Hello family!
Thanks for all the news and information in the letters and stuff. I love
to hear about what all the stuff going on back at home. Keep me posted about
the mission calls too- congrats to Doug and Scott! Thanks for the socks and
shirts and ties and stuff. There's some pretty serious tie trading in my
building and that paisley tie is a good assett, so I''ll let you know if I make
any good deals this coming week.
The reason I've made some transactions with the health center is because
they made us get flu shots when we got there and then my burn got reinfected
this week so I had to go get that taken care of. Elder Lundberg actually has a
bunch of Doterra oils, but they're since they're kind of expensive and since I
was going to the clinic anyways, I figured I'd get stuff from the Doctor.
The reason I was headed to the clinic anyways goes into some complicated
companion switch up stuff that's been going on. I think I talked about it last
week, but my Elder Valesquez got reassigned to the referal center until his visa
to Costa Rica comes through so then I was with Elder Graza for a few days, but I
think it was Monday he had an appointment to get the okay to go out into the
field (after having some medical issues), so thats when I saw the doctor. He
got the okay at that appointment, and then we went and saw the person in charge
of arranging such arrivals with the Mission Presidents, and since he was going
to the Utah Provo mission, the Mission President was able to come pick him up an
hour later. Since then I've been back with Elder Lundberg and Elder Snyder.
If they get their visas to go to the Peru MTC, then things will change up again,
but it sounds like there's a good chance that they'll be here for the full
nine weeks. I''ll keep you posted about that.
Every time I wear my suit, I get a bunch of compliments. If I were headed
to a third world country, I'd consider sending it back and looking for another
one, but I feel like it will work well in New York. Another funny thing going
on with me and clothes is that we're supposed to match our companions with
sleeve length and stuff, but since most Spanish speaking people are going to
warm places, they've got lots of short sleeve and few long sleeve, so it's
been interesting trying to work that out. We've definitely been able to, and I
don't need any more shirts, I just think it's funny how that has been working
out. Also, while talking about clothes, I really love my Clark's shoes. I'd
recommend them to anyone and everyone.
Lots of things pertaining to New York have been coming up here in the MTC.
We watch these videos from the NYTimes called one in eight million when we're
talking about discerning people's needs, and at a fireside the speaker talked
about The Book of Mormon musical and showed all the mormon.org adds and stuff they put all over the city, and it
seems like there's been other stuff coming up too. All in all, it's just
getting me super excited to get there and have the opportunity to talk to so
many different people.
I'm learning a bunch- the Spanish isn't quite coming along as quickly as
would be nice, but I know it's coming. We're working on goals to only speak
spanish at certain time (that really helps a lot), and so by October we're
planning to pretty much only speak Spanish. We'll still need to speak English
when we need to express ourselves at important times, but otherwise, daily
conversation and such will only be Spanish. A lot of the learning here in the
MTC is more about learning how to learn on our own and developing study habits
and the likes to be able to make the most out of our time. That's been really
good. Another thing I learned from Elder Kimball, an Elder in my district, is
how to split an apple in half with my bare hands, so that's pretty exciting
too. Haha, I'll be sure to get a good picture of that one.
One thing that I learned this week that I wasn't so sure about was
extending a commitment to be baptized in the first visit. I always thought that
would be a little pushy and kind of awkward or something, but our purpose as
missionaries is to invite others to come closer to Christ. When we invite
someone to be baptized, we ask them, "Will you follow the example of Jesus
Christ and be baptized by someone holding the proper priesthood authority?", or
something very close to that. In asking that, we're able to establish
expectations and a lot of time the investigator will say something along the
lines of, "If I think it's the right thing to do then yes, I'll be baptized."
It's just a really exciting prospect, knowing that you're being used as a means
of helping someone else draw closer to Christ, and baptism is a necessary step
in following His example.
I wish I could say more because I've had some cool experiences, but
something funky happened with my computer and it took away a chunk of time. But
yup, things are going well! Being in the MTC is defintiely a learning
experience in almost every aspect. Thanks for all the support!
-Elder Griffiths
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