Week 8  Thanksgiving with the "German Shepherd"

And just like that I only have one week left in the MTC.....which is crazy. This week was insane and also so fun. Wednesday we had a power outage from 3:30-8:30, so class was interesting. All the emergency lights went on in the hallways, therefore my class was in the hallways.  Along with everyone else's. Sister Reese set out a single desk in the middle of the hallway under one of the emergency lights so we could see....it was hilarious really. I didn’t have to teach either. Thursday was AMAZING! I think that was the best Thanksgiving I have ever had, no offense family. [Parent note: absolutely none taken] We had a special devotional by Elder Uchtdorf (aka: the "German Shepherd", if you recall he referred to himself as such in the last general conference) and oh my gosh it was so awesome!!! He was my third apostle that I have seen in the MTC, perks of being in the MTC so long. After the devotional he walked around and shook people’s hands. I sadly was not one of those who got to shake his hand, but I was ten feet from him so I will take that. I also shook someone else's hand who shook his hand and so through proxy I kind of did. The rest of the day we did service [Parent note: we read in the The Salt Lake Tribune that the missionaries from the Provo MTC packaged up 350,000 food boxes for the needy that day. All while listening to Christmas Hymns] and then we watched the "Other Side of Heaven". The other great part of Thanksgiving was we had another devotional but it was musical one. I cried through most of it because the spirit was so strong. If you have the chance listen to the song "I Heard Him Come" the words are so powerful. The guy that sang it was Tanner James and he was on the tv show The Voice, I believe season 6 I was told. They don't have a recording of him singing this song, but the song itself is on Youtube. Afterwards they turned on all the Christmas lights in the MTC and we got to walk around. Seriously, I am so truly blessed and that day made me realize that even more. Friday was good, I did a lot of studying. Saturday it snowed which was awesome. Nothing too interesting on Saturday, but for one of my role playing lessons I showed my “investigator” (my teacher) the Sacrament Room and explained it in Georgian. Sunday was sooooo nice. It was a nice spiritual uplifting day. What was funny though was that we watched "Mountain of the Lord"....and some of my elders had makes jokes about it. Let just say that during that movie our whole district was trying not to laugh cause there were just some parts of the movie...that were a little outdated let's just say and the acting wasn't impeccable. For our first district reunion we have already planned to watch that movie again. Monday wasn't too interesting, just the same stuff. Tuesday I had my last service work and TRC. My skype TRC was with the same return missionary, so looks like I won't meet a real Georgian until Georgia. What was so cool though was he showed me the editing of the Doctrine and Covenants in Georgian. He is part of the team working on the translation of the Doctrine of Covenants, so I got to see part of it and the process which was sooooo cool. I also got my real missionary badges all typed in Georgian on Tuesday which was AWESOME! I had a lot of lasts that Tuesday which was scary, but really exciting. 

Spiritual thought this week is something I have been thinking about a lot. The gospel of Jesus Christ is joy. I can truly testify of that, because I am seeing that first hand in my life. I don't think I have felt this happy ever. The people I am meeting are amazing, the spirit I am feeling is strong, and the knowledge I gaining is so life changing. This week I started contemplating a lot about my blessings, and oh gosh do I have a ton. I am not saying that I am constantly happy or not stressed, but the happiness I feel completely out ways those hard times. What is crazy is that I am super happy just in the MTC and I haven't even left for the real part of my mission. I can't wait until I am in Georgia and get to see firsthand how the gospel can change and bless your life. I can't wait to be able to spread this joy and testify of truth wherever I go. Georgia...here I come!

Not a lot to write about this week, but I have a lot to do and not a lot of time to write. I leave soon for the mission. My flight plans are from Salt Lake to Los Angeles to Moscow, Russia, then to Yerevan, Armenian for a day and then finally a long car ride to Georgia. It’s super exciting and I can't wait to leave. Sad to see my district go, but I have long awaited seeing Georgian Missionaries. Well till next time, and that next time I will be in the country😊

- და ჯენსენი

Week 7   It is OUT!

THE BOOK OF MORMON IS OUT IN GEORGIAN!! Well, currently only online,... but it is out! It happened last Thursday which I will explain more later, but I was too excited and wanted to say this first thing. The hard copy book version won't come out for a couple more months. Some words in Georgian cannot be hyphenated so my teacher, Brother Muir, is actually going through a list of them and working on the book version. I get to be in Georgia when the 1^st box of the new Georgian BOMs come out. I will be the part of the 1^st generation of missionaries with the BOM in Georgian! Which is soooo cool!

Anyways the week: Thursday I taught twice which was cool. That night I walked into class and Brother Muir had the lds.org site up and all of it was in Georgian. I asked him what it was and he said, very nonchalantly, “the Book of Mormon”. I flipped out! He was so chill about it, like what the heck! I fangirled the whole class! [parent note: for those who don’t know what fangirling is, its when you are sooo excited about something you can't contain yourself so you might jump up and down and scream.  The word stems from the pop culture world to describe the excited behavior of young girls at a concert] This made my week and my whole mission. I am soooooo excited. We read the Book of Mormon in Georgian every class now and I still get so happy and excited about it. It truly is a miracle! The first Georgian copy I get, I will cherish forever. Friday I did another activity in which I used the motion verb. I had to say where I was going to go in future, present, and then past using the correct conjugation and correct pre-verb. If I messed up I had to restart, which was fun.....at times. I’ve learned that my brain is confusing at times. I confuse Brother Muir a lot, let's just say. If you give me a sentence I can translate it perfectly, but when I try doing it myself on the fly....I'm not as perfect. Brother Muir is very much confused by this. I guess I see it as a math problem with different formulas so that helps, but when I am making up my own numbers it gets complicated and I mess up.....practice makes perfect I guess. Saturday wasn't really that interesting, I taught my new teacher (Brother Van Allen.....I think...) so that's cool. Sunday I gave a talk in sacrament meeting...which was all in Georgian so no one understood because as you all know by now, no one speaks Georgian. Everyone said I sounded fluent, so that was awesome, but like I am way far from that. I found out my new companions are the Armenian sisters in my district which is awesome. I moved my stuff over that night to their room. However, I slept in my room that night, as it was my last time with my first companions before they left for Russia the next day. Saying goodbye to Sister Johnson and Sister Burrap was weird. It was like, oh yeah we are going to be leaving soon for our missions very far away, and yeah I am not going to see these awesome people for a long time. It definitely was hard closing my room door for the last time. I'm a nostalgic person what can I say. Armenian sisters are awesome though!

Monday was the day my first companions left. The Armenian sisters have a different schedule than mine, so on Mondays and Fridays I am with the Lithuanian sisters. They are so cool and so sweet as well as our sister training leaders. Class that night was interesting. I had two teachers Brother Muir and Brother Van Allen. I had to teach both of them the Law of Chasity which was.........nice. I think they did that on purpose so I could get over the awkwardness of the topic, especially because it is something that is very much a prevalent problem in Georgia they have told me. Tuesday I had a Skype TRC and again I got a return missionary instead of a real Georgina. In fact the same dude from last time. It's cool though because I feel that I would be way too nervous with a real Georgian. I told myself with this Skype TRC I wouldn't have any pre-translated stuff, besides a few questions just to make sure. I basically went in knowing somewhat what I wanted to say in English. It actually went well! I still had like no idea what he said at times because he talked so fast, but I was able to have a conversation with him!!! Woot woot progress! At the ending he asked a question and I had no idea what he said let alone that it was a question. Let’s just say I skipped over his question....yup. But everything else was good! And here we are today. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and we have a devotional from one of the Apostles. I heard rumors that it might be Elder Bednar. I’m not sure if I trust that info or not. I don't want to get my hopes up. We will do service tomorrow, so we will have no classes which is nice, but will seem weird.

Spiritual thought is "it fell on the day moments". This is the title of a devotional given by one of the Quorum of the Seventy. The gist of the talk is that God is seriously in the details of our lives. I have pondered about this a lot these past couple of weeks. The people I meet...I am meant to meet. And the places I go...I am meant to go. I can completely see that because so far the people I have meet have really touched me. My teachers are really similar to me and understand where I am coming from. They know how to teach me and know how to inspire me. Seriously, it is so amazing. The missionaries in my district are all so nice and so spiritual and so ready to serve. We all just get along so well. I am excited to see how many "it fell on a day moments" I will have on my mission.

-და ჯენსენი

Week 6  Balancing the Natural Man

ძვირპასო ოჯახი და მეგობარაბი,

Yet another week, and this one seemed to go by even faster than the last one. Oh gosh, I am leaving soon...  I am ready and then not at all at the same time. So glad I have a few weeks left before I go out, because a girl kinda needs them. I will go through my week as per usual. The beginning of the week was a little rough for me. Nothing really fun on Wednesday, except the temple was great though. We tried to go as a district but the elders were late so we missed each other. Thursday was a roller coaster. I woke early, well I wake up early every day now to study now. I wake up at 6 every morning to study, besides Sundays I let myself sleep in. Sleeping in as in waking up at 6:30. Never thought in a million years I would think that waking at 6:30am would be considered sleeping in. I might start waking up even earlier cause I need more study time. I gave an unexpected lesson that morning. I was not prepared whatsoever. That was the worst lesson I have ever given. I winged the lesson, and I learned that I can't wing lessons. The biggest problem was I didn't know what to say in English let alone in Georgian. I almost cried in that lesson, it was not fun at all. I was so glad when that was over.  I had TRC that night, which was my last TRC person to person. It actually went well....kinda. I taught four people that night, one on two, twice. One of my lessons, I had my teacher’s wife in it. That lessons was funny though because they didn't know one of the words I was saying. I was teaching about EXACT obedience. I was saying ზუსტი, but they thought I said სუსტი. Now what I was saying was “exact”. What they thought I was saying was “weak”. So that lesson I taught about the importance of “weak” obedience and how it is a gift from God. Hilarious really. Friday was so much better. I taught a much better lesson and committed the role play person to baptism. I saw 2 dogs at exercise time😊. In class I learned more Georgian grammar. Fun fact about Georgian conjugation is that if you know the infinitive of the verb it doesn't mean you know how to conjugate it. So...basically you have to memorize the infinitive and the conjugated version. Yeah...go Georgian.

Saturday was soccer Saturday and the last soccer Saturday for my companions, they leave Monday for Russia. They don't let people leaving the MTC exercise the last few days to make sure they don't hurt themselves. Saturday’s lesson was........meh. I taught my “new” investigator (as in my teacher pretending to me a new investigator) the whole first lesson. He threw a lot of curveball questions at me, some of which I didn't even know how to answer in English...so that was nice. Brother Muir is always pushing me, which is good in some ways. That day I also met my new teacher, I already forgot his name though. He will only will teach me like once a week, so probably won't see him too much. Sunday was great because I slept in to 6:30 (which is normal time we are supposed to wake up). It snowed!!!!!!!  Just a little bit and melted by the afternoon, but it was awesome. Sister Stockman (my companion) had braided my hair the night before, so my hair was all curly and puffy that day. I taught relief society with one of the Armenian sisters that day. After being able to teach with her, I am even more excited for a companion out it the field than before. Like, having a companions make life so easy! I was with my district the whole day. My district is so awesome I wish I was able to be with them a lot more. Monday I didn't have to teach, was nice. I learned Georgian directions. We did an activity in which I had to guide my teacher to the cafeteria using Georgian. If I said the word wrong he would continue with the direction that I had previously said. It was basically a video game in which you don't know the use controls. It was pretty funny though. Tuesday was stressful. I had my first skype TRC. Usually you would skype with someone from the country, but I got a return missionary. I hadn’t finished the lesson by bedtime so I set my alarm to 5am so that I could get up earlier and finish it and study/practice before service work. That didn't happen because the alarm didn't go off...so I had to scramble to put something together. The whole morning all I wanted was a companion, not even in a sense to carry the load but just for moral support. All I wanted was someone next to me. So before TRC I said a very long prayer and tried to envision the Savior next to me. Was the lesson perfect? Heck no. But, I wasn't as afraid and the all my nervousness was gone. And a tender mercy was that my companions had their TRC at the same time. So, they were in the room with me the whole time, maybe not next to me, helping or listening, but there were there. Devotional we had another Apostle come, Elder Stevenson. He gave a great devotional and even spoke some Japanese. I understood some of it which was cool. I was assigned to give a talk for this up and coming Sunday. What is funny though is that talks in sacrament have to be in our mission language......so like no one is going to have any idea what I say because no one speaks my language...no one! And here we are today. The week was good, with some ups and downs. I have a lot more to improve on, but hey წინსვლა(progress)! 

Spiritual thought I thought I would give an analogy that I was taught this week. I will do my best to describe it so you can follow along. I was shown this a visual object lesson. Basically, you take a scale and label one pan natural man and the other pan spiritual man. On the natural man side you put a rock. On the spiritual man side you put a cup of water. Obviously, the water in the cup is going to weigh a lot less than the rock. This is when the Savior comes in.  He is going to push down on the spiritual side to help you balance it out the natural man side. Now here is the cool part. There will be times where the Savior sees that if he just lets up a little on the pressure, you will have to grow. So that is what he does from time to time. He lets off just a little bit of pressure so that you can start to learn for yourself. Lately, I feel the Savior is letting up just little bit of pressure so that I can take on the weight and learn for myself. I have seen that this week especially. I felt that this week was just a little bit harder in certain areas that were easier before. I guess I have something I need to learn. This definitely applies with life. The Savior can trust us at times to do things on our own and to learn things on our own. He knows when he needs to help and when he needs to bless us. It is all on the Lord's time really. 

           

Well that was the week. I get new companions this week because my companions leave Monday for Russia. Hopefully I join my district's sister’s trio. Well, until next week.

-და ჯენსენი

Week 5 Humility...Aspirations of a Perfectionist

Rachel with the Armenian sister missionaries from her District

გამარჯობა ოჯახები და მეგობარები,

It has been yet another week, and again I can't believe it is Wednesday already. I only have like 4 weeks left which is soooooo great! As much as I like the MTC......I'm ready to get out. Not language wise, but like I am ready for some new scenery and some fellow Georgian missionaries.

 I will go through the week like usual: Wednesday was interesting, I finally found out that this whole time that I had a separate mail box from my district. Usually mail goes through your district leader so you receive it that way, or if you have a package he will give you a slip for you to pick up your package. This whole time I had a separate mail box from my district, so packages were taking way longer to arrive because I didn't check my mail, because I didn't know that I had my own mail box. My branch president was supposed to tell me this.....but he didn't. Yay to being a solo missionary! [Parent note, this is classic Rachel sarcasm] Luckily that's now fixed. That night one of the sisters from my companion’s district had to go to the emergency room. She was having a severe sharp pain in her mid-section. She visited our room when she got back from treatment because my companions are training leaders, which was around 1:20 am in the morning. She is good now though. Thursday night I had TRC.  It went pretty well. I couldn't say a certain word right almost the entire time...but like oh well, it’s still a work in progress. Also I said a sentence wrong and I am surprised my TRC person didn't laugh out loud because I would have. My teacher did laugh though when she finally told me about it; I did as well. Basically I was trying to say "During this week, will you do the thing that you said" however what I actually said was, "During this week will you understand what you have said?" Hilarious, really.

Friday I learned how to tell time, and let me tell you it’s pretty complicated. You go by the hour, so for example 3:10 would actually be the 4th hour and 10th minute. Then there's math involved when the minutes are between 31 and 59. For example you would say it’s the 4th hour and 15 minutes left, instead of 3:45. Of course there are grammatical cases involved because, well it’s Georgian. Woot Woot! [Parent note: there are seven grammatical cases in formulating a Georgian sentence: nominative, ergative, dative, genitive, instrumental, adverbial and vocative...so this is some more Rachel sarcasm].  For night class I didn't have a teacher, since the teacher that was supposed to teach couldn't teach because he had logged too many hours that week. I guess the MTC is pretty strict on that, so I was alone in the classroom for 2 hours studying. I joined the Ukrainian missionaries for the last hour which was nice. It was nice to be in an actual class setting. Saturday was my official 1-month mark, woot woot! Saturday I was not expecting to teach that morning. Technically, Friday night class I did have time prepare, but I felt like I needed to memorize some more things for it. So I kind of went to the lesson thinking, "Well this is probably going to be very humbling." It actually was my best lesson, at least that is what Brother Muir said. He said we had a conversation, I barely used my notes (notes- meaning verb packet and word book, because I actually can't have real notes), and the spirit was present. So heck yes! So Saturday night class I taught again (because when do I ever not teach) and that went quite well also. Again, I barely used any notes and we had a conversation. So improvement is a thing and starting to happen. 

Sunday was so awesome! I got to sleep in while still being obedient, the only day we can ever be able to do that on my mission. Day light savings to the rescue!  Monday was.....humbling. The lesson I taught that night didn't go so well. I thought I knew what to say and then when I began all that went out the window. Well, mainly because the questions he asked me were kind of hard to answer in Georgian, but yeah the spirit was not present either. These past few weeks it seems like Mondays are just not my thing. Why? I don't know. I had to teach the next morning and because I felt so unprepared I woke up early to work on it. That is right I woke up 5 am and worked on it! [Parent note, this is truly remarkable.  Historically, Rachel is not a morning person at all and waking up at 7:00 am usually required parent intervention]  I had service afterwards and then went straight to class, only to find that I didn't have to teach so I learned more grammar that class. There are multiple ways to say question type words (why, what etc.). It will change if it is in question form or not. It will also change if it’s plural or if it is in the genitive, dative, ergative, or nominative cases. The case really matters. Basically you will case the question word depending on if the answer will be in a certain case. So you have to know the grammar of the answer to know how to form the question...sooo nice.  [Parent note, are you starting to get a feel for Rachel’s sarcasm?  It’s cute when you really know her]  So there are a total of 24 ways to say "which". Yup 😑 fun. Tuesday night I got a new companion. A certain companionship in my old companions’ district wasn't doing so well, and frankly they were toxic for each other. So sister Burrap left the trio and Sister Stockmon joined the trio. Sister Stockman is Australian so that's cool. She's super nice, so no worries whatsoever. Just sad to not be able to see Sister Burrap as often.

And here we are today. I teach tonight, we will see how that goes.....Oh! Brother Muir, my teacher, is reading through one of the draft copies of the Georgian BOM! He said not to get too excited just yet. He said to wait until the book is actually in my hands. I guess there have literally been many different expected release dates and all of them fell through... so this could just be the first draft of many to follow. I don’t know, but there is still hope.

Spiritual thought for the week: So for devotional we had a member of the Quorum of the Seventy come and talk about humility, which is something I am working on. Not in the sense of like I am so awesome look at me, but more in the sense of always trying to tackle everything on my own. He made an analogy of how some missionaries make their own mountains when they don't rely on the Lord. I realized sometimes I make some of my own days into mountains. I watch as my teacher teaches yet another grammar principle with even more subject charts, and I feel sometimes like "How the heck am I supposed to learn all of this".  I sometimes focus a lot on what I can't do. As a perfectionist it's a natural fault, naturally relying on yourself because you yourself want to make it perfect. News flash, I'm not perfect, so how the heck can I do or make something else perfect. Welcome the constant struggle of a perfectionist. Let’s just say Matthew 14 was humbling: "Oh thou of little faith, where did thoust doubt." Sometimes I doubt myself because I am literally trying to make squiggles and gibberish make sense, and sometimes it is hard to do that. Some days are good and others are bad, and some days I just wish I had a companion who spoke the language so I had someone to lean on during lessons. All because I am striving for perfection, striving to know everything; which is a good goal because I want to know the language so that I can speak, however I do have a limit. That's when it gets humbling. I literally can't do this on my own. Although I don't have a physical companion with me, I do have the Savior. He knows exactly what I am going through, he knows me and knows how to bless me. He is always there to catch me before I drown. That's what I am working on this week. To stop focusing on myself, stop freaking out, and stop doubting because there is no need to fear.  I have someone there with me for the entire journey, which is the Savior.

Well, that was basically my week. Just 4 more weeks to go and hopefully a lot more progress. Until next week!

-და ჯენსენი