Hey nice to be able to message you again. This week has been pretty nice. The new German transfer missionaries are on their first p-day today and me and my companion probably won't have to do anything like district or zone leaders.
This upcoming Sunday the presidency changes the district leaders in each district and will be picking new zone leaders as well. I'm actually kind of glad since all the district leaders and zone leaders do here is go to meetings which takes away from their MDT or free planing time. I can't think of anything too new that happened this week.
I did get to call back the lady I had been talking to in the RC. She however did not get the missionaries to visit her and was really busy so I didn't get to talk to her long. She said she would try to call about 2 hours later but since I can't control who her calls goes to I hope she got someone that could talk to her. I did find out that I'm not as bad at German as I thought.
Most the people I had been doing the German work with left this week. I asked why they were only here four weeks, and I found out that they were the fast-track missionaries that know the language well enough to go to the field early. All of them had taken a few years of German with college German and most of them had a German parent. They told me not to feel bad that they didn't think I had progressed fast enough to leave early but I didn't care. I was stoked that I was actually doing good.
I've noticed that almost everyones mom who goes here who has a missionary mom thing has talked to my mom. Our room in the residence halls has become pretty much the only place where the missionaries seem to want to come hang out at night.
I've officialy switched from running and working out at gym time to playing four square. I think the MTC is the only place in the world with an adult sized four-square field with actual rivalry between the different foreign speaking missionaries. The spanish missionaries pretty much are 40% of the MTC population. The oriental language speaking missionaries (korean, madrin, japenese) are probably about 20% and the english speaking are about 25%. There is only 1 side of 1 floor of 1 building where the German speaking missionaries are. The only rarer language here is tongan I think.
Yet the german missionaries have always been the top for a lot of stuff here at the MTC such as.... We are the best at standing up and taking trays for sisters, we always do the best in the TRC which is the volunteer investigators, we always have the most outside contact with people that speak our language (such as calling out at the RC and talking to actual Germans) and of course we are the best at four-square.
It sounds conceded but I'm not joking German speaking missionaries are beasts in the gym.
The only thing I can think might be a negative about the new missionaries is that they do not yet understand the shower time limit. We never had an issue with that in our transfer and many were grateful, yet if the new transfer does not learn soon to get out of the shower sooner people are just going to start walking into the shower with them. We don't have enough time out of our thirty minutes to get ready and be in class to spend 15 minutes of it waiting in a shower line.
I'm sorry that I do not have the questions that you wrote me in the letter a while back. I tried to remember them and could not. I do remember some of the questions about being here for that missionary coming in April. The best advice I think I can give is to not judge the first three days of the MTC as how it will be at the MTC. Thursday- Saturday is extremly long and boring. Yet, after that you get time that you and your companion plan out and that makes the MTC here so much better.
I wish I had brought more gym clothes and casual clothes. Most my clothes are extremly baggy on me now for some reason (even some of the mediums) and we're not aloud to wear it if it is too big. I really only have 2 shirts I can wear to gym and at night. Which is starting to get pretty tiring. I think there was a few things that were pointless to bring, the only reason the handkercheif was even helpful is because we got to take part in a temple dedication here last Sunday.
German is such a weird language there is the proper way of talking to people which is "Sie sprechen" and the informal way you get to talk to like your friends and family too and that is "Du sprechen" but on our mission unless our president says different we always have to us "Sie sprechen" unless your praying in which case you can only use "Du sprechen" so even your companion you have to call "Sie" which is like calling them sir or ma'am. I was so excited to get my Ipod this week, we finally have about 40 extra songs we can listen to haha.
My companion and I have felt really good about ourselves recently. It isn't a huge secret out of all the German companionships we study effectivly yet we still take breaks were we might just go around and talk to people or greet new people and stuff. So most people asume we are doing horrible. Yet, we actually have the best german, and we have all our lessons planned out.
Monday's are amazing cause they pair you off with a random companionship and they have you teach the first or second lesson back and forth to each other. We pretty much always go second so we get to act like investigators first. We don't try to be hard at all. We ask really basic questions and usually they have to take a break from the lesson or don't have an answer. So then when it's their turn to be investigators they try to ask the most difficult questions they can think of. I don't know if we are just extremly pre-pared, if we are being guided by the spirit, or if living with someone who had so many questions about the church prepared me for it. But, we always have an answer and we don't do it in a sarcastic, or bible bashing way at all.
We have an event every Tuesday called TRC. Which is were volunteers come and pretend to be investigators so you can practice doing things like teaching at a meal, or teaching at a park, ect. Yet, we got one week were we got a real investigator and didn't even know it till the end. After we taught them the first lesson they said they were going to start talking to missionaries outside of the MTC as well because the only reason he had even gone was cause his mormon friend was going to volunteer and so he tagged along. It was pretty sweet. Our teacher said that actually happens a lot but they never tell the missionaries that it is a real investigator and that some of the missionaries don't take it serious since it is a practice. Yet, we did take it serious answered the guy's real concerns about family, the book of mormon, prophets, and some other stuff he asked about.
Sorry that I keep jumping around in thought but I have a lot of things I keep remembering.
I found out recently in Germany and Switzerland when you go to a meal at anyones house you have to eat all the food they give you otherwise it is offensive. And, they give you a TON of food.
There's also all sorts of cultural and personal things you have to learn. Like you can talk to anyone anywhere about their family and you're not creepy, yet if you ask what their job is......
I can't send back any of my memory cards yet since I don't have it filled up that much, and you can't use cards for sending packages, dry cleaning, and a bunch of other stuff!You have to use cash! It's stupid and the only ATM here charges you for every withdrawl. So I don't really know when I will send back the memory cards and mail.
I'm going to try to write some stuff in German but I don't practice writing german that much so good luck since I don't have a dicionary.
Hallo ich weiss dass Ihr habt fur mich liebe. Ich habe fur euch liebe auch. Ich werde eine gute missionare sein. Ich hoffe euch nicht traurig seid.
Well that's all I can think of for this week and sorry this keyboard won't let me type some letters so that fur should have an umlaut.
Have a great week and sorry for anyone that has sent me letter that I have not responded to we are acutally only aloud to write letters for 1 hour on Thursdays and no other time so I will try to write everyone I can today. Auf Wiedersen
Jeff (Elder Hargett)
This upcoming Sunday the presidency changes the district leaders in each district and will be picking new zone leaders as well. I'm actually kind of glad since all the district leaders and zone leaders do here is go to meetings which takes away from their MDT or free planing time. I can't think of anything too new that happened this week.
I did get to call back the lady I had been talking to in the RC. She however did not get the missionaries to visit her and was really busy so I didn't get to talk to her long. She said she would try to call about 2 hours later but since I can't control who her calls goes to I hope she got someone that could talk to her. I did find out that I'm not as bad at German as I thought.
Most the people I had been doing the German work with left this week. I asked why they were only here four weeks, and I found out that they were the fast-track missionaries that know the language well enough to go to the field early. All of them had taken a few years of German with college German and most of them had a German parent. They told me not to feel bad that they didn't think I had progressed fast enough to leave early but I didn't care. I was stoked that I was actually doing good.
I've noticed that almost everyones mom who goes here who has a missionary mom thing has talked to my mom. Our room in the residence halls has become pretty much the only place where the missionaries seem to want to come hang out at night.
I've officialy switched from running and working out at gym time to playing four square. I think the MTC is the only place in the world with an adult sized four-square field with actual rivalry between the different foreign speaking missionaries. The spanish missionaries pretty much are 40% of the MTC population. The oriental language speaking missionaries (korean, madrin, japenese) are probably about 20% and the english speaking are about 25%. There is only 1 side of 1 floor of 1 building where the German speaking missionaries are. The only rarer language here is tongan I think.
Yet the german missionaries have always been the top for a lot of stuff here at the MTC such as.... We are the best at standing up and taking trays for sisters, we always do the best in the TRC which is the volunteer investigators, we always have the most outside contact with people that speak our language (such as calling out at the RC and talking to actual Germans) and of course we are the best at four-square.
It sounds conceded but I'm not joking German speaking missionaries are beasts in the gym.
The only thing I can think might be a negative about the new missionaries is that they do not yet understand the shower time limit. We never had an issue with that in our transfer and many were grateful, yet if the new transfer does not learn soon to get out of the shower sooner people are just going to start walking into the shower with them. We don't have enough time out of our thirty minutes to get ready and be in class to spend 15 minutes of it waiting in a shower line.
I'm sorry that I do not have the questions that you wrote me in the letter a while back. I tried to remember them and could not. I do remember some of the questions about being here for that missionary coming in April. The best advice I think I can give is to not judge the first three days of the MTC as how it will be at the MTC. Thursday- Saturday is extremly long and boring. Yet, after that you get time that you and your companion plan out and that makes the MTC here so much better.
I wish I had brought more gym clothes and casual clothes. Most my clothes are extremly baggy on me now for some reason (even some of the mediums) and we're not aloud to wear it if it is too big. I really only have 2 shirts I can wear to gym and at night. Which is starting to get pretty tiring. I think there was a few things that were pointless to bring, the only reason the handkercheif was even helpful is because we got to take part in a temple dedication here last Sunday.
German is such a weird language there is the proper way of talking to people which is "Sie sprechen" and the informal way you get to talk to like your friends and family too and that is "Du sprechen" but on our mission unless our president says different we always have to us "Sie sprechen" unless your praying in which case you can only use "Du sprechen" so even your companion you have to call "Sie" which is like calling them sir or ma'am. I was so excited to get my Ipod this week, we finally have about 40 extra songs we can listen to haha.
My companion and I have felt really good about ourselves recently. It isn't a huge secret out of all the German companionships we study effectivly yet we still take breaks were we might just go around and talk to people or greet new people and stuff. So most people asume we are doing horrible. Yet, we actually have the best german, and we have all our lessons planned out.
Monday's are amazing cause they pair you off with a random companionship and they have you teach the first or second lesson back and forth to each other. We pretty much always go second so we get to act like investigators first. We don't try to be hard at all. We ask really basic questions and usually they have to take a break from the lesson or don't have an answer. So then when it's their turn to be investigators they try to ask the most difficult questions they can think of. I don't know if we are just extremly pre-pared, if we are being guided by the spirit, or if living with someone who had so many questions about the church prepared me for it. But, we always have an answer and we don't do it in a sarcastic, or bible bashing way at all.
We have an event every Tuesday called TRC. Which is were volunteers come and pretend to be investigators so you can practice doing things like teaching at a meal, or teaching at a park, ect. Yet, we got one week were we got a real investigator and didn't even know it till the end. After we taught them the first lesson they said they were going to start talking to missionaries outside of the MTC as well because the only reason he had even gone was cause his mormon friend was going to volunteer and so he tagged along. It was pretty sweet. Our teacher said that actually happens a lot but they never tell the missionaries that it is a real investigator and that some of the missionaries don't take it serious since it is a practice. Yet, we did take it serious answered the guy's real concerns about family, the book of mormon, prophets, and some other stuff he asked about.
Sorry that I keep jumping around in thought but I have a lot of things I keep remembering.
I found out recently in Germany and Switzerland when you go to a meal at anyones house you have to eat all the food they give you otherwise it is offensive. And, they give you a TON of food.
There's also all sorts of cultural and personal things you have to learn. Like you can talk to anyone anywhere about their family and you're not creepy, yet if you ask what their job is......
I can't send back any of my memory cards yet since I don't have it filled up that much, and you can't use cards for sending packages, dry cleaning, and a bunch of other stuff!You have to use cash! It's stupid and the only ATM here charges you for every withdrawl. So I don't really know when I will send back the memory cards and mail.
I'm going to try to write some stuff in German but I don't practice writing german that much so good luck since I don't have a dicionary.
Hallo ich weiss dass Ihr habt fur mich liebe. Ich habe fur euch liebe auch. Ich werde eine gute missionare sein. Ich hoffe euch nicht traurig seid.
Well that's all I can think of for this week and sorry this keyboard won't let me type some letters so that fur should have an umlaut.
Have a great week and sorry for anyone that has sent me letter that I have not responded to we are acutally only aloud to write letters for 1 hour on Thursdays and no other time so I will try to write everyone I can today. Auf Wiedersen
Jeff (Elder Hargett)
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