Week 3 has been super meaningful and inspirational! But first things first. It is the Prophet's birthday today!!!!!!!!! President Nelson is truly a prophet of God and he is so spry for being 95 right??? It's also great because we get to watch his birthday celebration tonight instead of class so that's a bonus.
Well to get on with my week I'll just start with Sunday which is the best day!!! I'll b honest Sundays are pretty slow going because it is just meeting after meeting but I learn so much from them all! Elder Young and I taught a lesson during priesthood meeting about the Great Apostasy and the Restoration and it went really well! It was super stressful because right before we started, the second counselor of the MTC Presidency walked in and it freaked me out. But it was good because he gave a lot of good comments and afterwards he said we did a really good job! Choir practice was really special because we started practicing Joseph Smith's First Prayer which is one of my favorite hymns! Our director is really good at telling stories and relating them to the song to make it more special which is awesome! The devotional that night was amazing! It was by Sister Ulrich who is like a really popular psychologist who has written a bunch of books and stuff and she talked about the difference between a fixed mindset vs. a growth mindset. If we have a fixed mindset about something, then we can't learn and grow from that experience, but if we have a growth mindset, we have the desire and drive to learn from challenges and "Lean forward" instead of "leaning back". Then since it was Fast Sunday(which may I add is way longer at the MTC because you don't have full control of the eating schedule haha) I asked if our district could share what we fasted for and it was super cool the spirit was so strong!
One thing that kind of hit me that Sunday was when some of the missionaries in my zone were getting reassigned due to Visas not coming in. And that got me thinking of the possibility of getting reassigned to the States since mine still hasn't come in yet. So that's what I was mostly fasting for. For in the case that I am reassigned, that I can be totally okay with it and be able to grow a love for the people as I have for the people of Cote d'Ivoire. And the awesome part is that when I prayed about it that night, I woke up with such happiness and comfort and I know that that was my answer. I know it is kind of premature to think about reassignment but I'm glad I have that comfort now.
We had our first TRC en francais this week and let me tell ya, it was very stressful. We got not a lot of time to prepare for it and we kind of had to just walking and and make it up as we went along. The thing is, I was totally at peace the whole time, and even though I didn't speak amazing french, I could feel words just coming out and it really was an amazing experience.
For choir practice on Tuesday, the director Brother Egget brought in the death masks of Joseph and Hyrum Smith which was really cool and he gave a really cool analogy that I want to share. Missionary work is like having an unlimited amount of gold bars. Since you can never run out of the gold bars, you have a desire to share it with everyone because of all of the joy those gold bars bring you. The gold bars obviously being the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It's such a good way of explaining missionary work but instead of handing out gold bars that are of worldly value, we have the gospel and happiness, which is of eternal value.
Yesterday my district decided to do an English Fast and even though we kind of fizzled out of it by the end of the day, it was such a good experience to learn and build up my confidence with the language. By the way, it is way easier to be funny in french than english because all you have to do is a say a simple word like "bonjour" super crazy and it's instantly hilarious. French hack number two. When in doubt of how to say a word, just say the English word in a french accent and 70% of the time it's correct. But in all seriousness I really appreciate this amazing and crazy opportunity to learn french. It definitely got harder this week and I had a couple of bad days but I know that as long as I put the work in and have faith in Jesus Christ and the Gift of Tongues, I can learn this language.
That's mostly it for this week! I am having the time of my life and I am not even in the field yet! I miss you all and I hope all is going well!
1. Mirror selfie with Baloonie
2. Baloonie rests after much studying
3. Baloonie gets ready for the day by ironing his shirt.
4. Baloonie likes to play hide and seek
~To be continued...maybe~
5. District selfie with the awesome Moses mural.
6. Breaking of the Fast. T'was glorious!
7. Sunday nap time. Even missionaries need them.
Elder Perkins
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