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Chapter 1: The MTC (the end)

 And it came to pass in the last week of the MTC...

Thursday was a good Pday, except I got a bloody nose at the end and got blood on one of my ties. 

Friday was funny. They had a "play" that was hilarious and punny. There was a reference to Best Two Years. Everyone who hasn't seen that movie should go watch it. My favorite joke is that Moses was the first person to go to the MTC. When he parted the sea he walked through an MTC. It's not as good typed out as it is said but hopefully everyone got it.

Elder Whyte is unfortunately sick so we left class early to go to the medical clinic and he was told to take a nap so as I type this I am unfortunately missing class but it's worth it to help Elder Whyte. He's probably the best companion I could've asked for. He is patient with me and kind and funny and we have a very similar sense of humor and we have a lot of friendly banter. When we first met he made a lot of jokes about being unlucky to be stuck with me (they were jokes and they were funny and it wasn't said directly just an implication I promise he's nice) and then there was a moment I finally had the opportunity to make the same joke to him and I did and both of us started laughing so hard in the middle of class. That's when I knew he is the perfect companion for me in the MTC. 

We still made it to the endowment which was really good! Half of our district missed the bus because there was confusion around what time we were supposed to leave, but it was still a good experience. 

Saturday we did sealings at the Orem temple. It was so cool! I've never been to the Orem temple but everything was so familiar because it is the same as the Taylorsville temple. Also Elder Christofferson was in the sealing room next to us! Sadly we didn't get to see him, however it was still really cool and exciting to know he was there.

Also my favorite hour of class ever was today! We were asked some of the common tough questions missionaries are often asked and we had to quickly find Book of Mormon scriptures to answer the questions. I've realized I genuinely love seeking and understanding truth and connecting everything.

The Elders went to the gym in the evening and I didn't really want to go but I discovered 4 square. I never played before but for how simple it is, it's such a fun game!

Random sidenote: tie trading here is also a huge event. The Elders in my district did a good job of advertising it and starting it up. And sock ties are more valuable than gold.

Sunday was pretty good. There were many cool lessons/devotionals. One of my favorite things was the interative gospel of Jesus Christ. When it's iterative it repeats and gets better each time. The cycle is faith, repentance, baptism, Holy Ghost, endure to the end, faith... And each time we go through this process we get better at it. Obviously we can't get baptized but we do take the sacrament and we already have the Holy Ghost but we need to constantly feel him and his cleansing power to know we are completely clean from sin. Endure to The End is a really cool one. A synonym for endure is abide. Now it means abide to The End. I'll leave you with thise clues and let you ponder what the rest means.

Monday we had an HOA that went super well! It made me supee excited to get out there at teach for real. Also lots of pictures because 8 people from our district left Tuesday morning. The other 6 of us leave Wednesday morning and Elder Whyte and I are the last to leave by half an hour.

For foreign language speaking missionaries they have to speak only that language for their last week. Someone in a room near me is in his last week of Spanish and we started talking about Latin and it was such a cool experience! For those who don't know, I took 4 years of Latin. The Elder I was talking to loves language and we talked about the similarities to Latin, which are many fot obvious reasons, but also the differences and the reasons behind those differences. I didn't understand everything perfectly but I was able to have a conversation and it was actually so so so cool!

Tuesday was pretty long. The classes got harder and harder to sit through because my endurance for two 3 hour classes in addition to other workshops and devotionals is about 2.25 weeks (this yime includes the home MTC). The MTC was fun but I could not imagine being here for 6 or 9 weeks like some other missionaries. 

Elder Whyte and I talked more than we probably have the entire 2 weeks previous which was pretty cool. I've always felt like friends but after Tuesday I felt really close to him and sad to be separating the next day. I hope that we get to be companions again. 

We also had a general authority devotional by Elder Matswagothata. He is a really funny engaging and spiritual speaker. I really hope he speaks in conference. He was called to the 70 last conference but I hope he get called to be an Apostle whenever they call another. I don't know if it'll be this conference or the next one. You guys probably know because I won't get to send this out until after conference. Anyways, the big take away is that our strengths and weaknesses do not matter. We do not have to be amazing or close to perfect. We only need to put in effort and bring the Spirit when we teach.

I love you all very much!

And thus ended the days of Elder Shadel's MTC experience.


The 6 of us that made it to endowments:


Everyone after sealings:


Elders after sealings:


Our district with our morning teacher Brother McCreary:



Most of our district with our afternoon teacher Sister Farish:


My near perfect weight distribution in packing. Yes it's small and a little stupid but I'm proud of it. Also the 40.5 should be 40 but I didn't take the picture fast enough and she started writing the weight on the tag and pressed down on it slightly. 



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