Hello Family and Friends!
This
week has been slightly less eventful as we begin to settle into the
groove of things at the MTC, but it has been a great week nonetheless. I
got your packages and also the cookies that Ann sent and I am so
grateful for all of them! They are wonderful!
I have been doing
well with everything here. The language is still coming along and I'm
trying to be more diligent in learning it on my own as much as possible
along with learning it out of class. Korean is a really cool, pretty
powerful, and I think pretty logical language, which is really cool. It
is just so different and backwards from English, so it's difficult. But
once I get past the fact that I pretty much just have to say my
sentences all backwards and inside out, I think I will love speaking
Korean. We also have the really cool opportunity of having 15 or so
native Koreans who came this week. It is really fun to talk with them
some, to listen to them speak, and to learn from them. It's a bit
intimidating, but still lots of fun. I am getting to the point where I
can pick up quite a bit of what my teachers are saying when they speak
Korean, so I was hoping it would be somewhat the same listening to the
Koreans, but it definitely isn't. It think the only words I have
understood when the Koreans are speaking are the words for Elder and
Sister. I've got those down. But I guess the other hundreds of words
will come with practice. All in all, though, Korean rocks and it's
coming along with the help of God.
I am happy to say
that I think my legs are fully back to normal. Since my silly workout, I
think it took about 6 days before I could jog and when I was finally
able to actually run it felt like a miracle. It feel sooo good to be
able to stand up, sit down, and go up and down stairs without taking an
hour to do it. Now that I can actually use my gym time to do things
other than just stretch for an hour, I have been able to actually work
out and feel great. I think I've been healthier here in general than I
have for a while. I feel great! The only thing that would be better is
if my body finally decided that it was ok with the 8 hours of sleep
every night. I'm always pretty tired throughout the day and usually fall
asleep briefly at least once during some study time or sometimes in
class, but I'm trying so hard to stay focused and attentive. I'll keep
doing my best and just pray that I keep having the energy to be as
focused as I would like to be.
The classes and opportunities to teach are also all
great! I love going to class and my teachers are awesome. Teaching
lessons in Korean is becoming less of a challenge, but it is still by no
means easy. It still takes us quite a while to try to prepare effective
lessons in Korean, but I think we're getting better at it. This past
week we taught 7 lessons all in Korean, which was pretty crazy. The
worst was that we taught alesson at the end of Friday night, again first
thing Saturday morning, and then 2 lessons in the TRC that afternoon.
It was a crazy couple days, but it was a great learning experience. For
the 2 lessons in the afternoon I hardly wrote down any Korean at all. I
wrote down some sentences in English and then just translated in my head
into Korean. I was pretty happy I was blessed to make it work. My
companion isn't quite there yet, but he is progressing fast and I am
keeping him on his toes.
Here's just a couple random funny/cool things that
happened this week. For one, yesterday we had our weekly service time
and we always just got help clean one of the buildings. In the past, I
have mopped floors, washed windows, and cleaned toilets, but this week's
duty was my favorite by far. We got to vacuum all the entryway mats,
but instead of using regular vacuums, we got to use the backpack
vacuums. I felt like a Ghostbuster. It was pretty cool. The other funny
thing this weeks is that I had a pretty funny miscommunication. Last
week I mentioned an Elder Leavitt here who said he was friends with
Garrett Heiner from Mesa. It turns out that there happens to be a Gary
Heiner who lives in Mesa and this whole time, Elder Leavitt thought I
was saying Gary when I was actually saying Garrett. The best part is
that we both wrote home telling our families about the funny connection,
when, in fact, there is not connection at all. We just found out today
and it was pretty funny. But I still wonder if there is any family
connection there...
One of my favorite spiritual thoughts of the week was
in a film by Elder Holland where he talked about how as missionaries, we
have been set apart with the authority to bring people to Christ and if
we are worthy, we are entitled to the power to do so as well. That
being the case, if I keep myself worthy, dedicated, and devoted to His
work, then I can press forward without hestitation knowing that I have
the power and authority from God to help in this great work. The thought
especially applies to missionary work, but I think that we can all be
more confident in pressing forward in the work of the Lord, knowing that
we have God to back us up in our efforts as we turn our lives to Him.
Anyway, I'm glad to hear you are doing well! Happy
birthday to Dustin and Cameron! You are all wonderful! I love you all!
Have a wonderful week!!!
-Love, Elder Tolman
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