Week 5 - Provo MTC

Hello everyone!

How's it going?  Things are as busy as ever here.  This week went by pretty quickly.  As of today, I have officially been in the MTC for a month.  Already halfway through my time here.  I can't wait to get out into the field. 

On Thursday, we heard from Elder Anderson, and that was super cool.  He spoke of being grateful for our trials, even if they are really hard.  During that devotional, we (as in the choir) sang "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing".  We sang the arrangement that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang in general conference in April.  It's a really powerful song.  

When we were practicing, Brother Edget, the chorister, explained what it means in the song where it says "Here I raise my Ebenezer".  In the Old Testament, the Israelites were sometimes really good people who would follow the Lord, and then they would get stuck in sin again and it was a constant cycle.  In 1 Samuel, there is an army of the Philistines that comes upon the Israelites.  This is at a time when the Israelites were worshiping false gods and they are very afraid.  Samuel, the prophet, exhorts them to serve the Lord and call upon him, repent of their sins, and put their trust in Him, and they will be delivered.  The do so, and during the battle the Lord "...thunder[s] with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines..." and the Israelites are delivered.  (1 Samuel 7:10)  Samuel then has a very large stone placed where everyone can see.  He names the stone 'Ebenezer' and it's purpose is to remind the people of the time where they repented, changed their lives, and were delivered, and to remind them that they will never go back to their old lifestyle.  Brother Edget then challenged us to raise our Ebenezers that day.  It was really powerful.  I guess I'll pass that challenge along.  Raise your Ebenezer.  

I love you all, and have a great week!

Starszy Hadfield

Week 4 - Provo MTC

Hello Everyone!

It's been quite a week.  We are getting really busy here at the MTC.  The language is pretty challenging, but we are making steady progress.  Time is going by faster and faster. 

I was able to finish off the Book of Mormon this week after starting it about 3 weeks ago.  That went really well.  I'm starting it over again and hoping that I can read it at least a couple more times before I head into the field.  The MTC is definitely not easy, and reading the Book of Mormon has helped me immensely.  The Book of Mormon is super helpful during difficult times. 

I'm not really sure what the MTC is doing for Thanksgiving, I've just heard that there is going to be a devotional.  I guess we'll see.  Starszy Erickson had his mom send us Christmas lights, and we have them hanging in our room.  It's pretty cool.  It was a little chilly on Thursday, and it was a surprise to go out in the morning and see snow. 

On Wednesday, our whole zone got to host new missionaries (you know, meet them at their car and walk them around the MTC) and it was good.  

I finally decided on my mission scripture for the plaque or whatever.  It's Alma 42:31.  It's kind of funny because I wrote down like 40 good scriptures, then had a tournament where I eliminate them one at a time.  That was pretty fun. 

This week, we had Elder Stevenson come and speak at our devotional on Tuesday.  He talked about gratitude and Preach My Gospel.  It was pretty cool.  But things are still going well.  

We still do have the thing where we meet as a district after and discuss what we learned.  Those are always really good too.  Our branch presidency is pretty good.  So with the district leader position, Starszy Wojcik was our district leader for the first three weeks, and during that time I was the 'online coordinator'.  I didn't really do anything haha.  But on Tuesday, President Bradford (our branch president) asked me to be the next district leader.  So yeah.  I'm a little more busy, but it's going well thus far.  We'll see what happens.  My class is in building 10M and my residence is in 16M.  It's kind of cool seeing the huge buildings they are making and the progress they're making on them.  They are pretty huge buildings.  From what I've heard, they are going to make those classrooms and tear down some of the old classroom buildings to make room for more parking or something.  So it's pretty cool.  Sundays are pretty busy.  We study a lot.  The meetings are pretty good too.  We go on a 45 minute temple walk every Sunday.

Hope things are going well back at home too. I would love to hear from you!  Love you all, and have an awesome week!

Starszy Hadfield

Alma 42:31
And now, O my son, ye are called of God to preach the word unto this people. And now, my son, go thy way, declare the word with truth and soberness, that thou mayest bring souls unto repentance, that the great plan of mercy may have claim upon them. And may God grant unto you even according to my words. Amen.

Week 3 - Provo MTC

Hello Everyone!

      What a week.  The days are starting to fly by.  Which I'm alright with because the MTC is pretty boring. 

          The language is coming right along.  We've already learned how to pray and bear testimony in Polish, and I memorized My Purpose in Polish this week. It's definitely a very difficult language to learn.  The 7 cases Sam was talking about are definitely challenging.  Another hard thing is that there are about 5 words that I've learned so far that sound like their English equivalent.  It was a lot easier for German in high school because you had so many words that sounded familiar.  But it's going alright.  Still a long ways to go.

     Our zone is really small, and we are all going to different missions.  It's kind of cool because we get to know each other pretty well.  All the languages are pretty similar too.  We've heard that once we learn Polish, it will be pretty easy to understand Czech and Slovak, and we'll be able to kind of understand Ukrainian and Russian.  So that will be cool to try out with Kade and Kaden once we are all home.  

          I've been reading the Book of Mormon a lot lately.  I started over 2 weeks ago, and I'm already into Helaman.  It's going really well.  Probably my favorite part of the day.  The scriptures are powerful. 

          I read Alma 31:38 this week, which talks about Alma, Amulek, and the sons of Mosiah and their experience serving missions.  That helped me a lot.  Although difficult being away from home right now, I feel that any adversity will pale in comparison to the joy when I finally see investigators make changes in their lives. 

          For service, we just kind of clean the buildings.  We mopped last week, and this week we switched out toilet paper.  Nothing too bad.  

          On Sunday we had Jenny Oaks Baker and her family speak and play music in our devotional and that was really good.  Then on Tuesday we had Joy D. Jones, the Primary General President, speak.  She talked about the love God has for us, and how we show our love for Him through obedience.  That was really good too.

          Anyway, things are going well.  I hope you are all doing well as well.  I love you all, and would love to hear from you!  Have a legendary week!

-

Starszy Hadfield 

Elder Jacob Richard Hadfield
DEC 27    POL-WAR
2005 N 900 E, Unit 173
Provo, UT 84602

      

Week 2 - Provo MTC

Dzien Dobre!!

    Can't believe it's email time again.  This week went by pretty quickly.  I've been studying a ton, and I've learned two things:

1.  The scriptures are awesome!  

2.  Polish is really hard.  But the gift of tongues is real

It's kind of funny because I took 4 years of German in junior high and high school, and while we are studying I will get German mixed in with all the Polish.  But yea things are going well.  In our Tuesday devotional, we had President Russell M. Nelson come speak.  That was really cool.  He talked of missionary work in general.  I'm also in the choir and we sang Praise to the Man.  That was such an amazing experience.  We have handball tournaments within our zone during exercise time.  Handball is like four square, so it's a ton of fun. The language is coming along, slowly but surely.  Last night we finished planning, and we decided to watch a conference talk.  I chose Jeffrey R. Holland's "The First Great Commandment".  It was way cool.  He is such a great speaker.  If you all have the time, go and watch it on lds.org.  It helped me out a lot.  The days are going by faster and faster.  I guess that's what happens when you're always busy.  Well that's about everything so far.  Hope you are all doing well, and I'd love to hear from you.  Have an amazing week!

-Starszy Hadfield

Elder Jacob Richard Hadfield
DEC 27    POL-WAR
2005 N 900 E, Unit 173
Provo, UT 84602