Week Tres - Provo MTC

BONJOUR!!

Ok so the weeks here are weird, it's week three but I've really only been here like 16 days so it's not that long.  How is everyone!? I hope everyone back at home is awesome with school/college starting up.  I'm getting pretty used to the routine here and tbh it's not that bad. 

The usual daily routine consists of forcing myself out of bed at 6:30 in order to be "exactly obedient" (that's a saying they have here, "obedience brings blessings but exact obedience brings miracles." and I DEFINITELY need a miracle if I'm gonna learn two languages in 9 weeks haha!) Then we exercise for an hour, then we study for 3-4 (Personal study, companionship study, and language study) And all the studies are supposed to be aimed towards how we can teach our current investigators better.  Speaking of investigators!  We finished teaching "Nicole" and that was a fun first experience!  She was very nice and was encouraging to our week old French.

Elder Todd and I with Nicole

Now Elder Todd and I are teaching our teachers, Kimble and Vanderholm, who are pretending to be investigators.  (investigators are people who wanna know more about the Gospel and get taught by missionaries)  They are good actors let me tell you.  Vanderholm's character is so intimidating and just stares judgingly the whole time haha!! It's pretty scary and difficult to teach when the room feels so tense.  (and when you can't freaking speak French)  But ya!  We usually have 2-3  3hr lessons inbetween meals and then go back to the residence where we hang out, sing hymns and sleep.  

On P Days! (which are Fridays) We wake up and go straight to the temple! Then we eat from the temple cafeteria and it's SO GOOD!  yummys.  Then we come back and do our laundry, and write emails! (Which is what I'm doing now)  At 2:40 we have a giant soccer game with all the French speakers!  It is very fun and very hot.  I better get used to it.  Then at 6PM, P Day ends and we have a class.  

---Some random thoughts--- 

 It's so awesome seeing all these Elders I knew from high school come in! I'll pass someone I know every once in a while and I'll get so excited.  Elder Kerr learns French in the same building as me so we get to talk all the time! (when we aren't diligently studying French and The Lord's work, of course.)

Elder Kerr and I being Ethauns

The MTC has no regard for a sense of time.  It will feel like 10PM when it's only 11AM and the days come and go so fast but so slow.  I'm thankful we all have watches otherwise I would never know the time.  

I. Eat. So. Much. Food. Here.  But we do a fair bit of exercise so it's fine.  And I drink 2 glasses of chocolate milk every meal.  Praise for the BYU creamery.

I have had the oddest dreams while I've been here.  And they're always like action adventure end of the world type stuff.  And I can never remember them, just little parts.

We've met so many people who are already fluent in 2,3,4 languages and it's nuts! Like how do you do that!! And then I realize that will be me in two years lol.

We always toss an orange around for entertainment during study time.  Until it breaks and leaks all over my white shirt...

I spilled food on my new pink tie and I had to clean it before Wednesday, because on Wednesdays we wear pink. (ties)

There are a few Elders here who were also in bands before they came! So it's fun to talk to them about music. 

We taught TRCs this week! TRCs (idk what it stands for  [*see note below]) but basically we teach LDS members who speak French as practice! It's fun teaching actual people and not actors! I'm so stoked to go out in the field.

OK! STORYTIME! So we have a pretty busy schedule locked up here in the MTC so nothing THAT exciting really happens.  BUT! Elder Todd and I made it to the "outside." Here's how.  

Elder Todd's jaw has been bugging him, so he talked to some people about it, and turns out our Branch 2nd councilor (one of the guys that runs the French part of the MTC) is a dentist!! And he knew just what to do to fix it, he just had to make a retainer thingy to keep his jaw from doing stuff while Elder Todd slept.  So, he invited us to come see him any time on Monday.
  

So Monday after breakfast we hopped on a shuttle to Markham's (that's the Dentist's name) office! It feels like it's been so long since I've been in a car!  We started driving and I realized, We are SO CLOSE to BYU! Like across the street.  I saw the buildings where some of my friends live, and that was crazy.  It's odd to think that the world is so close but I feel so secluded haha!  Anyways, we get to the dentist's office and it turns out to be a KIDS DENTISTS OFFICE with an aquarium with the finding nemo fish and everything.  

Markham sits us down and they make a mould for Elder Todd's retainer.  Markham then tells us it will take about 2 hours to make the retainer, so HE INVITES US TO HIS HOUSE FOR LUNCH! SCORE!  We meet his dog, Axel, who was some rare "ridgeback" showdog breed and very pretty.  We then met his wife who was so so nice and they made us the best sandwiches I've ever had in my life.  (Probably cause I'm used to the MTC food by now) They also gave us their homemade wine!!! (Don't worry mom and dad it was just grapejuice) But seriously this stuff was amazing.  They grow like hundreds of types of grapes from all over the world and every year make around 1200 bottles of very fancy grapejuice. They invented their own steamer and everything. It's called Chateau Markham and there are several varieties consisting of many different combinations of grapes.  That was seriously probably the best stuff I've ever drunk.  Drinken? Drunken? Idk.

So as we finish up our food, Markham goes back to work ON HIS UNICYCLE and tells us the directions to walk back.  When we were walking back I felt like a real missionary haha! Everyone was looking at us and some people stopped to talk and we got honked at!  I felt like a celebrity as a missionary in Provo lol.  

When we got back to the dentist, we got the retainer, and as we were waiting for the shuttle to take us back to the MTC, we talked with the dental assistants and it was so fun!  Since it was a kid's dentist they made us balloon animals and gave us stickers hahaha!

The balloon animals Elder Todd and I got

The stickers which we naturally decorated our nametags

But ya it was quite a fun time, and it made me super excited to be out of the MTC.  6 weeks to go!

The French is actually coming really well! I can understand most when people talk, and I can speak pretty confidently to friends and in lessons.  Studying has been difficult cause we have to stay focused for so long but it has been so rewarding.
  

ALSO! I saw my first guitar in a while! Nicole, our investigator (who is really a teacher) had it to play hymns on our weekly sunday temple walk!  I REALLY wanted to play it but didn't ask cause I didn't wanna be "that guy" hahaha!

I'm not gonna lie, this was a pretty difficult week and has been very humbling.  Of course learning languages is hard, but the emotional and spiritual impacts of the MTC are brutal.  It's hard trying to be a perfect missionary haha! It takes a lot of sucking up your pride and trying to be humble enough to learn from the Lord.  I truly know that God answers prayers, I have seen crazy cool things happen as answers to my prayers since I've been here.  

Thanks again so much to anyone who has written me or sent me anything, you guys are THE BEST.  top notch.  number one. best of show.  first place.  Thankuthankuthanku

Also sorry my emails are so long, they will calm down now that I'm getting used to the new lifestyle.

  All the lovezzzzzzzzzzz, 

      Elder Jenkins

*From the MTC Wikipedia Page:

Teaching Resource Center

Missionaries review a mock teaching session in the TRC.

The Teaching Resource Center (TRC) gives missionaries some experience teaching in their mission language, even if it is their native tongue. All missionaries visit the TRC each week. Volunteers who speak the language role play as "investigators" (people who are investigating the church) in these teaching situations.^[8] At the end, Missionaries watch a video tape of their teaching session to find ways to improve their language skills and teaching style.

Volunteers are usually returned missionaries and/or BYU students with language abilities. Members of other faiths are able to volunteer as well. All volunteers must present a temple recommend or BYU ID card to participate. As visitors to the MTC, volunteers must pick up a guest pass at the main desk before going to the TRC.

Week Dos! - Provo MTC

WHAT IS UP MY FRIENDS AND FAM!?!?  This week has been nutzos.  It went by pretty fast but I feel like I've been here an ETERNITY.  I can't even remember what life before the MTC was like.  So long ago.  Anyways! I'm getting pretty settled in by now, I'm alright waking up at 6;30, I'm used to the food, and everything's pretty great!!  I miss you all so much dangit.  That's the worst part at the moment.  Surprisingly enough I'm doin just fine without my daily 14 hours of rock n' roll music!! I'm kinda used to just singing hymns everywhere I go.  It's actually a pretty fun time.

--Little known secret, THE NAMETAGS DOUBLE AS KAZOOS!  I do it all the time and it's so obnoxious.  But I don't have my guitar so I need some sort of instrument lol. Everyone gets along great here.  I was so worried I was gonna have a district with a bunch of crazies but everyone is so cool.  Excersise (plz excuse any spelling errors) times are super duper fun, we play soccer, basketball, and volleyball most of the time.  And kickball!  Itsh great.  

ELDER KERR FINALLY GOT HERE! But Elders Peterson and Caine left so that was a bummer.  But good for them!! They're gonna do so good out in the mission field.  The French is coming pretty good!  It's awesome, we try to speak it whenever we can, and it's becoming natural.  Like I'll naturally respond with "oui" or "merci" instead of yes or thank you etc.  It's still pretty bad, but I'm better than I ever was before.  

WE'VE TAUGHT 4 LESSONS IN ONLY FRENCH.  Not learned- TAUGHT.  The people here are crazy.  But somehow it all works out! My first "investigator" (they're teachers who are acting) was named "Nicole." She was super cool and never even laughed at how bad our French was! We taught her quite a bit, and then she revealed herself as a teacher here and gave us feedback.  What I've learned is you gotta teach with the spirit otherwise it's a waste of time.  We would go in with a huge script in perfect French and read it off, and she was like "oh cool that's interesting".  And then at the end we would just wing it and bear our testimonies and the spirit was definetly there.  (or as much as it could be given our awful French)  And Nicole would Actually be way interested! Super cool.  I know the gospel and the gift of tongues are real.  Like I always forget words during the lesson, but during the testimonies I always know how to say what I want.  It's incredible.  The spirit is the coolest.  

On sundays and tuesdays there's a choir practice and that's way fun! it's like concert choir except much bigger and only gospel songs.  After the choir a guest speaker comes for a devotional!! On sunday we had the "nashville tribute band" which isn't necessarily my style of music haha but they were so good!  they told stories about the church and their missions etc. and then played the songs they had written about those experiences!! Plus they were all crazy good singers.  Tuesday's speaker was someone from the 70 but I forgot haha! They're talk was super cool, about their own conversion story and how we need to devote ourselves to the Lord. 

SPEAKING OF

We have "movie night" Sunday night.  Really they're just talks from apostles but it's awesome!  We watched the "must see" movie - "The Character of Christ" by Elder Bednar.   By far the best talk I've ever heard.  It's all about how we need to be like the Savior and stop being selfish and focus on thinking outwards towards others.  How we need to become fully converted to the gospel by actively serving instead of just having a "testimony", cause that's not enough.  We all came out of that awestruck by the spirit.  We've had some way cool lessons too!  Our teachers names are Frere Vanderholm and Soeur Kimble and they are the coolest!  They both served in Tahiti too!  Vanderholm gave a super awesome presentation about how the BoM was written for the restoration and how it's amazing and it's so true.  Ugh I love the gospel it just makes everything better.  And we had THE BEST time last night in Kimbles lesson!  I can't even remember why, but near the end we were all so tired and could not stop laughing.  For like 20 mins!! We tried to take a break but we just kept laughing everytime anyone made eye contact.  It's actually fun only having 3 other guys in the class because we're all so tight and can be real with each other.  

It's slightly weird not having a phone cause that was always my go to source for entertainment.  But now it's gone and replaced with a little key holder/retracter thingy! I play with it for HOURS.
  

I EAT SO MUCH FOOD HERE.  Like I never used to eat anything and now I eat twice as much as the other Elders.  It's nuts I tell you. Cause I used to only eat like a sandwich and a bag of popcorn a day.  And they say I read the French dictionary like a book, but I'm learning a lot so who cares! 

Also SO MANY thanks to everyone who sent me letters or packages!!!!!! It's seriously so cool to hear from and get pictures and stuff from yall.  All the misses and loves, 

Elder Jenkins