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