet of sheets in which the fitted sheet that is supposed to go over the bed is too small.  It will not stay on, which causes my feet to get tangled and makes me wake up, etc.  It’s been rather annoying, and I have now named my bed, "the bed of Misery." I will take a picture of how it looks after I get up...it’s ridiculous.  Tomorrow I will get a new set though, so everything should be good.  
 
This week has been really good, and I have felt the spirit very strong. It is weird; you can feel it anywhere.  In devotionals, class, personal study, etc. It is great, and I really like being here.  I have also been reading a lot, especially the Book of Mormon during my personal time.  It’s such an interesting book, and I really love reading it. 

Excerpts from McKenzie’s Third Letter from MTC

Sometimes I am a little bit of a ditz. So the other day at the beginning of class when we were kneeling down to pray, my teacher asked who wanted to pray. I volunteered saying loudly, "wo zui" which means "I sin."  In my brain I intended to say "wo hui" which means " I will".  My entire district started laughing so hard.  They finally gained composure, and I started to pray, but no one could hold their laughter for very long.  I finished my prayer as everyone – including my usually very serious teacher – was laughing so hard.  I don't know why things like this always happen to me, but they do.  

We had a wonderful fireside this week.  A gentleman talked about repentance. He spoke about how sometimes we feel negatively about repentance and how we feel hesitant to share the message with people who aren’t members of the Church.  But he talked about how repentance is a means by which we “might not suffer if we would repent.”  Repentance isn't a scary thing or a bad thing; it is the greatest blessing ever!  He talked about how in other languages repentance translates to "to turn," and he talked about how that is what repentance is. It is turning towards God.   It allows one to start fresh and reunite with god.  Repentance should not be hard or scary – but hopeful.   
 
Everyday I feel so immensely blessed to be a missionary.  This work is amazing because what we teach is true and what we teach blesses and enhances life in an amazing way.

Excerpts from Garrett's Second Letter

This past week has been pretty good.  It has been more of the same – studying Khmae, eating at ridiculously early times, reading the Book of Mormon, etc.  Such is the life in the MTC.  It has been a week of ups and downs in terms of the language.  At times, I am a little jealous of all the English speaking missionaries. I am grateful to learn a language though, and it has been going well.  I have to work hard in order to make up for not picking up terms and ideas as quickly as some others.  I feel good about my progress though.     

  We had a really good fireside the other day.  A woman and her children came and played the violin for all of us, and it was really awesome.  She used to be the main violinist for the National Orchestra; she has done a ton of tours; she went to Juilliard and some other really good school in Philadelphia.  She played great songs and spoke a little bit as well.  Even her kids played a piece.  All of them were under 9 and they were amazing.  I felt a little bad because I was kind of boasting earlier saying that I could read music...then a bunch of little kids got up and amazed us all.  

I am still waiting to get back into the swing of things in gym.  I walked 15 hills the other day, and am I little sore today.  I plan on going to the gym next week and riding the stationary bike and then hopefully doing some light jogging.       Our district was reprimanded a little this week.  Another district complained that we were "congregating" in the corner of the hall and playing loud games.  We have had to stop during the night time.  The reason why we "congregate" though is because we really like each other.  It has been a blessing to have such a great group of guys who all really get along together.  

Excerpts from McKenzie's Second Letter

Mandarin continues too be hard, but it is making more sense.  After teaching about five short lessons in Mandarin to our teacher pretending to be a Taiwanese person learning about the Church, we  watched a little evaluation video where our teacher talked about what he thought of our lessons (in character). He was speaking in English, and it was nice that we could understand what he was saying.  At one point he said, “Even though sometimes I couldn't understand what the missionaries were saying….” We all burst out laughing because we had all seen his face while he was trying to decipher our horribly pronounced Chinese! After that he said he felt the spirit anyway, which was nice. 
  

 

As companions, we have set a goal to speak our language most of the time.  It has been hard to do this, but we are learning a lot.  We don't talk quite as much as we used to, but when we do talk, we speak a lot more Chinese.  At night when we are back in our room, we speak English as we predetermined to allow ourselves that time to de-stress. 

Garrett and I played Ladder Ball at gym the other day which was fun.  Today I saw him with no gel in his hair, which as we know is quite unusual for Garrett, and it made me smile.

Excerpts from McKenzie’s First Letter from MTC

It feels like I have been here forever, but it has only been less than a week.  On our first day in the MTC (Missionary Training Center) they began talking to us in Mandarin!  We are part of a new pilot program that will be mainstreamed for every language taught here at the MTC.  Our teacher only speaks to us in Mandarin.  Needless to say, we act out a lot of what we are trying to say.  If we really can’t get it, our teacher will write the word or a key word in English so that we can continue with the lesson.  It is really funny to try and figure out what she is saying; it is amazing what body language can do.  This program is suppose to help you learn the language a lot faster and to help missionaries focus more on teaching. 

                                                 

Speaking of learning Mandarin, it is HARD.  Really, really hard.  Thankfully you don’t really have to conjugate words, but there are five tones, and you have to swoop your voice to say the tones differently.  It is kind of like singing, and even though I am OK at singing, I still can’t get the tones down.  I have been very discouraged.  I had never felt the spirit as strong as I have these first couple of days and I have never had such a desire to serve before, but at the same time, I have felt so discourages and have thought, “How will I ever learn to speak this language?!” 

I get to see Garrett a lot.  I see him many times a day because his classroom is right down the hall from mine and because we are on the same schedule.  Yesterday at gym he and his companion came and talked to me and my companion.  It is so fun to see him, and it makes me so happy.

I am so grateful to be a missionary!

Excerpts from Garrett’s first letter from MTC

Well, the MTC has been pretty good.  It has been a little tough getting up at 6:30, but I feel like I have gotten a little bit used to it.  My companion is good.  His name is Elder Rucker from California.  We get along well, and he is a nice kid.  We have a really great District (group of missionaries).  We have 12 people in total - 11 boys and 1 girl.  There are 10 of us are going to Cambodia, and the 2 others are going to California/Cambodian speaking missions. The other elders in our District are a lot of fun and we all get along well and joke around a lot. 

The firesides here have been great.  We had a fireside on Sunday with a member of the Seventy (regional church leadership) from Salt Lake City.  He was a funny guy, but the highlight of his talk, and the highlight of the week for me, came when a few missionaries were sent up to tell everyone what they gave up to go on a mission.  One elder said he gave up sports.  The men said, "Yeah, you missed the NBA draft."  Someone in the front row yelled out asking where Jimmer went. Then came this.  "We tried to draft Jimmer, but he went to the NBA instead."  At first I though he meant we, as in Utah Jazz.  Then we all realized he meant the MTC (Missionary Training Center).  It literally was the highlight of the last few days. (As you know Jimmer is LDS, but he chose not to serve a mission.)

Learning Khmae has been a little difficult.  We were given 3 Preach My Gospels (teaching manual for missionaries).  One in English, one in Romanized Khmae, and one is in Khmae characters.  It has been pretty difficult, but I am definitely making progress.  It has been discouraging at times, but I can see the progress, and I know if I continue to work hard that it will eventually come.  I am not the best in the class, but I am not the worst either.  We have definitely learned a lot considering I have only been here 6 days.  We know a variety of vocab, how to pray, and a little sentence structure as well.  We also have started reading Khmae symbols.  It is very hard.  There are 24ish consonants each with their own sounds.  Then each consonant can have a sub consonant and a vowel that can alter the sounds.  It takes a good 3-5 minutes to decipher a single sound.  In fact, one book we have says that learning Khmae is harder than an outsider learning English.   

   

I miss you all a lot and have felt a little homesick, but I getting more used to it.