Hey all, first week at the MTC is over and it's been great! I have so much I want to tell all of you but not that much time so I'll see where I get!
My companion is Elder Paredes. He's from Petaluma, CA. He's the first missionary in his family, his parents are converts who moved to CA from Mexico. He's fluent in Spanish as well and in his mission call he was called Spanish and French speaking. He took some French in high school but nothing too advanced or anything. We're about the same with our French level. He's pretty quiet like myself but we get along and everything which is good! I'd say the hardest part so far is having to be with a companion ALL the time. It's not that I don't like Elder Paredes, it's just that having to do everything and stay in sight and sound of someone pretty much 24/7 is pretty hard! But I know companionships are for a reason and I've learned a lot already from him.
Our district is comprised of the two of us and Soeur Calderon. That's it! Not sure why we have just a small district...There are about 8 missionaries also going to Montreal all learning Spanish. I also got Spanish nametags, I hope they know I don't know any Spanish... I might get Elder Paredes to teach me some. Anyways! Soeur Calderon is from Sacramento! She's a convert to the church so I don't think she'd know Rosenlof's. She lives closer downtown, kinda between Elk Grove and downtown. I told her I used to live right next to El Camino high and she knew exactly where that is! I think she's in Elk Grove stake? I'm not sure. She did a year and a half at BYU-I before the mission. She's also fluent in Spanish and is called to teach in Spanish. She and Elder Paredes are both great and our district is small but we all get along which is good!
We're in class pretty much everyday except for Tuesday. Sometimes we have a teacher, sometimes we just have our own time to divide up however we need to. The teachers all speak in French probably 90% of the time. The French has come pretty easily I feel like, taking 101 really helped a lot! Of course, we didn't learn any gospel terms in that class but they're all pretty similar to the English ones. The first thing they really taught us is how to pray in French. Now every time I pray (which is a lot at the MTC) it's in French and it's pretty cool! I love how the gospel is true, no matter the language!
On our second full day we had our first lesson! They don't waste any time here! Our "ami de l'église" (what the french call investigators, lit. friend of the church) is Jhonny. (He's really a teacher but we act like he's an investigator. He's a really good actor!) In our first lesson we kind of wanted to talk about having faith in Jesus Christ but we kind of didn't end up talking about that at all. He asks a lot of questions and we try our best to answer in our limited French vocabulary. I know the gift of tongues and the Holy Ghost is real from these lessons because I've been able to say things and express things I didn't even think of until during the lesson. We've had three lessons with Jhonny so far, we've got him to pray with us twice and we challenged him to read some of the BoM and pray about it. He's talked a lot about a problem within his family so I think we'll try and help him with that. It's so important to realize that you may plan a lesson for someone that you might never get to teach, and that's ok! Just gotta listen to the promptings of the Spirit! Which I can feel pretty much all the time here! It's great!
As far the MTC itself goes, it's pretty much the same as BYU in appearance and cafeteria food quality. The other district in our zone (all going to Paris, except two to Lyon) have really helped us a lot to get situated and everything. We'll have to do the same in a week when they leave and a new district joins our zone! Right now I'm district leader and in a week Elder Paredes or I will be zone leader and one will be district leader. All the missionaries in the other zone are really cool, there's:
Elder Smith, from Vermont, Zone leader
Elder Moore, from SoCal, Zone leader
Elder Kendrick, from Toronto
Elder Turner, from Nebraska
Soeur Kearney, from Fort McMurray, Alberta
Soeur Allen, from Sandy, UT
Soeur Wilsher, from U.K.
I'll miss all of them when they leave, hope we get some cool missionaries next week!
Our Branch Presidency is also super cool.
President Merrill is a religion prof at BYU so he knows everything about the scriptures. He's pretty cool.
Brother Downling is first counselor, has the most soothing voice ever, updated me on he BYU - St. Mary's game, and promised to send us In N Out in the mail. I'll know if he lives up to his promise in about 45 minutes. Please oh please let it happen!
Brother Newell is second counselor and his is the most interesting man ever. He was ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE! Like of the United States. He's worked with 4 presidents, was ambassador to Sweden in his early thirties, and has also worked with just about all the prophets since he was in his 20s. On time in a lesson he said "When I was with President Reagan the day he was shot..." Like what?! Today he brought in pictures of him shaking hands with all these famous diplomats and attending all these balls and dinners with the Reagan's and Fords. Crazy! And he's only 61!!
Today was P-Day. We woke up to get there at 5:30 a.m. to get in to the 6 a.m. session. After we did some service folding in the laundry room. Then we had breakfast in the temple cafeteria. It was so good! The other elders talked about how it's like the best part of the week for them and I have to say, it just might be. After we had some free time. I couldn't really take a nap which is probably a good thing. I hope I'm tired at the end of the day, I haven't really been and need to be better about getting on the missionary schedule!
I've tons of people I know from school. Every time I think, "I think I've seen everyone from my ward who's on a mission right now," I see someone else I know! I didn't see Quincey until Sunday but when I did we had a nice handshake!
There's so much more I want to tell you! It's been great here and I'm so grateful for this opportunity to serve. Je vous aime! Hope you have a great week, keep me updated in everything you're doing! Au revoir!
-Ross
p.s. my address is
Elder Ross Rosenlof
APR13 CAN-MON
2007 N 900 E Unit 20
Provo, UT 84602
p.p.s. if you don't want to get an email like this every week let me know!
p.p.p.s. sorry no pictures, I used the wrong computers to write this. I still look pretty much the same though
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