Ahoj!!!
It has been a busy week at the MTC. You are going constantly!
Wednesday: Day 1: As soon as I was dropped me off and said good by, we went and dropped off our suit cases, then we went straight to work. We got our name tags, keys, and MTC card to pay for stuff. I met my companion, Sestra Hodgson. She is from Washington. I LOVE HER SO MUCH!! We get along so well, our personalities are very similar so that is really nice. She loves running so we go running during exercise time!!! :) Anyways, we went to class and they only spoke to us in Czech. Then we went to 3 different class rooms with a bunch of missionaries and taught investigators. That was pretty cool and the spirit was strong.
Thursday Day 2: I woke up and honestly was pretty homesick, so I just went to work. We have an hour of personal study, companion study, and language study everyday. We picked up a bunch of Czech books and it felt like Christmas, but it was also super overwhelming because I have so much to learn!! That evening we met our branch president. It is President Edwards, who lives in Heber; Garret Ritchie is their grandson. That was super cool! They are so nice! Also in the branch presidency is the Svendson's. They say the drive by Charleston honking and waving... so if you see them, wave back!!! HAHA!! They are so funny.
Friday Day 3: We have class everyday for 6 hours. In 3 hour blocks. During the first block, we prepared to teach our first investigator. We got a lesson ready and then translated it into Czech. Even though we had only been there since Wednesday, they expected us to teach the lesson entirely in Czech. We did it! It went really well! We had to use dictionaries to figure out his responses to our questions though. We taught him about families and that God is our loving Heavenly Father. We committed him to praying.
Saturday Day 4: We did a service project early in the morning, we went and cleaned all the bathrooms. Then we ate breakfast and had exercise time. There are a lot of things we can do for exercise time. There is a weight room, we can go out to the field next to the temple, and we can go to a basketball court with an indoor track up above. So we have options and it is great. You need exercise time to move a little after being stuck in classrooms all day. At class today, we also memorized Moroni 7:33 in Czech. Go look up that verse, it is awesome. We taught Pavel again. We committed him to read the book of Mormon.
Sunday Day 5: Everyone says to make it through the MTC until Sunday. Sunday was great. We went to relief society, district council, then sacrament. Then we went to match his message, it was all about dressing modestly. Then my companion wanted to go to choir. I'm not big on singing, but I'm so glad we went, it was so cool. I love the choir director, he tells lots of stories and makes it super spiritual. It was a blessing to go through that fast Sunday without even feeling hungry. We also had a music devotional that was really cool. Finally, we watched a movie, it was really a talk by Elder Bednar about the Character of Christ and about how Christ always turns outward. That changed my life. After applying that, the MTC experience got so much better. When you feel like turning inward and focusing on your own problems, that is when you need to turn out and serve others. He bore a powerful testimony. It really touched my heart.
Monday Day 6: We had a planning session, then we exercised. We prepared another lesson for Pavel. We always write our lessons out in English then we translate them, using what we know how to say in Czech, so our lessons are really simple. We also invited him to come to church, so far he has kept all of our commitments. Pavel, is not a real investigator though, he is a guy that served in the Czech Republic. He is impersonating someone he taught the last 2 weeks of his mission, so that is cool. We also do this program called TALL to help us learn the language, it helps pronounciation a lot.
Tuesday Day 7: The highlight of Tuesday was the devotional. The General Relief Society President Jean B. Bingham came and spoke to us. That was super cool. My companion and I sung in the choir for the musical number and the spirit was so strong. There is something powerful about a bunch of missionaries coming together to sing. She talked about personal revelation, to ask, seek, and knock for it, and if you don't get an answer right away, to keep asking! She got choked up during her testimony when she said that we are the chosen generation responsible for the gathering of Israel. I know there are people in the pre-existence that I promised I would find on Earth and teach. There are people being prepared for me to come and they don't even know it yet. I think that is powerful.
Wednesday Day 8: We taught Pavel his fourth lesson. At the end, we invited him to be baptized and he said yes, but he wanted to meet with us more to get ready. Sestra Hodgson and I were so excited! The spirit was so strong when we invited him. It was a neat experience. I've learned that it is so important to follow the spirit when you teach to meet the needs of people. There have been times where we have jumped around in our lesson plan to answer his questions, which made it very challenging, because of the language barrier, but it was also super cool!
This morning we got to go to the temple. It was so nice! It was a good break from everything. I love my district! We have all grown really close. Most of them are going to Norway (4 of them) they leave in 6 weeks. There is one sister, Sestra Lebarge, who is rooming with us, she is going to Slovakia and learning Slovak. Elder Beckstrom, Sestra Hodgson and I are in the Czech class going to the Czech Republic. Elder Beckstrom's mom is actually Czech, so he already understands the language really well. It is frustrating sometimes.
I love this work and I know that the gift of tongues is real. There is no way that I could have learned as much as the language as I have in just one week. It is pretty cool to be able to pray in Czech.
Love you all,
Sestra Guymon
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