France, Lyon Mission

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

[Week 2] MTC Life

Well week 2 here in the MTC was a great one. Lots of stuff happened. But before I start, Dad what is this I hear about scotty getting hit in the throat? What will happen to his angelic voice? 
 
Last tuesday Elder Russel M. Nelson came and gave the devotional. It was awesome, the spirit is so strong in the presence of an apostle. His talk was title "the doctrine". I dont have time to write down everything he talked about but it was legendary. didn't have any notes or use a teleprompter. He stood up, and preached to us about the Gospel for 45 mins it was incredible!
 
We picked up a new "investigator" Jean paul, he also (brother wilcox is his real name) is our new morning class room instructor. He's an absolute stud he's got an incredible testimony and is an awesome teacher. We're blessed to have him and Brother Lepretre I honestly dont think we could have gotten a better combo of teachers. Anyways we were teaching "jean paul" for the second time and I commited him to baptism and he accepted, even though its fake it was awesome and the spirit was so strong. I cant imagine what It will be like in a real situation!
 
French is.... difficile. Haha I love teaching discussion because its the only time we can actually speak french. So me and E. Call set up 3 extra appointments this week in our freetime/p-day so we could continue to improve... Because we need all the help we can get. We practiced door approaches last night with Lepretre and it was classic. He is such a sick guy. I forgot to mention he is near flawless. Perfect hair and style. Anyways after getting the door slammed on us three times me and E.Call decided to whip out this secret approach we had planned. I wont go into detail but it included high pitched eerie chanting, slow, dramativ actions, and a haunting feel. needless to say the door was slammed in our faces but we got in our next try haha. We also worked on contacting the other day. In these two situations its super hard because theyre just random people and you have like 1-2 mins to get them interested and get their info. Its super good practice, especially under wilcox and Lepretre's supervision.
 
The mission life is 16 hours of work a day, so we're all super exhausted. We all try our hardest not to fall asleep in class but it always happens. I feel asleep in sacrament sunday right as our branch president started talking, and woke up 40 mins later without batting an eye. Apparently he was pretty offended haha. My b.
 
Today at lunch the our mission president came and sat down next to us. Everyone was caught off guard and was nervous haha. He started grilling us on all these scriptures and where to find them. He turned to this Elder going to Arizona and asked him to recite "Notre Objectif" but in english. I turned to E. Hilburn and said, "100% chance he asks me next". I turned out to be prophetic when after the Arizona elder finished, he turned towards me. Squeezing his eyes together and read my name and said, "Elder Gruber, what is our purpose as missionaries?" Mind you we don't have anything in english memorize. So I declared it cooked and recited it in French. He wouldn't take my word that it was right so he proceeded to grill me on some scriptures haha it was funny. Kim Farah told me she knew him awhil ago so I asked him about her and he remember. He asked me if Fes was as good of an athlete as his father and I quickly replied in the negative haha.
 
I love being thrown in the deep end of a language... its how you learn it the best, even though its super tough. I was asked to pray the other day in a setting with english speaking elders, and it took me like 30 seconds to remember how to start and enlgish prayer it was so funny haha. I used to think elders would just make up stories like that to sound cool but it actually happens in the mish.
 
Real quick, bro. Lepreptre and wilcox have been strssing the importance of not having "mind sets". An example is thinking that we're not going to have sucess in france, because its france. Lepretre served in France and had 17 baptism! so the point of the lesson is not to have any mind sets and go in there and bust your butt of for 24 months and miracles will happen. I really wish I could write more but I have a hair cut in 2 minutes... hopefully I can make it ha...
 
Forever Love,
Elder Benjamin Gruber

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