MTC Week 3

Hello world.

I get stressed when I start typing! The time crunch is killer! I have been told that in the field we get plenty more time, which will be a relief. To clear a few things, Sometimes (often) I will get letters from the weekend not until this afternoon (that's just how it works) and so I will have letters that I miss responses to in the email. ALSO, I have a three hour window to respond to letters for the week this afternoon, so in some cases, like Elder Carmichael and Callie, I don't get those letters or Dear Elder until dinner time, at which time I am not supposed to be writing anymore for the week.

Forgive me when I ramble. 

So Elder Carmichael, who I will promptly respond to this afternoon personally, asked me for 5 things that I wished I would've prepared better for in the last month of my pre-mission life. I extend my 5 things to those who have longer time than a month.

1. Learn to be perfectly obedient. That was the only advice Max gave me, and I was glad to receive it. I could've prepared in that regard better, but I was very much better off from that piece of advice. Even when the rule seems minor or permissible to ignore (like responding to letters in my free time throughout the week, or emailing outside of family while in the MTC, which some do and I could surely get away with) that is not the point. The purpose of being perfectly obedient is to show our Father that we are willing to obey even the smallest of rules. For why would He trust us with larger tasks and the working of miracles by His Spirit if we did not first display our obedience in the tiny rules? 

2. Wake up. Get used to it, get used to doing things you don't want to. Because the mission is not about you. Learn, through fasting and prayer, how to subject the desires of your body to the will of your spirit. This is perhaps the hardest for me, but I have found that winning the waking up battle makes the rest of them much easier--losing it makes the rest of the day harder. So get into the routine of waking up on mission schedule, being 6 or 6:30 depending on the day. In addition to that, get to bed on time. It helps.

3. Learn how to make effective use of studying your scriptures. They are truly the word of God, and the Book of Mormon really does contain the doctrine of Christ. How could we teach that to others if we aren't even familiar with the book that contains it? And learn how to plead by prayer.

4. Learn that you are nothing without God. That nothing you can say, no facts, no convincing stories, no charming qualities you may have (I've tried this one) will convince or convert anybody more effectively and eternally than that of one who acts solely as a vessel to carry the Spirit. I'll give an example in a bit.

5. Look outward. Learn of the Character of Christ, how even in the midst of His unfathomable agony, He reached out and healed the guard's ear which Peter had chopped off. Look outward, and only by doing so will you find yourself. When you aren't looking for it.

That's my five points, now here's the week as best as I can summarize. Which is hard because we have P Day today, Monday, then we have a bomb diggity devotional on Tuesday nights that always blows me away and I REALLY die not being able to write home about it that instant, then the rest of the week goes by and then we have a likewise bomb diggity fireside Sunday nights and I'm Spiritually drained by the time I get to writing, and I pray and pray that I can write useful things and not forget.

So, last Tuesday we had an INCREDIBLE devotional by one of the Seventy who spoke last conference I believe, his name escapes me but it's written in my journal along with notes on it. He answered prayers I've had for over a year now, and as a servant of the Lord he promised us that, "If we worry about theirs, the Lord will provide somebody to worry about and save ours." (speaking of our loved one s who are less active and/or struggling). It was a confirmation of an answer I received a long time ago to simply not worry about mine, which confused me then but has come full circle now. Mom I will write the details to you if you've forgotten them.

Then throughout the week we just went hard. Studying takes it out of me. The language is so flip floppin hard! 

(Though I do take back my comparison to Chinese, not sure which is harder. Not that it matters too much.) But anyways, we are learning it rapidly, but it's just so hard. I swear every verb sounds the same! And the grammar....yikes. So it's a free language, meaning there are only a few rules to sentence order, and then you can basically say whatever you want in whatever order you want. Which makes comprehension hard, and transitioning from structured English very much hard. We have 4 tenses and 7 cases, cases affect adjectives/objects and such that change the endings of those words depending on its function in the sentence. So saying "I hit the ball to you," and "To you I the ball hit," and almost any variation of that sentence (minus enclitic order, which is the only real necessary rule that I am aware of) makes complete and logical sense, because of the different endings due to cases. And we only shakily know 2 of 7. 

Also, for a couple fun facts, I have discovered how and why some people consider Croatian to be one of the most beautiful languages in the world. Its fluid. Because of this freedom of order, you can say things however and because of that you can change sentences so the flow and sound the best they can. Serbian is more choppy, with mostly the same vocab and same grammar, with differences here and there. The fluidity is as French is to German, Croatian to Serbian. So the Croats can talk very very very very very fast. Serbs can too, but not nearly as fluid as the Croats. So the language is impossible. For me. 

But get this. On Thursday we had our first TRC, which is when volunteers come in from Provo and we teach them, not fake investigators, but actual members as they are. Ours are all RM's and one couple who just moved here from Zagreb and she just took out her endowment cause she was baptized a year ago! So awesome! But anyways, since they weren't investigators, Elder Sheridan and I couldn't exactly plan a lesson as well. 

So we made questions and went in with much prayer the Lord would send the Spirit with us, since we knew the language was probably not going to be there. We started on the first of our 2 20 minute discussions, and the Spirit began rushing in. We could physically feel the change in the room, and suddenly, not because the language switched to English in my ears, but I could understand the woman we were talking to. Not perfectly, but enough to understand and know who she was. In my broken Croatian I asked her questions and tried to address her concerns, and the Spirit had me starting sentences that I didn't even know how I was going to finish, but we did finish them. We bore testimony to her and there were wet eyes and smiles all around. It was incredible. She returned home from Croatia in December, also.

Then our second discussion went similarly. However, at one point the RM asked us why we were here, why we were serving missions. The Spirit compelled me that I should tell him about Dad. I mean, tell him of my love for my Dad, and that he did not serve a mission, and that I was here to make him proud. And I was further instructed to tell him of my Father in Heaven, that I wanted to make Him proud, and to make His children happy. In a few seconds this flashed through my head, and I think to myself, "Yeah good...but in Croatian?" Then I opened my mouth and very slowly, with much thought and effort and hand motions on my part, and struggling, the Spirit brought to my memory the words I needed, most of which I cannot recall now. My broken, broken grammar did not matter, the Spirit was freely flowing. Never have I had a more powerful experience with giving my all to the Lord and relying on Him for what I lacked. I can promise you, anybody reading this, that this Church is true. Not because the people are perfect, they're not. But because Christ stands at its head. Joseph saw what he saw.

If you can find it, find the MTC talk called "Character of Christ" by Elder Bednar. INCREDIBLE talk. Can't say more about it, but if it is unfindable, I'd be glad to expound details. I've never learned so much than I have this week, and I hope it continues. Even when it gets harder than it is (how??!?!) I want it to get hard. Because when it gets hard and we look and reach out instead of reaching in, then the miracles happen.

Love,
Elder Hixon

P.S. Sending my card home with pictures. Elder Payne is down to marry Hannah, so that's nuts. Also, in addition to other answers received in the Temple today, we ran into a man working there who was the mission president of our mission in 1980, over the Eastern Europe mission. Told us of updates in Zagreb and such, was incredibly powerful and not a coincidence!) And!! Brother Morris had his last day teaching us. It was emotional, he was "Goran" our first investigator. He taught us so much about loving the people, and we found that the reason he has taught for the past 3 years at the MTC is because of when he was reassigned to Colorado (don't know if I mentioned that last time.)

Kosovo was revolting, and the U.S. backed them up, and since we are viewed as an American church, it wasn't safe for missionaries to stay in Serbia. So half of Brother Morris' stuff was left in Serbia (he had been in Slovenia to meet with his mission president at the mission home of that time, getting the first boxes of printed Serbian Books of Mormon.) And was transferred with the rest of the Serbs to Croatia, and half of them (including him) were reassigned to Colorado for the last 3 months. 2 were baptized that he taught there, and he says he knows it was the Lord's will, but it was the hardest thing that's happened to him. Others fell away, some, and it was just a test of their conversion to Christ. So he felt teaching the elders and sisters that were going to go to his mission was a way of finishing up what he left there. He has undoubtedly influenced my life, and he (Goran) will always be my first investigator. (We got him "baptized" too. holla.) Hope I didn't forget anything. Probably did! I'll write the other stuff next week!