Sunday, August 31, 2014

MTC week 1

        Hello!  I was set apart on Tuesday August 19, 2014 and my journey as a missionary began.
Left to right:, my good friends from home; Aaron Vail ( soon to serve in Brazil-leaves in early Oct), me, Caden Preece, set apart and entered MTC on the same day, serving in Quertero Mexico Mission, and Darrell Harris, waiting to get his call.  Hurrah for Israel!  



My siblings and I.  I am the oldest of four children.  My family will be my cheering squad while I am gone, as well as will be helping to post pictures and info on the blog as I send it home.


We had a nice family meal together at Sizzlers in Provo where I was treated to a  free meal.


I made it!  I arrived at the MTC (Missionary Training Center) in Provo, Utah at 12:30 pm prompt on Wednesday August 20, 2014.   Yes I was on time!  My family dropped me off and we said our goodbyes,then my "Host" took me to a room where they gave me my name tags and stuff. 

    I un-stitched my suit pocket so that I could put my name tag in it.  I am truly official.  
Then we went to another building where I got a huge bag of Spanish books, Spanish dictionary, Spanish Preach My Gospel (PMG), a planner, and Spanish scriptures.  
Then we boarded a bus and the bus that drove us about 5 min over to the West Campus.  Then we were taken by missionaries to our apartments and there we dropped off our stuff and then went to class.  When we got to class, it was only me and 2 other elders; one from Texas, and one from New York.  The  teachers spoke in Spanish to us; No English at all!So I'm glad that I studied the Spanish that I did at home.  Then they had us take an assessment on the computer.  We next met up with the rest of the missionaries in our district.

       It is very fast paced with lots of structure, but the spirit is so very strong here.  I have been in the MTC now for 10 days and I am loving it.    In my first email home I wrote, " I love it here though!, and love getting emails!  I'm trying to be as obedient as humanly possible hahaha!  I have a good companion that likes being obedient as well! so that helps a lot. Here at the West Campus we get to have nice large apartments no bunk beds. and a nice shower and large campus but the classrooms are very small. I love you and can't wait to get more emails and letters. Another elder that was leaving gave us all of his left over food! It's so great! haha We also celebrated "Christmas" here at the MTC on Wednesday which was great fun. Our ZL's are awesome!  Keep the letters coming"



        My companion name is Elder Rowley.  He is from Cederhills, Utah and is going to the Arcadia California mission Spanish speaking.  We get along great.  Our schedule is like this; we go to bed at 10:30 pm and get up about 6:10 am.  I do pretty good except for get a little tired when I have personal study and reading my scriptures.  Then I get extremely tired.  "All the elders when I got here always said 'if you can just make it until Sunday, then you'll be fine', well I made it so that is good.  The first few days felt like a week after I got dropped off.


          At the dinning hall, there is unlimited chocolate milk! Yes!!!  

Our 1st night in the MTC, we went to a meeting in a large room and met the MTC presidency and sang the song "Army of Helman".  The coolest part of it was instead of "we will be", we sang it as "WE ARE NOW THE LORD"S MISSIONARIES"  It was cool! 

      I have seen Evan once at the main campus devotional just before he left.  I have seen Caden several times at the meals and devos.  Here we are---
 
The MTC is super busy, but allows us to accomplish a lot.  On Friday (8/22) we taught our 1st investigator in Spanish.  It went ok, but could have been better.  We gave our last lesson to him last night (8/27)and practiced inviting him to be baptized.  We taught him by the spirit and it went good.  He said yes!
Yes mom, I am doing my laundry.  It's so much easier to wash clothes here.  You throw your clothes in, put some detergent in, then press a button, and wait.  It is great!
  Well, until next time--love Elder Adams