Week 7

Hello friends and family! 

This week was quite eventful and I learned and grew so much. To start off "the MTC week" -- so on Wednesday -- we got out of class early on Wednesday and greeted our new Persian/Fharsi speaking Elders. There are 6 Elders, and they are going to Toronto Canada, Berlin Germany, 2 to Leads England, and 2 to California (Los Angeles and Carlsbad). They are super aweseome, and it was really fun to greet them as Zone leaders and get to know them better and then give them a tour of the MTC so that they know what to do and where everything is. Similarly, later tonight we get to greet 30 new Germans! The last set of Germans left on Monday this week which was really sad because they were all awesome Elders and Sisters and I had become very close friends with many of them. I will almost surely see a lot of them in Berlin at some point during my mission, so that is something to look forward to. But, I am also very excited to be able to greet and welcome the new set of Germans coming in today. There are 17 Sisters and 13 Elders and it's going to be awesome. 

This week was also General Conference weekend. For those of you that aren't familar with General Conference, it is when all the leaders of the church told a world-wide meeting and speak to the church. The First Presidency of the Church speaks, as well as the Quorum of the 12 Apostles. They all speak to the church and reveal any changes make announcements and give council and guidance for the whole church. It is really awesome. One of the big changes this conference was a renew focus on families and individual learning, in order to accomplish this focus a new curriculum will be rolled out at the start of 2019 and church meetings will be decreased from the current 3 hour meetings to 2 hour meetings, with a focus on learning and teaching in the home. I love this change, and I know it was an inspired change made by our leaders through the direction of our Heavenly Father. 

My favorite conference addresses were given by Elder Gong, Elder Oaks, and Elder Gay. I  really loved Elder Gong's talk.  I love the way he speaks, it is so clear and yet so deep and inspirational. He spoke about creativity and the campfire of faith. He reminded us of the 2 great commandments. To love God, and to love thy neighbor as thyself.  He invited us to find higher and holier ways that we can love one another. This really meant a lot to me, especialy as my time in the MTC is drawing to a close, I have to learn to love the people in Germany and the more I love them and respect them and their culture, the more success I am going to have. 

 I also really loved Elder Oaks talk -- it was very direct and very straightforward with no room for interpretations. I can't really keep up to date with mainstream media, but I'm sure he is receiving a lot of backlash --- but as he said in his talk, opposition is part of life and it is expected that Satan puts up the biggest attack on families and on children because they are so essential for the gospel. I am excited to work with members with the new curriculum and am excited for all the blessings we are going to receive, especially -- as President Nelson said -- when we make a strong effort to use the name of Christ always. I love to hear from the prophets and to listen to the spirit as they speak. 

I had another really cool experience the past few days. On Monday this week, we got a call on our phone from the Operations Manager of the MTC and we wanted to meet with us. So we met up and here is the first thing he said  "So, have you Elders ever heard of the country Azerbaijan?" --- we looked at each other rather confused and I think all of our hearts were racing a little. We said that we though it was in the middle east somewhere. He said "ok, well I have a very exciting oppourtunity for you three." Naturally, we all had the thought "Are we being reassigned??" But he then explained that the Consul General of Azerbaijan was coming to tour the MTC on Wednesday this week (aka today). The Consul General spoke 4 languages, Azerbaijan, English, German, and Turkish.... Who else speaks those hmmmmm.. So ya, they wanted to take him to our classroom to observe us learning Turkish and German, and then have us introduce ourselves in Turkish and German and get to know him using those languages. The reason that he was coming to the MTC is that the church is trying to establish the first branch for ex-patriots in Azerbaijan and get the church officially recognized in the country. So they were here touring church facilities in Salt Lake, but the Consul General specifically requested to come to the Missionary Training Center. There was a lot of pressure on us to make a good impression, because we were basically representing all 64,000 missionaries in the World. 

The past few days we have been praying really hard that we would be able to answer his questions well, and that we would be able to impress him with our language abilites, but more importantly impress upon him the importance of the work that we are doing. So this morning at 8:30 we were having class and he came to observe the teaching and learning that was occuring and then spent the next 20 or so minutes getting to know us a little bit and asking us some questions in Turkish, German, and English. Azerbaijaini is very very similar to Turkish-- it is actually just a dialect essentially), but we were able to understand all his questions that he asked in Turkish and then respond to them. He was impressed with our Turkish skills, but even more impressed with our German. We were able to actually hold a very good conversation in german and he was very impressed. He also gave us some cool counsel about the turkish people in Berlin, because he had actually lived in a predominantly Turkish area there for a few years. He said that there is a large mixture of non-religious, strongly religious and some in between that are "lost". He said that the Turkish people will love it when we try to speak Turkish with them, and that the more we get to know their culture and their traditions the more they will be willing to listen to us and love us. They will respect us so much for trying to learn Turkish, becasue he said that the norm is that since they are living in Germany no native learns Turkish, because the Turkish are just expected to adapt to German culture and assimilate to it, so when we put in the effort to speak Turkish they just love it. 

It was a super awesome experience to meet with him and make a good impression for the church, so that hopefully Azerbaijan will formally recognize the church there. This week has been probably my favorite so far in the MTC and I can't wait for the field in a few short weeks.

I love you all 

- Yaşlı Johnson  

p.s. We took a picture with the Consul General and I'll send it once I get it,

Wed, Oct 10, 1:22 PM (11 days ago)