Week 1 Home MTC and Provo MTC

Hey Hey!

     Sorry for taking so long on this email I've been crazy busy at Provo MTC! I'll get more into later on but I just want to let you all know that I am doing GREAT! The spirit has been insanely strong and I've already gotten into the rhythm of things. Also thats why the length of this email might be quite large.

Here are some funny moment from the past two weeks:

-During home MTC while we were in one of our classes we were asked to go into a couple "breakout rooms" to roleplay as investigators and teach with each other. I got into a breakout room with Elder Ratsatchak (I may have spelled that wrong). we were asked that the person first teaching is the tallest. So it was safe to say that I was going to be the first investigator haha! However you forget that you cant tell how tall someone is on zoom. Elder Ratsatcak believes that HE is the short one (him being 5 foot 8 inches) but when I revealed my astonishing height of 5 foot 6 inches. Elder Ratsatchak loses it and says,

"What?! I thought you were 6 feet tall!"

-Another time during home MTC with Elder Ratsatchak, for whatever reason I decided to ask him the most random questions at the beginning of each class. The best one I said was:

"If you had to describe yourself as any muffin flavor what muffin flavor would you be?"

This was the first question I asked him and I knew I picked the right person because he answers like this:

"Honestly, I would be a Banana Muffin because I smell good. And Banana Muffins smell good."

So, Honestly dubs for Elder Ratsatchak for smelling good HA!

-The funniest MTC moment so far has got to be when we went to the temple this Saturday on September 6th to do baptisms. When I had got to the font I had the opportunity to baptize some random Sister who was not a missionary. There was a temple worker sitting on a chair in case there wasn't a Brother to baptize. He looks at me and I say,

"Its cool I can baptize."

He nods and watches us walk into the font. It was when I raised my arm to the square that he stands up and goes,

"Have you been ordained as a preist?"

As if being the shortest Elder in the entire MTC wasn't bad enough I have now been incorrectly called out as a 15 year old in front of my whole district! Safe to say my district is NEVER going to let that go. Thanks to that temple worker for starting that HA!

-Okay this is the last one I promise. We are late into one class and suddenly some of the older Elders who have been in the MTC a decent time who are also speaking Korean walk in. They all line up against the wall to introduce themselves in Korean to us. There are about 15 Elders in this line and they all seem pretty good at the language. They start introducing and it seems pretty normal. They say their name, where they are from, where they are going, and what their favorite food is. All of this was being said in Korean. Now some quick context, when you say your name or other posessive sentences you end a lot of them in "Ni Da" which means "To be" so if I wanted to say Nice to meet you I would say "man a so pan gap sum NI DA" (Notice how "Ni Da" is capitalized...) So, about 6 elders down the line is this one who clearly looks like he does not wanna be here. He says his name, where he's from, and where he is serving. But when he needs to say what his favorite food is he says,

"Uhhhh. Don't Care Ni Da." and then just sat down.

I hope he's doing okay lol.

-The first week of the Provo MTC:

I arrived on Wendesday September 3rd and getting out of the car and walking in was about as anti climactic as it sounds. I mean we literally pulled into a parking lot an Elder came and grabbed my luggage I took a picture with the fam gave hugs and immediately went into the building. This all happened within 10 minutes. After that we were given our phones, keys and keycards, and sent immediately to the "Residence Hall" or the dorms. And I feel they purposely made them as mundane as possible I mean the whole building feels like its 100 years old. Our room is made of bricks and its got a table and chairs 3 sets of bunks and some closets. Thats about it. However I wasn't really overwhelmed by this at all. In fact this whole week I have yet to feel crazy home sick or sad. So I can thank the spirit for that one. We then ate dinner and yes, the food that day was pretty bad. However Elder May, in my district claims that the food on that day was quote:

"Bussin"

I guess I must not be in the know. Which is a phrase that I have adopted from Elder Faux, in my district as well, who uses that whenever someone is confused about something. Speaking of my district they are awesome! I would say something about all 16 of them but this email feels pretty long and I still need to get to know them all a little better. However I will say, My companion Elder Grawrock is pretty sweet. He's from upstate New York in a tiny town called "Hamilton." He claims that his town has around 3000 people and his congregation at church has maybe 30 people on a good day. So he's had a crazy testimony on that. But the coolest thing about Elder Grawrock is he was made the District Leader and I get to be his companion. So I guess that means I get to hold him accountable and help him out a bit. Trust me from the amount of stress he felt from this first week based on that responsability alone he needed some help, other than that he's locked in and started to realize his actual responsablities for the district in the MTC are not all that impressive haha. 

-The language

Korean is slowly getting there. Right now its learning the alphabet, memorizing phrases, and saying prayers. But other than that there isn't much to it for right now. We start full Korean emersion in class starting thursday and most of us are pretty excited. That's all I have to say for that right now.

To close I want to share a quick talk I found called: 

"God's Compelling Witness: The Book of Mormon, President Tad R. Callister, October 2017 General Conference."

No spoilers you gotta listen to it for yourself.

Thanks for getting this far, But unfortunately it is currently 10 minutes past my bed time and my roomates are getting a little angry lol!

I testify of the truth of the Book of Mormon and that anything can be done through Christ if you simply pray and soften your heart. So I challenge you that any struggles you have in your life if you choose to simply pray and soften your heart and ask of God you will recieve an answer. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ Amen.

Much Love, Elder Christensen