MTC Week 2

Temple Naps..the highlight of our week!

Elder Phillips and Zach

Zach and Elder Bonous (serving in Russia)

Zach and Elder Tucker (a friend from Utah State)

MTC buddies

 

 

 

 

Letter from week #2 (9/21/2010):

So even though this is only my second week here at the MTC... it feels like I've been here forever.Your sense of time becomes really messed up when you enter the MTC. Anyways, My Ukrainian is coming along really well. We started learning grammar principles, which kinda makes sense and no sense at all at the same time. I barely understand English grammar, let alone Ukrainian grammar. But, I'll just have to keep working on it until it becomes clear to me. Yeah, I got the package. Thanks! I really needed those things and the laundry bag. Last week I just carried my stuff to the laundry room, which was fine because it was only the first time and I had like just a shirt that needed to be washed. Other than grammar, I started to learn alot more conversational Ukrainian. And I learned how to talk about families. So I can keep up a conversation in Ukrainian pretty well, a shallow conversation, but a conversation nonetheless. Tomorrow, in the the TRC(Training resources class) me and my companion are getting to know the "investigator's" family and we are teaching the first discussion in English again. We do the lessons in English up until week 4, I was told. Then we do it in Ukrainian. Which makes me a little nervous, but I'm sure at the rate I'm learning the language, I'll be fine. I also learned some other cool phrases in Ukrainian like: "I'm a big deal" "Yeah, I'm awesome" and "I was born ready!" Which I'll probably never use while in Ukraine, but doing gym time while were playing volleyball and soccer n' such I say those phrases all the time. I would show you, but this keyboard doesn't have cyrilic characters. I couple things I learned are that in Ukraine there's an old communist saying that the older generation still believes to be true and it is "In contention, truth is born". So apparantly, Ukrainians love to argue and debate, which is something that I know  will not teach them anything. Also, they hold tradition very dear and close and they'll say that their parents were orthodox and their parents were orthodox, so I must be orthodox.  We're learning to get past these points and arguments. I know that if we present the truth and we do it in a way that the spirit is present, no arguing, they will accept this message better and be more receptive. Yeah, other than that, the MTC is great. Oh, the gym is closed till the 29th because it is being renovated. So for the time being we just play volleyball out on the field, which is still way fun. And I do bump into people from high school and college, like all the time. So it is really comforting to see friendly faces wherever i go. My district and zone is pretty awesome. There are ten missionaries in my district, eight elders and two sisters. Alot of them are from Utah but are couple are from Arizona, Washington and Hawaii. And the best days here, by far are P-day(Tuesday) and Sunday. Sunday because after Sacrament meeting, which ends at two thirty, the rest of the day is free time. We get to do pretty much whatever. We usually got to the temple walk, which is where missionaries go to the temple and walk around it and talk pictures with others, chat, and just hang out. I usually take a nap in the shade at the temple, which is heavenly. And p-day because pretty much the whole day is free time, well up until 7 where there's a mandatory devotional but those are really cool so I don't mind. Me and my district usually go to the temple and do laundry and plan how we are going to teach the discussions for TRC, which is every Wednesday.  Oh, and the food is sometimes really good and sometimes really gross. But usually pretty good, you just have to be careful what you eat, because eating some of the food there will result in some pretty bad consequences.. if you know what I mean. Oh and tell Erin that she could use these e-mails for the blog. I just sent it up for my friends who are too lazy to write me and figure out how I'm doing for themselves. So tell her she can pick and choose what she wants to update and post on it. Whatever she wants to do with it, I don't really care.  And tell her that I'm pretty disappointed that I have not received any mail from her or Cam, haha. Anyways, I have to go because I have like two minutes left on here.

Love you,

Elder Zach McEntire