Saturday, January 21, 2012

Love the MTC...


Volunteering at the MTC was awesome. This picture was taken in front of the Wilford Woodruff Admin. building. For those that don't know, Elder Swenson is a great, great, great grandson of President Woodruff. I sure wondered where Elder Swenson and his building were, but really it's probably good I didn't run into him. I don't know what I would've done anyway. But it was cool to get a feel for how things work. Char and I were "investigators" for a sister learning English. She is from Puerto Rico. She was solo for some reason, so one of the teachers came in with her (Bro. Caywood). They told us ahead of time she was really shy. I think it was really hard for her to try to discuss the gospel with us. But she did it! And the amazing thing was that when she read us a scripture, I felt the Spirit. Just proof that the Spirit can break through all language barriers or other shortcomings we might have. She goes to Florida at the end of the month. I will pray for her! The gospel is just so amazing.

Another fun thing was that Bro. Caywood went to Jordan High and knew Elder Swenson, at least knew who he was. I don't know his first name, but he is an RM and went to France and now teaches at the MTC. He graduated two years earlier. I was surprised he knew who Rusty was, but apparently his piano skills made him famous at JHS. Anyway, it was fun!

Excerpts from Elder Swenson's last letter:

"Probably the coolest part of the week was Monday, when President Brown came to our classroom for a few minutes with a lady and her daughter from Norway. They were coming to tour the MTC and the President offered to take them through, and since we're the longest Scandinavian group to be here, they came to our class which was awesome. Norwegian, Swedish and Danish are all very similar languages, so they were able to understand a lot of what we told them. The Danish is getting much better, my last two lessons I've been able to only have the Danish Book of Mormon and my memory which has felt really good. Only 5 weeks in and pretty much all of us are speaking at will during our lessons. I think the biggest room for improvement for all of us is in pronouncing everything better. We're still all getting used to the switch from the front of the mouth to the back of the throat for speaking. Mom, that was pretty funny about you trying to pronounce the Danish [the word "I" is pronounced "yiy" not "JEG" like it's spelled].

"Dad, I'm way jealous about the hunting trip! That's awesome you guys finally called a coyote in, just the fact that you did that means you guys were doing things right. I had a good feeling about that area, that might be the new place to be. You guys will have to send me some pictures when you get one. Glad Gar had a good time camping, sounds like some of those kids need to man up and take a dunking!

"Well, things have been going pretty well here. I really haven't been down still, I guess I'm just lucky that way, but as long as I'm doing the right things nothing else really bothers or gets me down. It's been fun here, I'm glad we're going to have the 9 weeks, because I'm already seeing the training pay off. At the same time, I'm way excited to get to Denmark the more I hear about the people and the country. It sounds like the perfect mission for me so far, and I know that there's people there that only I'll be able to get through to, so I'm stoked to see that happen. Thanks for all the letters, food and pictures! . . . The food up there is going to be amazing, pretty much everything you eat is made fresh that day. They have HUGE pastries, tons of fish, and tons of other awesome crap I probably haven't heard of. Thanks for everything, I'm grateful to have a family that has supported me every step of the way, seeing kids come to the MTC from difficult circumstances makes me feel for them. I'm grateful to have an amazing family."
Jeg elsker jer!!!
Ældste Swenson

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