Week 5 -- Living in the world of the MTC

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Hello friends and family!

I can't believe that I'm in week five. Living at the Missionary Training Center is really just so strange.

Life here is sort of like you are living on an entirely different planet. Nothing is the way that it used to be. People aren't made as individuals on this planet—no, they're made in pairs. Seeing someone walking alone is sort of like seeing someone without an arm.

The day begins at 6:30 a.m. for 2,500 19-year-old missionaries and now, after having become so accustomed to it, we all spend our free time sitting at our desks in our classrooms when the weather isn't nice outside.

The intrigue dominating this culture surrounds desk stealing, flag hiding, and treasure map making.

Meals are a series of long lines and stratagems to make sure you're not in the longest line but you're still getting the food you want.

The world ends at 10:30 p.m., and everything goes dark, only to start again with a series of blaring alarm clocks at 6:30 a.m. the next morning.

The game to play in gym is “four square,” where the intensity supersedes even that of the basketball or volleyball games all around.

People stand in line at 5:00 a.m. in the morning to get sack lunches for their Preparation days.

And the most important thing that you're preparing for all week is talking to people (who are really your instructors but pretend to be investigators) thus helping you become a better teacher.

All of it is absolutely FABULOUS.

I cannot even tell you how much fun it is to be around these elders all the time. I have so much respect for them and everything they're doing with their lives when most of them haven't even lived away from home before. They're all so kind, spiritual, and goofy, it makes the days go a lot faster.

For example, one of our elders might get into an intense discussion with another surrounding whether bananas grow on trees or shrubs. It goes something like this:

"My grandmother had a banana tree"

"Bananas don't grow on trees they grow on shrubs."

"No they don't."

"Yes they do, and they're all clones of each other,"

"They grow on trees--they have wood. Sister Ary said that a tree has to have wood. Wait, what did you say about clones?"

"They might be like palm trees, they’re actually just overgrown shrubs who pretend to be trees. They're lying."

"Do you mean clones like the attack of the clones? I can speak mandalorean."

"Say something."

"weoikrwoenwe. That means a mandalorean never forgets."

"Yes, they're all clones, so if they get a disease, they all die."

"Did you know that mandalorean is spoken as a series of short words put together with dashes? For example..."

"Bananas don't grow on trees."

"I lit my socks on fire once because I swear one of them was possessed. I was wearing them on my feet."

"Why are we talking about this now?"

"I wore like 6 pairs of socks, and so when I lit them on fire I could dance around for a while. But I had a bucket of water there to put them out. So when it got too hot, I just put it out."

"You jumped in a bucket?"

"Yes."

"What if it was a chemical fire? Then it wouldn't have gone out. What would you have done then?"

"What if an alien came down and ate your face?"

And so it goes. That is sort of a smushing together of conversations I’ve heard over the past few days. We have been trying to keep it down so that we can at least try to concentrate. It is difficult to concentrate when dialogue like that is going on. Sister Tanner will be reading the scriptures and then start to smile and laugh silently, so we're both just sitting there with our faces buried in our work shaking in our chairs with laughter.

I took a little too long on that conversation, so I haven't much time to write. It has been a really good week though, and the best part of it has been that we've been teaching our investigators about how to keep the commandments and what they are. It turns out, though, that one of our investigators likes to drink occasionally, and smokes, and drinks coffee every morning. We were a little concerned about that until we found out that our other fake investigator is into more hardcore word of wisdom violations (remember these are personas that the teachers invent, they're not real people). We didn't believe him for so long when he was telling us about his addiction, that it took about 10 minutes longer than it should have just because we had him repeating the same thing over and over again until he was practically punctuating every single word. Suddenly we gasped in unison then having to figure out some way to tell him about how the Church and God can help him get through these addictions no matter how hard they are to quit. Now, I am not exactly certain what we're going to do, but he is really trying to change his life for the better, and sometime soon he is going to be clean.

We attended a session at the temple today which was wonderful. I LOVE THE TEMPLE! I am so sad that I won't be able to go to one in Slovenia since there isn't one within my mission boundaries.

I have been sick with a cold for the past few days. It has settled in my lungs and is making me cough all the time making me sound like a heavy smoker. Brilliant timing for the Word of Wisdom and forgoing tobacco discussion, I know.

All told things are great. I am probably going to fly to Washington, D.C. in the next 2 weeks to make my first required appearance at the Slovenian Embassy. That will mean I’m one step closer to getting my visa in order to live there.

I love you all!

Sestra Ary