Written by Elder Brigham Rush, in the Provo Missionary Training Center of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is assigned to the Nicaragua Managua North Mission, speaking Spanish.
Not to sound super anxious about leaving the MTC, but I am. We get our flight plans this week!!! And after that, we only have 10 more days left here. Also, me and Elder mower were called to be the branch sacrament coordinators. This may not seem like a very important job, but we have the power to make anyone in the zone prepare and bless the sacrament, which sucks because we have to do it completely in Spanish as well. This week has been super awesome though, the highlight's of our week is always teaching Hermana Meza. This Wednesday she committed to be baptized, which was super exciting for me and Elder Mower. Even if she is just an actor hahaha. But since she has committed to be baptized, the lesson's have gotten really fun because she just asks us all these questions about the church and we get to answer them for her. In our lesson on Friday, we started out the visit by talking to her for like 15 minutes about Central America, because she really is from Guatemala. And she actually is a pretty recent convert to the church. But she's never aloud to tell us that, we have to find out from our teachers and stuff. Oh but a really cool and kind of funny experience we had, was in the lesson where we asked her to commit to baptism on Wednesday.So in our Monday lesson, she started it out by showing us some Catholic-Pop Jesus song is Spanish. I think that's the best way to describe it. Anyways, as she was showing us this song on her laptop she was telling us about how much she loves songs about Jesus, because she is a really adamant Catholic lady. So we told her that we have a ton of songs in our church about Jesus and we think she would really like them. Long story short, me and Elder Mower told her that we would sing a Hymn for her in our lesson on Wednesday. So me and Elder Mower come in to the lesson on Wednesday, and of course the first thing that comes out of her mouth is that she wanted to hear us sing before we started. Neither me nor Elder Mower have much of a background in singing, especially Hymns, and especially in Spanish. So we sing "Mas Cerca Dios de Ti" (Nearer my God to Thee) out loud to our investigator and we gave her a Hymn book to follow along and like read the words if she wanted. It certainly wasn't a beautiful performance by any means, but be the end of the song she was driven to tears. Now maybe she was just a really good actor, but the spirit was very strong in that room. We then asked her to be baptized that lesson and she said yes. God works in mysterious ways.
But my favorite story of this whole week, is the story of the tiny trumpet. This may not be as funny to you guys, so I hope I can explain it well. I couldn't even write it in my journal without laughing out loud. So as you may know, me and Elder Mower share a dorm room type thing in the MTC with 2 other companionships. Elders Wright and Ward, and Elders Lund and Bassett. Pretty much the only things in there is 3 bunk beds, and 6 dresser/closet type things. Most rooms are only filled with 3-4 missionaries, so you can imagine how cramped we are in there. I am on the top bunk in our companionship, and there is a metal ladder that is leaned up to the side of the bed so I can climb up there. One night, my metal ladder was positioned kind of weird, and I noticed that any movement I made moved the bed which caused a pretty loud squeaking noise. So I made sure to stay really still to fall asleep that night. The next morning, we get to our classroom and Elder Ward is just pissed. We ask him what's up and he was like "did no one else hear the person practicing on a tiny trumpet this morning at like 5 am? I laid there for like 30 minutes contemplating whether or not I should get out of my bed and telling them to shut up" I realized right away that it was actually by bed making that noise, so I told him what the case was. and he was like "That makes so much sense, I thought someone was practicing for a church performing or something and they were trying to be really quiet. They would only play for like 6 notes at a time and it didn't even sound good!" It's probably one of those things where you had to be there, but that was one of the highlight's of my week.
So like I said, we get our flight plans soon. And our talk's with Hermana Meza about what it's like there made me want to leave so much more. These weeks go by fast though, I'm sure I'm gonna be there really quick. If the people there are anything like Hermana Meza, it will definitely be the best 2 years of my life. Oh and we got 750 new missionaries at the MTC on Wednesday, so I saw a ton of my friends that just got here. And a bunch of missionaries come in next Wednesday too, so it's gonna be like a party at the MTC by the time I leave, I see my friends walking around every day. Me and Jared actually got to play volleyball together this morning because we have the same P day schedule. That's about it for this week. We still have a ton of class all the time, and we taught about a million lessons this week. We get a new investigator on Monday I think, so that's exciting too. Oh we found on of those old office chairs that have the wheels on the bottom and can lean back really far and brought it in to our classroom. So Elder Mower we leaning back in the chair and "was trying to pop a wheelie" and the chair totally snapped in half and he fell straight on his back. That was another great part of the week.
So yeah if you want to send me an email, I'll get on here though out the day and I will definitely respond to you. I'm so thankful for the opportunity to serve a mission, it has been awesome here. That being said I don't want to stay here any longer, but you know it's good to have these experiences haha. The Lord has helped me overcome so many obstacles even here at the MTC, the Holy Ghost has been such a blessing in my life. And the Temple opened back up again this week! That's super exciting so we have to go get ready to leave now. I love you all!
-Elder Rush
MTC Week 3 (July 9, 2016)
MTC Week 5 (July 23, 2016)
