Skip to main content

Chapter 1: The MTC (week 3)

 And it came to pass...

Teenage boys are still extraordinarily stupid. I know they are stupid I just thought missionaries would be at least a little less stupid. 

This first story is a 3rd hand account. It also happened the day I got to the MTC so it should have been in my last email but I didn't know about it yet. This is story was originally told by the victim, who is someone in the same room as one of the Elders in my district, who told the the Elder in my district, who told me. So with that said this is what I know. There was an elder messing with screws in a piece of glass on the stairs. I'm not entirely sure where the glass was or all of the details of how it happened but the glass broke and a giant piece of it fell 3 stories and hit an Elder in the head. From what I understand, he remained conscious but lost several hours of memory, got a serious concussion and was taken to the hospital. He is still here, but didn't go to classes for several days and is wore sunglasses for almost the whole week.

Now for the other story. For some context we are all supposed to be completely ready for bed and in our rooms by 10 and 10-10:30 is supposed to be quiet journal and study time called miracle time. Then we go to sleep at 10:30. The Elders above us have never been quiet but that's beside the point. Saturday night we were exhausted and actually ended up going to sleep around 10:00. At about 11:30 at night, 90 minutes after we're supposed to be completely ready for bed and 60 minutes after we are supposed to be asleep, some Elder had the bright idea of making popcorn. Not only did he burn his popcorn, the bag caught fire. Needless to say, the fire alarm went off and we all woke up and evacuated the building. Pictures of us outside and the picture of the popcorn bag the next day will be included at the end of the email.

So now Elder Miles's story. Some people expressed interest but not many so I'll give a short explanation. We were in a zoom class with about 800 missionaries and Elder Miles had his zoom hand raised as well as his real life hand. The zoom chat then became obsessed with telling the people in charge to "let Elder Miles speak!" And from that point on he became a MTC celebrity.

Sundays here are busy but truly amazing! The big thing is the "Go and Do devotional." Which is the same or almost the same every week. I'll find out next week. This week we learned about personal revelation and how to receive them, then they gave us 90 minutes to go and do it. It was an amazing experience, but the best part was honestly the district devotional review. 

We are all so blessed to have such an amazing district and that is something we all talk about a lot. There are very few other districts that love their districts as much as we love ours. Over the course of 3 days (in person) we really became family. I wish I knew how to share the power of our bond and the power of the spirit our meetings bring but there is nothing I can say, no stories, or anything that can describe those meetings. I wish I had more to share but I really don't. The church is true. God knows and loves each one of you personally. We, as God's children, are not seen as a collective we are seen and known individually. 

This email is getting long. I haven't written about half of this week yet. As of this moment I've barely lived half of this week. I'm trying to type some of it as I go so it's less typing on terrible computer/phone keyboards all at once. If this ends up being super long I won't be offended if y'all don't read it all or only skim. If I'm being honest I'm writing these more for myself than anything. And the pictures are mostly for my mom.

Anyways,  that was a tangent back to Monday. We helped serve dinner. The conveyer belt to help move dirty dishes to the dishwashers broke so Elder Whyte and I had to help clean off the trash and dinner scraps then move the plates. Yes dad, I did get a picture of the broken conveyor belt,  no mom, I didn't get a picture of us dressed in aprons and hair nets and stuff. The thought of taking that picture didn't occur to me until this moment.

We also had an amazing district council to help support and uplift our district. I can't express enough how amazing our district is and what a miracle it is to me that I'm in it.

One of many things that makes our district the best is Sister Cooper. She is so in tune with the Spirit and through her myself and the rest of the district feel the love of Christ. She is constantly uplifting and complimenting us and encouraging us to do the same. 

Tuesday we went to the Mount Timpanogas Temple! We did baptisms and invitatories. Honestly the bus rides were more spiritual than the temple. There are so many missionaries that it felt more like going through an assembly line than going through the temple. But on the way to the temple most of our district started singing hymns which was so much better than the loud talking about movies and other things of the world. Some people from other districts also sand along but it was mostly us and I'm so glad I was apart of it because the spirit was so strong. Music is truly an excellent way to bring the Spirit. And there's nothing like singing called to serve with a bunch of other missionaries on the way to the temple.

I know no one is wondering what we sang but I wrote down this useless information therefore I am sharing it. You're welcome. Cb means children's hymn book. On the way there we sang in this order: 249, 254, cb172, 27, cb12, 1009, 1001, 100, 60
The way back:
cb12, 142, 193, 2, 338, 1010, cb118, cb34, 1011, 30, cb117, 300, 294

Anyways after the temple we didn't get to eat dinner instead we went to choir practice because we hadn't sung enough yet. Then we got to sing in the general authority devotional!! Tuesday night devotionals are probably the most looked forward to and best thing about being in the MTC. The speaker was Elder Duncan of the 70. One of the biggest take take aways that I think everyone needs to practice is trust the lord and follow spiritual promptings without question. Christ is our Lord and Savior. He didn't save us just to tell us to do a handstand for his entertainment. He loves each of us and wants the best for us. Listen to Him. 

After the devotional we had a district devotional review which was, once again, amazing. One of the sisters was sent cinnamon rolls to share with the district which was such a blessing and miracle because we didn't have dinner. God truly is in the details of our lives. There are no coincidences. These things happen because God sees me and I know he sees y'all too. 

After the devotional review was super fun and funny. I almost threw up from laughter and honestly it was probably mostly because of how tired I was. Our district was on the 4th floor of 6. We tried to take an elevator down but got on one going up. For some reason someone suggested hitting floor 5. Both 5 and 6 got hit so we went up to 5 and 6. For some reason on the way down Elder Gordon hit 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1! On the 5th floor on the way down more people joined us so it was packed with at least 15 people. We then stopped on every floor and around the second floor we randomly started singing I am a child of God. I tried to sing along but I was laughing so much at the randomness of the chaotic conversation turning into song. 

Isaiah!!!!!! (My cousin not the prophet) Another small miracle. We have 3 hour meetings and we have a 10 minute break at the end of each hour but the exact time varies to fit the lesson. Wednesday during my afternoon class Isaiah arrived at the MTC and during my second break he happened to be passing through the same hallway I was on the edge of the building at the same time I was so I got to see and hug him! I love him very much and I am very excited to share the MTC with him.

There have been several miracles in my life that I haven't mentioned and some I have. Look for the miracles in your life and praise the Lord your God for them. He truly loves, sees, and knows us individually. I know that as you grow closer to him through prayer, scripture study, going to church, etc., you will start to see that He is in the details of our lives. And I know that recognizing that will bring you even closer to Him.

I love y'all, 
Elder Shadel

Here you go mom so many pictures

Popcorn bag

Broken conveyor

Cool mission coin (thanks mom and dad)

Us outside after the fire alarm (really blurry)

District at the cafeteria (no I'm not in it)

Class assignment to go take a selfie on a break

Elders at the temple

District at the temple

Elders BOMing the place

District 

District run

ISAIAH!!!!! and me at breakfast this morning.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Church History Museum Visit

My mom and I made this collage for a scout requirement. My mom accidentally put the wrong year on the picture. These pictures are actually from our trip to Utah last December. It was 2015. For scouts I need to write about how this experience helped me feel reverent or helped me better understand my duty to God. It helped me feel reverent because it has historical and religious stuff and only historical and religious stuff. And modern day religious stuff. One example was a replica of the golden plates. We got to lift it to see how heavy they were. They said it was 50 pounds and it was REALLY heavy! Also, I got to see a video that had my Grandma Lynn in it. It was about the early members of the church who were trying to decide who the next prophet should be after Joseph Smith died. Several people had a really strong spiritual experience when Brigham Young began to talk to them and the Holy Ghost helped them know that Brigham Young should be their next prophet. We also went ...
Post a Comment
Read more

First Week of Home School

On Monday we started home school, On Wednesday at home school I finished a really good book called The Best in the West . It is very interesting. There is an almost eight foot bear in the book! The other book I have read this week is The Tale of Peter Rabbit . It is on my Battle of the Books list. My favorite topic this week has been math. One of the things I learned in math is the hyphen. You don't use a hyphen in numbers one-twenty or in numbers ending in zero. (Because those are whole numbers.) But you do use a hyphen in numbers like twenty-one. I have finished lesson 51. I did all of those lessons plus several quizzes. We went on a walk and saw salmon. They are getting ready to lay eggs and die. They were flopping a lot and fighting over who gets to be in the exact spot where they were born. I got to shoot a BB gun for science. We learned about inertia. We were doing science by shooting the BB gun at a can to see...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Story From When I was LIttle and Other Stuff

Recently I have been interested in hearing stories about when I was little. One of my favorite stories that Mom told me was about when Ammon and I were little and we would hog the bed. She said that I would come get in her bed over and over again. Dad would carry me back to my own bed, but I would always come back. She said that even though I was small, I would take up ALL the space. Somehow I could make my arms sprawl all over the queen sized bed so there was hardly any room left. When Ammon also tried to get into Mom and Dad's bed it was even worse. Sometimes Dad would just give up on having room and he would go sleep on the couch for the rest of the night. Right now I live in Craig, Alaska on Prince of Wales Island. All of my cousins are in Utah and all of my grandparents are also in Utah. I miss them and am going to visit them in just a few weeks for my baptism. I am inviting all of my cousins, grandmas and grandpas and maybe some of my uncles and one or two aunts. I already ...
Post a Comment
Read more