Week 2 - MTC

So we are another week into the MTC and things are still going pretty good.

This week we got to go back to the cafeteria to have more warm food which is nice to have a bit of variety in my meals. Hopefully they will still cater some of the food because it’s always nice to have something that is close to fast food.  The food can be strange here at times but I'm getting enough, for the most part, which is nice. I'm eating really whatever there is. For breakfast I tend to have donuts because I don't like the eggs that they normally serve but that's alright with me. More snacks would be nice, but you can probably just send those when I get out in the field because I only have a couple more days here.

Meeting my mission president was a really cool experience. I think that he will be a great mission president. He and his wife were really nice and seem like good people.  Last week when all of the mission presidents came for training we had Brother and Sister Turvey who were going to Leads, England working with us.  They wanted to steal me and I told them they could if they could work it out but I have a feeling that that wont happen :) … but it would be cool to go to England.  (We got the nicest letter from them telling us how impressed they were with Ben and how they wished they could take him with them.)

My weekends and the weekdays feel the exact same here at the MTC so to mix it up a little we sit in the middle of the hallways with our boots on and drink root beer and eat chips and salsa. I saw Alex (roommate from Utah State) briefly in the hallway and we talked a little and that's the only time I have been able to find him. I feel like this week was pretty similar to last week. We just spend a lot of time in our classroom studying or learning lessons to teach to our investigators. 

Alex and Ben

Last weeks Teaching Resource Centers or TRC went pretty good. We committed one of them to baptism and the other one is thinking about it. I’m pretty sure both of them were just members faking being investigators but it was still cool. This week for the TRC we got new investigators and I'm pretty sure that we have one who is a real investigator because she just acts differently than the other TRC and that was pretty cool. She has already committed to baptism and we just had the opportunity to answer all of the questions that she had for us. Our other investigator is pretty open to the messages that we are sharing with him so we will see how that goes. Yesterday we got a little rain and that was nice because it wasn't so hot so we decided to take a walk with our district. The devotionals we had this past week were really good on Tuesday we had Elder Arnold of the 7 and he had a really good talk and then one of the MTC directors came on Sunday and talked about how to judge whether you are a successful missionary or not.

We moved back into the gym for exercises time but that's alright because we are playing some volleyball and I think that I'm getting pretty good at it, but soccer would still be more fun - however we do not have full size goals to play on.

We had a missionary from Trinidad who was supposed to come on Wednesday but he decided not to come or something which is a problem because we are having a cultural event where he was going to hold the Trinidad flag but now its going to be me and my companion holding the flag instead - so that should be interesting. (We are not sure what this is all about)

We asked a few questions and here are his answers:

On downloading pictures:  I should be able to do it on random computers. My problem with the pictures here is they have all of the computers set up so you can’t download things to them to prevent people from doing stupid things to the computers - but that leaves me unable to upload pictures - but I promise that I am taking some. (He was able to send us pictures from someone in his district)

My companion is Elder Carnley and he’s from Leads, Utah. He is a cowboy. He played a lot of different sports during high school and broke his back right after high school so he waited a year before coming out to the mission. There are four of us in a bedroom and we have 10 missionaries in the district. Some of the other missionaries that I really like are Elder Hall and Elder Christmas, and most of the sisters missionaries.

I was able to go to the temple last week but this week it is closed for cleaning.

The thing I like the most is when we get to exercise because it takes my mind off of all of the studying we normally do. The thing I like the least is when my companion isn't fully prepared to teach lessons so I end up having to talk for a lot longer than I should have too.

I am for sure leaving on the 5th of July and we will be flying straight to Tri-Cities and should get there right around noon. We are leaving the MTC that day at 5:50 so I'll probably get to call you pretty early in the morning.

Love,

Elder Sugden

Week 1 - MTC

June 23, 2016

So today is P-day and I figured I send we you guys a letter letting you know the kind of things that I have been doing so far. Our P-day today is being shortened because the new mission presidents need people to teach their lessons to and we were voluntold to be their students which is alright, I guess, because we are getting more P-day time on Saturday. We are being randomly assigned mission presidents so it won't be my new mission president which is a little unfortunate, but I get to meet him on Saturday, so that will be nice. 

The MTC is a lot better than I thought it was going to be! I like the whole district that I was put in so that  is another benefit. I think everyone thinks I'm funny or it could just be they want me to give them their mail so they are being nice to me. They made me the district leader for my district which I think is pretty cool and my job isn't that hard - I just have to assign people to pray and make sure they stay focused during the class times we have and our personal study. The first week here has been a little crazy and it seems like a ton of stuff happens all the time but that most likely because we are up from 6:30 until 10:30 so there's a lot of time for us to be doing stuff all day. We spend a lot of time in our class room for teaching and our own personal or companion study, so some of the people are going a little stir-crazy from being in there for so long, but we get breaks every hour to try and relieve some of that. The best part of the day is probably the time that we get to

Kaylene and Ben

exercise. Most of the time i just use that time to play sports - mostly volleyball and soccer. 

I ran into my cousin (Kaylene) and Lily (Player) a couple of times and talked with them for a little bit but haven't had the opportunity to get a picture with them yet. 

Everyone here is super scared to drink the orange juice and the branch president told us that the side effects only happen when your drink two glasses of orange juice so i put that to the test and I'm here to report that you will survive if you drink two glasses of orange juice but maybe that's just me. 

The district that has been here 1 week longer than us is a little crazy and the branch president is being a little stricter to us because he doesn't want the trend of crazy missionaries to continue. To give and example of the things that the other missionaries are doing ... They stole sheets from somewhere to make sauna in our shower room. Luckily none of the missionaries in my district were apart of that, so I didn't have to get mad at anyone because it was some else job to do that.

I was able to play soccer for the first time yesterday and it was pretty fun.  There are a couple of good soccer players that come out to the field and play so that was nice but the grass is really wet when we have time to be exercising, so everyone was slipping a ton and they wont let you wear cleats so that unfortunate. 

I was able to sing in the choir for Tuesday's devotional which was a good experience. We sang "I Feel My Savior's Love."  The devotion we sang at was pretty cool as well.  The mission leader of the quorum of the 70 came to talk to us about how we should measure our success as a missionary.  Hopefully we get one of the first presidency to talk to us this coming week because they should be here on Sunday to teach the new mission presidents and we will probably sing in the choir for that as well. The food here has been alright when we were in the main building but since the mission presidents have arrived the have closed the main cafeteria so we have been getting a lot of cold food recently. The best meal so far is probably when they brought Chick-fil-a in which was a pleasant surprise to the food that we are used to here. 

At the MTC we get the opportunity to teach fake investigators who act like real investigators which is pretty cool because it gives us experience teaching people which I enjoy. I feel like I'm pretty good at teaching the lessons that we have for our investigators and I feel confident that i could teach real investigators as well. 

I should be able to send another short email on Saturday (he did not) and I can read emails throughout the week but i cant respond to them.  I'm trying to figure out how to upload the pictures from the camera but I'm not really sure how to do that and the computers aren't very helpful because you can hardly do anything on them. I appreciate the care package that you sent me and would also like it if you could keep me updated on the Euros because none of the teachers follow them so they cant give me the scored. Tell Sam that I'm really happy that his Warriors lost in the finals. I'll try to figure out how to get the pictures sent to you either later today or on Saturday when I have more free time.

Love,

Elder Sugden

And So It Begins

Provo UT - Missionary Training Center

They are letting us email telling you guys that I made it through the first day of the MTC. It a little hectic here we are going about 10000000000 miles a minute but that's all right I guess it keeps me distracted. I really like my companion and the rest if my group they seem like cool people. All of the elders in my group are going to Kennewick with me and it should be pretty fun the rest of the week. The worst part is they put an orange tag on your nametag and everyone knows you’re new so they always say hi which is terrible. My P-days are going to be on Thursdays but we don't get one tomorrow so it will be next Thursday when I get to send another email out. I hope that everyone is doing all right since I left. I am going to have a great time here so there is no need to worry about me. Thanks for that Ben ...Easier said than done ;)

Love,

Ben