Wednesday, September 18, 2013

MTC, Week 2

Hey everyone! Well a ton of things have happened in the last little while so I'll just start from the beginning I guess. The language learning is going really good. I have the most experience out of the 8 people in the program. My companion never learned any french... We are role playing teaching investigators. We have 4 different investigators and we teach 1 or 2 lessons a day in French. It's really cool. The language has been coming to me in a way that it never did in high school. I know that it is the Lord blessing me with the gift of tongues.
My companion and I are very different. I like to be very punctual. He doesn't. He has a really hard time following all the rules. He's getting better though. We've talked a lot about exact obedience like they have been teaching us. As we get closer to that, the Spirit has been with us more abundantly and we make incredible progress. He's really a good guy though. He's 22 and from Ghana. He's had a rough past. Both his parents died as well as his twin brother and older brother. He has been living with his bishop/godfather for the last few years. He's really humble. He has taught me a lot about African culture. All the dos and don'ts. Which there are a lot of.... They have a very different culture.
I haven't really experienced any rain yet. It has only rained during the night. But I have definitely felt the heat. We are on a very strict schedule. We are in our classroom most of the day. But everyday at 3:40 we go outside and play "football." Which is soccer. We had an American vs. African game. We won. We thought that was pretty cool haha. I'm starting to get used to everything now. I'm learning lots of new things. Like when Africans shake hands with their friends they snap fingers with each other when they let go. I'm starting to get the hang of it haha.
The group of missionaries we came here with all left this morning. The 8 in my district are the only ones in the MTC til the new batch comes on Friday. Then in two weeks, they'll leave too. But we get to leave with the group after that haha. I'm definitely ready to leave the MTC and get out into the field. The days are starting to go by really fast. The food is good. We eat rice, chicken, salad, and tomato sauce almost every meal. Yesterday we had rice balls in peanut soup. That was really good. And for breakfast we have huge muffins, bread, oatmeal, rice pudding, eggs, etc... Lots of it too.
I gave my very first Priesthood blessing yesterday! We were up helping with laundry (one of our duties since we're like the head district) when our teacher came up and grabbed me and Elder Sagers. Our companions were busy so he just asked the two of us if we had our consecrated oil with us. We did. One of the sisters in our district hadn't been feeling well. I still don't know what was wrong... But Elder Sagers anointed her with oil, and I gave the blessing part. It was by far the most spiritual experience I've had while I've been gone. Elder Sagers said he felt it really strong too, and he's done them before. I don't hardly even remember what I said. The words just came to me. It must have worked though because the Spirit was overwhelming all of us, and she seems much better today. It was a really amazing experience.
Well, I'm sure there's a million and a half things that I could say, but that's all I've got for now. I'm going to try and get MTC group pictures and District pictures from other people, so I can send them when I get them. Have a good week!
Love,
Elder VanAusdal

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