Week 6 MTC

"The Tower of Power"

Fancy being a Greek speaking missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? Then 9 weeks training in the MTC with what Elder Teal describes as the Tower of Power is what you need.

So its week 6 and as always P-day for missionaries otherwise known as email day to missionary parents. P-day or Preparation day is the term given to the period from breakfast to the evening meal. It is the weekly period o prepare physically for the other 6 days. Washing, ironing, shopping and some leisure time emailing and perhaps playing sport.

This week is different as the numbers in the MTC are depleted. Missionaries that are going to Leeds and Manchester after 2 weeks training left yesterday. The group going to Alpine Germany mission after 6 weeks have just left too. Leaving just the Greece Athens missionaries for another 3 weeks.

So with the cafeteria to themselves they decided they would have a table each, just because they could !

 

So onto the emails....

Sections of emails to Mum - I will let you work out the questions they are answers too !

"I'm great! It's been a really good week, although it's weird today because there are only 16 of us in the whole MTC! 

Yeah really quiet, we sat one to a table in the canteen this morning just because we could :P I don't think we will play today, we play together in exercise time everyday anyway, and there are no Germans here for us to play with now! It's really strange though! 

 I saw Elder Honour in the temple today, he was in the same session. He was really emotional and it was hitting him hard tha his mission is coming to a end. Afterwards in the Celestial room I showed him the scripture 2 Timothy 4:7, I have kept the faith, I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course. 

Everyone else is doing well too. We're all excited to leave now, some more so than others. Some people are struggling with the language but we're doing our best to help them and push them. I've started doing at last 2 hours everyday all in Greek now, usually 3. It helps a lot, and gets me to think in Greek rather than just translate. I'm working on the grammar and almost have it down, and I'm finding that I just pick up words with minimal effort, my good memory is really coming in useful. 

Yeah Elder Peel thinks he's going to come to Manchester Uni now! We're going to get a house together haha, That would be so much fun. A couple of the Alpine missionaries might be going to Manchester Uni as well, so that will be great! I sent dad a load of pictures, I think you'll like them! 

I need to go for lunch soon, sorry I haven't had much time. I may be able to come back online later. We're going shopping a the Reebok stadium this afternoon, it should be fun. Have a great week, I'll write you a letter this evening."

Emails to Dad....

What was your weeks Highlight?

"Yesterday was the last day for evryone apart from the Greeks. We had lots of pictures and I got some nice notes from people in my τ-βίβλιο (T-Book). It was mixed emotions, we're sad to see them go but excited for them to get out into the field. Last night just before bed I had the idea for us to have a zone prayer, so we all came out into the dorm corridor and prayed together. It was really good, the spirit was so strong and we could really feel our Heavenly Father's love."

It seems that ties are like currency with lots of swapping going on..

"Elder Albrecht and the tie he gave me. He is such a nice guy, he only had like 5 ties with him, and the other night he gave me one that I complimented him on a couple of weeks ago. I bought him a present to say thank you, a Gospel Art picture book, a shoe brush and a packet of digestives. I'm going to miss him! (Alpine Mission)"

Favourite scripture?

"I really like 2 Timothy 4:7. it doesn't really apply to me yet, but today in the temple Elder Honour.(Just returning home after two years, his last area was our home ward) was on the same session as us, and I showed it to him. He seemed very emotional and sad that his mission is coming to an end. I'm at the other end of the spectrum, and I want to serve my mission in a way that makes it so I'm sad to see it end, but to feel like I've done all that I could and "fought the good fight". 
This week in my Greek Book of Mormon I marked up all of the PMG scriptures, and also started the process of going through and marking everytime it refers to God or the Saviour by any of their names. I found that in the first 10 pages they are referred to 79 times! It will probably be even more in the English version, because Greek has longer words and takes up more space to say the same thing, so by page 10 the chapters arent as far along. It's a really good way to show that the BoM is Another Testament of Jesus Christ"

A section from a letter received on Saturday.

The Elder Holland talk referenced that speaks of Paul can be found HERE

Moroni 8 2-3 can be found HERE

Elders going to Greece Athens Mission

 

 Elder Peel cracks jokes, Elder Teal laughs !

Elder Teal and Companion Elder Kwok

Finally just in case you worried Elder Teal was loosing his inner geek... 

I emailed to say I had listened to a radio discussion that spoke of 99.9999999% of atoms containing nothing. Here is his reply !

"That's right, it is pretty much just empty space. Nowhere in the Universe is literally nothing, so there will be some fundamental particles floating around like neutrinos and he like, but for all intents and purposes it's empty. Although with quantum mechanics electrons aren't really in one exact place, but more they are everywhere within the atom and have differing probabilities of being found in certain places at any precise instant. But yeah, it's empty. Interesting to think that when we touch something its because our electrons are repelling the electrons of the other thing, even though they're really widely spaced relatively speaking."

That's my boy !!!


More pictures from the week can be found HERE This link is always available in the right hand sidebar.