Mom. This is my last email from the MTC. We got our travel plans on Thursday night, and let me tell you a Christmas has never come close to the excitement!!! We are flying out next Monday morning. We leave for the airport at 5am, and we leave Salt Lake at 8:35. We lay over in Minneapolis for 6 hours, landing there at 12:11pm Minnesota time. I think I will call home there, because there is plenty of time to do it then. I'll let you do the time calculations, if that is an okay time of the day, Dear Elder me this week and let me know. If not, I could call before we leave Salt Lake, but I'd be short. We leave Minneapolis at 6:00pm their time, and we fly to Paris. We land in Paris at 8:35am France time Tuesday morning, and we lay over there for an hour. We leave Paris for Zagreb at 9:50 and land at 11:50 Croatian time. (Anybody interested, we cannot meet up with anybody because that is the rule. Sorry :)
So we are ridiculously excited!!! We have been learning and practicing how to spread the Gospel and place Book of Mormons and make commitments to meet with missionaries for when we are on the plane. I bought 5 Book of Mormons in English, and I plan to have none when we land, cause this will be the last time for a long time I get to share in English. I've never been so excited, hearing all the stories gets me so jacked! 2 quick ones:
President Rowe is (on break from while he's a mission president) an international attorney or something to that effect, he's a gnarly lawyer. Before he was a mission president, he was in Bosnia for work, and while driving back and forth from Beograd (Belgrade) and Sarajevo, he taught his driver the Gospel, and also the first family in Bosnia that was baptized ever. Like, he taught them, then they were baptized, and now he's the mission president there!! Crazy, right? Wrong. Not crazy. God puts people in our path, and expects us to do our absolute best to better their lives, in whatever way the Spirit directs. Also, he was in Russia once, and was on a train for 24 hours. He had fasted and prayed that he would have the opportunity to help somebody before he got on that train, and he was placed in a cart (or whatever that is called) with a woman whose mother had just passed away. In the duration of that trip, he taught her the restoration, the plan of salvation, the gospel, and the commandments, and set a baptismal date for 2 weeks later, left her his phone number and told her to call him when she was baptized. She called him 2 weeks later. He's such a MAN!!
Anyways, when we land, here's what's probably going to happen. Some of us get interviewed by President Rowe, the rest go contacting in a park, then we switch. And he then tells each of us where we are going for our first area. We've learned so much this week about faith, about how we have to put ourselves in situations where we cannot do it without the Lord, where we literally aren't strong enough without Him. Jumping from the boat. My teachers have told us that it is likely that Elder Sheridan or McAllister or I could be trainers by second transfer, or be companions again. Without a senior comp who has been out longer than 9 weeks?! I was so scared, but then two of my favorite teachers convinced us that that was how the Lord works with us. He takes weak things and their weaknesses, and manifests His power through them.
Okay, another update. In a few hours, us Serbo-Croats will be meeting with the Ambassador from Macedonia. This is the first time he's been here, as Macedonia opened in the South mission when Bosnia opened last year in ours. At that time, they pulled Serbian speakers from our mission to open Macedonia. Elder Barber is headed there, and in the possibility that if Montenegro opens or Macedonia needs more troops, (small chance, but this is the reason) they could take us there. But. Yeah, so he's coming today. We had a huge sit down talk with how to look, dress, act, we have questions all ready, some in Serbian, some in English. We had to get haircuts etc. This is a big deal. He's eating lunch with President Uchtdorf right now, and then when he comes, Elder Hinckley will be with him (President Hinckley's son), and President Nally, our MTC mission president. We're pretty nervous, but stoked! (And there'll be armed guards outside our door....so that's LEGIT!) This very possibly could make the church news, and we will be in a picture with him. So keep your eyes out.
You've all probably heard of the church wide new policy of emails? Well, as far as I have been told, that is true and in effect. We can email family, our friends, and our Priesthood leaders. So...heck that'll be 5 times faster and more convenient, so let's do that! There are also 7 missions right now (I don't know which) that their missionaries are using facebook also. They are piloting it, to use the internet as a powerful tool for speeding ahead the work. We will see what happens! So, unless I am told otherwise, email is probably going to be how I'd like to communicate, rather than sending letters from across the world.
ALSO. Please do not send any mail here this week later than Wednesday/Thursday, and any Dear Elders any later than Friday morning. Or I'll never see them :)
Mother: I used my card twice to catch a few things I need before I leave, just so you know. I will have a better idea how the heck money works probably in 2 weeks, then I'll update you on that. I'm good as far as airfare and what not.
Also, if you can, go listen to "For Such a Time as This" by Elder Holland. He gave it at Thanksgiving last year.....in the words of Elder McAllister last night, "Just did another round in the ring with Elder Holland." Incredibly powerful. Changed my life!! I need to step up my work!!
So, it's not cold anymore. Which is great. Mom, do I send that coat back to you, or? The big one. Let me know as soon as possible, because I'll need to ship it out by Saturday. Some cool things while I wrap it up, Steven Bevan is on my floor, that's been a fun little reunion of sorts. Stoked out of my mind for Elder Brown and Elder Rogers to get here! Though they may miss another of the 12 speak tomorrow....so the rumor is. Which I might die if it's true. Too excited!! But every speaker blows me away. Seriously, getting, as they say it in the Croatian Book of Mormon, "hit with blessings," left and right!!!
Today, us and the Czechs took some Croatian names to the temple that our teacher gave us. It was our last endowment session, so we all went in together. My man's name was Nikoli Ivanovic, which is the equivalent of Nicholas Johnson, so Hailey, I may have gone through for one of your Croatian ancestors. But it was a powerful experience all around, we all loved being together in the House of Lord this last time. I can't explain it, but it was powerful and I loved it so much.
I puked during one of our workouts this week. Oh man it was so nasty. But felt great and I finished strong afterwards carrying Elder Payne around the track a few laps. Hope that makes me sound like a man :)
Languages are still hard. Super hard. But hey, it'll happen someday! hahaha vjera! We are getting there. We aren't speaking any English after today, so hopefully that'll do some good. We've been doing every other day for the past few weeks, but this week is all out week.
I love my district, and my companions. I love my teachers. I love the lessons we've learned here, and I love that we are so blessed to be a part of this work in this day. I love the people we are going to go help and be with and teach and bring home. I cannot explain why, but I love them. I am so excited. I think that's it.....I can't think of a lot else and I'm out of time (for the last time, cause we have more time in the field for this update.)
Here we go! I love and miss you all! Thank you for your kind words and support and prayers, I feel your love every day. Till next week.....place your bets where you'll be hearing from me from! (Besides the phone call home on Monday.)
Elder Hixon
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