Week 3: Still in the MTC but an adventure today!

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NOTE FROM MADELEINE'S MOM:
We learned that Madeleine's request for a Criminal Background Check from California never arrived. Therefore, Madeleine's Slovenian visa application is seriously stalled. The Church's Travel Office instructed her to phone me to figure out which forms are still missing and how we could reconstruct the whatever items are necessary for her visa application to be completed.

Hi!

Today has been an adventure, the biggest adventure of my week. I had to phone my home plus I left the Missionary Training Center campus for about an hour. Speaking to Mom on the phone today was great, though stressful because of the stuff we're trying to figure out. Then going off campus.... that was something!

We took a shuttle to the Provo Police Station and I had accidentally left my name-tag at the front desk so I was wandering around the police station without one. Sister Tanner had hers though, so things were good. It took the woman at the front window of the police station about 5 minutes to do my police background check. Compare that to the two week wait that they have in California. And the fee was 10 dollars, not $60 like it is in California. Good grief! But it was nice to drive around Provo a bit and see the place where I resided the majority of the last three years. It’s hard to believe all my friends are just down the street but I never see them even though I’m in Provo too. The MTC seems like a different city, actually a different world. And when we go to the Provo Temple it seems like I couldn’t possibly be in Provo—my life is so different from when I lived here as a student going to BYU.

Our meetings with the investigators have been off and on. Some of the time we are really able to invite the Spirit and have a wonderful meeting with them. I love those times; they're definitely the best parts of the week. But there never seems to be enough time in a day to plan for our meetings and still learn Slovenian. Even as our language becomes better, we're constantly reminded of how little we can actually say. We probably know a couple of hundred vocabulary words and now we're learning how to apply them. Cases are the primary structure of Slovenian and most Eastern European grammar, and that's something that doesn't even exist in any form in English. It makes things considerably more complicated until we really get the graphs down and learn how to use them well.

There are SO MANY graphs to memorize! We sit in the classroom for most of our waking hours, with the little seats and these slanted desks off which everything falls. I sit by the window and have a view of Mount Timpanogas as the sun rises and strikes the southeastern side and throughout the day until the last pink rays vanish. It is a strange thing to know that I've seen the entire progression of the light on the mountains throughout a day from sunrise to sunset--from the same position. But we learn so much here so fast and we have such dedicated teachers. Sister Kelly, one of our teachers, has been just wonderful with Sister Tanner and I and comforting us when we're feeling like we're not doing as well as we should be. Sister Okoren, who used to play the part of our first investigator, is really intense about wanting us to just say what we're doing and mean it, and to not be afraid. Brother Johnson is probably the best Slovene speaker that the mission has produced in at least 6 years (so says sister Okoren) and so he is a great asset to us when we're confused about anything with the language. Besides, he is always really excited about what he teaches when he teaches about the language, and so it is pretty great to have him as a teacher. We don't feel like we're getting through to him with the gospel yet, so we're hoping to fixing that. (He is playing our shy Slovene investigator, Milan).

You know, having multiple investigators throughout the week role-playing the part of real Slovenes is a new addition to the MTC. It only changed as recently as August. It means that we have a lot less time on our hands to mess around because we have to be planning all the time for the two lessons we have to teach per day. And if we don't do well by making the gospel relevant to the investigator or by helping them to see the benefit of it in their life and how they can make a connection with God themselves, then the investigator will ask us to stop coming. Which means there are real consequences for not doing well. This already happened to the Slovene Elders and Sister Tanner and I are terrified that it will happen to us. We hope so much that the Lord will be with us. I know that these aren't real investigators, but we know this is much what it will be like in the mission field of Slovenia so it is important to us that we learn how to teach well and help people find their way to God.

I don't think I've ever said this, but the sister who sleeps on the bunk bed above me is the same sister that I met at IHOP when I was having breakfast there with my Mother and friends the morning I entered the MTC. She is going to go to the Czech Republic for her mission and she is awesome. All the other sisters in our residence hall are awesome. They’re all going to the Czech Prague Mission and they're all friendly and focused. Everyone desires to be obedient so we start quiet time and go to bed on time practically every night. We also always get up before 6.30 A.M., which is wake up time. It feels great. Every night we have a group prayer together and then we each say something about the person who said the prayer aloud. This week was “colors,” and I was shocked by the colors people assigned me: I got maroon, magenta, red, bright purple, and pink. I did not anticipate that at all.

Remember how last week I wrote that Elder M. Russell Ballard spoke to us? Well this week Elder Russell M. Nelson was our guest speaker. It was so cool! He spoke of the Book of Mormon and about how it is relevant and necessary in our work. Specifically he talked about the new special issue of the Ensign magazine that focuses on the Book of Mormon this month (Ensign, October 2011). He told us it's an incredible resource for us and that it must be a keepsake for every missionary. We were all given one issue of next month’s Ensign. AND there is an article specifically about the Book of Mormon being translated into Slovenian! How cool is that? It was so awesome to read – an entire article about Slovenia! :) Everyone should read it.

I am not worried about the fact that I’m going to be here for another 6 weeks. Like I said, time is weird here so I don't think it will feel like 6 more weeks. It hasn't even felt like three weeks so far. I don't know what it has felt like… Just time outside of time, I guess.

But I am learning so much. This is awesome.

Vse moj ljubezen,

Sestra Ary