Elder Erickson awaiting TSA Security Check
August 30, 2012 1st Epistle from Elder Kaleb Erickson in the MTC Provo, UT
Hey Mom and Dad!
Well I finally survived
until my first P-Day. It's been quite the adventure here. I have a
hand-written letter enroute to you guys, but I'm not sure when it will
get there. I sent those other two letters a week ago, I can't believe
they only got to you on Tuesday. Which reminds me, using Dear Elder to
send letters is awesome and I actually get them when you send them
instead of like three days later. I'm not sure what's wrong with the
mail, but it's crazy.
Anyways, from the moment we get to the MTC, we hit the
ground running. We have a class that we do all our learning and stuff
in. This is also our district. My district has eight elders and three
sisters. Or hermanas as we call them. Everybody is very nice, we
actually have a really good district. We were originally assigned two
teachers to teach us Spanish and how to teach the Gospel. Apparently
full immersion in a language is the best way to learn it, so the
teachers only speak in Spanish. It was a little bit much at first, but I
quickly got used to it. Thank goodness for my three years of Spanish in
high school. I take back everything I ever said about Mrs. Tamoto's
class. She actually taught me quite a bit, I just didn't realize it
until now. It's amazing how much I remember from her class. I wish I
could say it's because of my good memory, but I'm going to have to give
full credit to the gift of tongues here. Even though that might sound a
bit cheesy since I've only been here a week, but there's no way I could
learn so much about Spanish without the help of the Lord.
As I mentioned earlier, we really did hit the ground
running. We really started classes on Thursday and started teaching our
first mock-investigator on Friday. I know, right? I was so scared for
the first lesson. I've been here two days and they already expect me to
teach a discussion? What is this? What did I sign myself up for? But I
went in with faith and the Lord blessed me. It was rough, but I managed
to get most everything across that I wanted to. My companion was so
lost, it was almost funny. He had no idea what we were talking about
most of the time. Our investigator's name is Rafael. The first meeting
with him didn't quite go as we had planned. We weren't really prepared
with exactly what we wanted to teach him, so that was a little
frustrating. After walking out of the room, my first thought was how
much I needed a Dr Pepper at that point. But alas, it could not be so.
It's cool though because we had to teach him again on
Saturday. Hurray for lots of teaching opportunities! This time we were
more prepared, but the only problem was that I hadn't quite figured out
the concept of working with my companion yet. My companion is a way nice
guy, but the fact that I have to be with him ALL the time makes him
bother me a lot. That and I find that I oftentimes hate working with
people. I guess I'll have to get over that pretty soon. But as a result
of this, I kind of went lone wolf on the lesson. I tried to put the team
on my back, if you will. And it was alright. I taught him about the
Gospel of Christ and he seemed fine with it, but when I invited him to
be baptized, he said he wasn't sure if the church was right for him. The
one good thing about the baptism invitation is that I have it
memorized, so it's perfect Spanish. Always a plus.
So that was Saturday. Oh, I forgot to mention that I
was made the District Leader on Thursday night. People kept telling me
how busy I would be. I find it's really not that difficult. I make sure
everyone knows what's going on, I pick people to say the prayers, and I
go to boring meetings twice a week. Not really much to it. It's kind of
exciting to be in charge of the whole district like this.
On Sunday, I was asked to accompany for an elder in my
district who sang Nearer My God to Thee in Sacrament Meeting. We didn't
practice much, I just kind of went in and threw in some fancy chords and
arpeggios. My father taught me well, it turned out really nice. Sunday
was a pretty cool day, not much happened. Lots of talks and a devotional
in the evening.
Monday we were back to teaching Rafael though. It was
game time. I actually worked together with my companion. We had our
whole lesson planned out about the Plan of Salvation. We were going to
baptize this man, no matter what it took. So we started, we went through
our lesson and nothing. He said he believed in it all, but he wasn't
sure if the church was true still. Then I noticed the Book of Mormon on
his desk. I felt like I should change gears entirely. The spirit was
helping me out here. I asked him if he was reading it and what he was
learning. He talked about some stuff really fast that I didn't really
understand. Then I asked him if he thought the Book of Mormon was true.
He said he believed it was. Now we were golden. My companion explained
to him that if this was so, then Joseph Smith must be a prophet of God.
He agreed. And if Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, then this was the
true restored Gospel of Christ. He said yes. Then I busted out the
baptismal invitation. Perfect Spanish, (because that's all I can really
say perfectly in Spanish). He told us that yes, he would be baptized, if
we would help him prepare.
I have never been so excited for anything in my life.
It didn't even matter that it was fake, I still felt like it was a real
experience. We told him that we would help him prepare and that we would
come back to teach him more about the church. It reminded me of that
scripture, If ye shall bring but one soul unto him, how great shall be
your joy. I felt that on that Monday afternoon. Didn't even matter that
it was all practice. Now we're teaching him more about the commandments
and whatnot to help prepare him. I think we get a new investigator next
Monday, so I'm excited about that. The whole experience helped
strengthen my testimony not only of the power of the Spirit, but also of
the gift of tongues too. Because I was pulling out words I had no idea I
even knew in there.
Most of the rest of the MTC is pretty basic. Wake up,
gym, breakfast, study, class, lunch, study, study, dinner, class, study,
bed. That's a pretty typical day. I have never studied so much in my
life, it's insane. But I'm learning a lot and I'm feeling more and more
ready every day to head out to New York and get started on the real
thing.
Anyways, my time is about up here, so I hope all is
well at home. I miss you guys a lot and appreciate all the letters and
things you send me. I look forward to hearing from you soon!
Love,
Elder Erickson
