WEEK ONE

Привіт Everyone! Week one of the MTC is officially in the books! It's been kind of crazy adjusting to life in the MTC, but I think I'm finally getting the hang of it. I have two classes everyday from 9:00-12:00 and 4:45-7:45, and I'm learning a ton more than I thought I could. The gift of tongues is seriously a real thing, because I went from knowing absolutely no Ukrainian to reading from Книга Мормона in about five minutes. Not actually, but it felt like it because I didn't even know the alphabet and then a day or two later I was reading. My companion has seriously helped with that though, he's a genius. His name is Elder Hasson, and I asked him what he likes to do and he said that he really loves learning languages. He's been learning Latin for 6 years and this year to give himself "more of a challenge" (and that's a direct quote) he set a goal to learn Biblical Greek. I then told him that I was also super language oriented and that this year I had started watching Japanese anime with the subtitles on, and he was kind of embarrassed because my thing was so much more impressive than his. He finished the Ukrainian basics two weeks before we even started MTC and he can have full conversations in the language, so he has been a huge help for me. Elder Hasson and I started off as just a duo, but then two days ago we had another missionary added to our group. His name is Elder Key and he has been learning Lithuanian, but there are only two people in his district, him and a sister missionary, so he was by himself for the first five days. He's an awesome guy, and we've loved having him in our companionship. He said something really awesome yesterday during a district meeting, and I just wanted to share it with all of you. Some missionaries were talking about how this is kind of a weird time to be going on a mission, with us all being at home MTC and people getting reassignments and just having not quite the traditional mission experience we had been planning on. He said "It may not be normal or clicking into place like we all want it to, but that's a good thing because it was never meant to". I thought that that was a super good insight, because I know that God has a plan laid out that he does not deviate from, and as He is a perfect being, it is a perfect plan. There may be some parts to it that we do not understand, or some trials that we face that we don't think we can overcome, but God knows that these trials will build us up into the missionaries, mothers, fathers, friends, and leaders that he knows we can be. We are given trials so that we can learn from them and eventually reach our full potential, and so even though they may be rough, we can always look for the silver lining and the blessings we have received from them. Sorry for the super long email, but there's just a ton that goes on in the home MTC. I am so busy all the time, which I was totally not expecting, but it has been awesome. Thank you for all your support and love! I'm missing you all already! До побачення! - Старійшина Horsley

1) The setup 2) Complimentary MTC eyewear