Week 3 at the MTC -- "They only keep Canadian speakers here for 2 weeks?"

July 2, 2013

Goede daag, iedereen!

This past week has flown by -- I can't believe it's already P-day again! The days go by so quickly here. Today marks halfway through the MTC for my district - 20 days from today, and we'll be out of here, on our way to Nederland. While I like it here at the Missionary Training Center, I cannot WAIT to get to Europe.

This past week has been a slow week, but I'll share what I can.

The language is great! The Lord truly blesses His missionaries. I've seen the gift of tongues exhibited by so many missionaries here -- the amount of Nederlands my district can speak would not be possible without the Lord's help. It's amazing. There are hard days, and there are great days, but overall we've learned so much! The other day, some members of another Dutch district were sitting on our benches (yes, our district is kind of clique-y -- what can I say, we're close, and we like our benches), so we had a sort of "Dutch - off" and the elders in my district and I ended up telling some crazy story about how, once upon a time... A missionary tried to escape from the MTC, but he got caught. The upset MTC president cursed him and put his soul in a duck body (for those who aren't Mormon, no, that kind of thing does NOT actually happen in our church). Then killed the duck (don't ask). Now there is a duck spirit that roams the MTC campus. And we told that story almost completely in Dutch (and this was almost a week ago).

So, the other day, I ran into an old friend, Carlos Longo (well, Elder Longo now), who's here brushing up on his already fluent Portuguese before heading to NYC. I hadn't seen him for three years or so, then ran into him in the MTC cafeteria. We've had a few good chats since then. It's stuff like that that makes you think how far you've come in a relatively short amount of time -- in Elder Longo's words, "it seems like not that long ago we were just kids, running around the stake center." It was amazing how much we both had matured over the past few years.

We saw another batch of newbies enter last Wednesday -- the amount of languages taught at the MTC is astounding. One of my district's elders met someone, and asked him where he was going. The new elder responded, jokingly, "Canada. Speaking Canadian." After the elder in my district asked him how long he was here -- 2 weeks, the standard amount for English-speaking missionaries -- the elder in my district got this puzzled look, and said, "they only keep you here for two weeks learning Canadian??" After a few seconds of contemplation, he realized his mistake. But, it was pretty funny nonetheless.

My companion, Elder Price, and I have two more onderzoekers -- Roos and Jan (still our teachers, Zuster Moses and Broeder Klippel, role-playing real investigators from their missions). They are progressing investigators, and we teach them each twice a week. Every lesson gets a little better, even though our teacher-onderzoekers now pretend to not know English at all, so if we don't know a word, we...can't use it. It's painful at times, but really good. We teach a discussion almost every day now. Which means we are preparing for discussions a lot of the time. I've found that, the more I study the gospel (in English and Dutch) to share with others, the more I love the small and simple truths that I take for granted. My testimony has grown so much since being here. 

In my never-ending quest for an Adonis-like body, there have been a few roadblocks. MTC food is one of them. It probably (definitely) isn't the most healthy stuff on the planet, and it's all you can eat, every day. I try to restrain myself. Also, sitting in a classroom for most of the day is pretty rough too. We do have an hour to exercise every day, though, which is nice. Though I spend lots of that hour playing basketball on our gym days (three times a week). Either way, I've lost five pounds. Not sure how I feel about that.

The elders and my district are becoming a tighter group every day (9+ hours in a classroom will do that to you). The six of us have become quite the musical bunch, too -- we have started singing spontaneous a capella numbers together (not having any music to listen to drives you to things you thought you'd never do). And hey, we're actually pretty good. Our rendition of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" is something I'm proud of. There are other times, too, in the middle of class, when one of us will start tapping our pen..then someone else joins in...and before you know it, you have STOMP going on in the middle of MTC's building 14M.

Thank you so much to all those who have written me! I really appreciate the time and effort that goes into your letters. I've gotten a few questions about how to use DearElder this past week. I cannot access the site from the MTC, but from what I remember, all you have to do is make an account using an email address (it's free to make an account), and then you go to send a letter to the Provo-MTC main campus (not West Campus). My unit/box number is 331 and my departure date is July 22. My mission is Belgium/Netherlands (BEL-NETH). This is all free. If it's not free, you're not doing it right! So, let me know if you have any questions. Letters are ALWAYS welcome (plus, I feel cool when I get more mail than the other elders, too, though it's tough to top Elder Cook).

Ik hou van zendeling leven! Het is een goede leven. Soms makelijk, soms moeilijk, maar altijd de best. De Nederlands is goed -- alles is mogelijk met de hulp van Hemelse Vader! Ik weet dat Hij van zijn zendelingen houd -- ik heb dat hier gezien. Wij kunnen alles door Jezus Christus doen! Ik weet dat dat waar is. Ik hou van de kerk -- ik weet dat het waar is! Daarom ben ik hier!

That's all for this week -- until next time! Oh, and have a happy 4th of July this Thursday. I'll enjoy it from the confinements of the MTC campus. (Three more weeks!)

Tot ziens,

Elder Bonney

L2R, Elder Montgomery, me, and Elder Blackhurst. The three of us were in the same freshman ward at BYU. Elder Montgomery and I actually met months before I even decided to go to BYU. We've been good friends ever since

These are the elders in my district (along with the two Icelandic-learning missionaries, who are basically a part of our district), trying to appreciate some of the few precious moments we have outside after class at the end of the day. You have to enjoy the little things.