Elder Hunt: August 19,2015 Well.... where do I start?

Well.... where do I start? The MTC's been great. Like I said I'm in a trio companionship with Elders Burr and Buelher. Elder Burr is from California, San Fransico area. Elder Buelher is from Highland. Our district is called the Suriname district. In our district is our companionship, and Zuster (sister) Parker. She's a solo missionary. She's from San Diego area. I feel bad for her because she's the only sister in our zone of 72 missionaries haha. Our zone or branch is the Scandinavian zone. We have the Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Icelandic, and Dutch missionaries. We're the Dutchies or Surinamers or Surinamer Dutchies. It's super nice since our district is so small and it's just four of us in our classroom versus 11-12 missionaries in other classrooms. It's nice because our companionship has our own room, so we have plenty of space in our apartment complex thingy. It's weird since we're the only people from our zone on our floor. We have a bunch of English speaking/12 day/state side Elders who occupy the rest of the floor. They're super obnoxious. But like our zone leaders said, "enjoy their stupidity". The other Dutchies headed to Holland left on Monday, so we've been the only Dutch missionaries in the MTC. More are coming today though. And they're right next to us in our board rooms, so we won't feel so lonely. The Danes are in the basement of our building, but other then that we don't have anyone. It's cool at sacrament and at zone prayer because everyone is expected to give talks/prayers in their mission language, so we hear a bunch of Swedish and Norwegian and Danish and stuff. Oh also, Surinamer Dutchies are in the MTC for 7 weeks not 6. The reason we got pushed back a week was because they wanted the first "Trinidad Dutchies" to have a seventh week to learn "Taki Taki", a Dutch dialect in Suriname.

K, John and Drew, did you guys have to teach investigators 3 days into the MTC?? Cuz that's what's happening with us. Our third day here we were expected to teach an "investigator" the first lesson in Dutch. We've taught our investigator 4 times now. The first lesson was rough. That little missionary dictionary they have for the MTC was our best friend. Since there's 3 of us though we're each trying to teach and coordinate, etc. We never knew what the others were talking about. It was rough, to say the least. The second lesson was so much better. We split up what we wanted to talk about, and bore our testimonies after we were done talking. Me and the Elders teach in one session and then Zuster Parker teaches by herself. She spoke Dutch as a kid though so she has an advantage.

Life at the MTC has been amazing! The MTC is a spiritual powerhouse. The struggle is the same for everyone (except for the English missionaries who are so obnoxious). We have a really nice schedule. We wake up and have personal study time. We then eat breakfast and had to gym at 8:30. The field is usually too wet to play on so we've normally been playing volleyball with the Nords. We played soccer on Monday with some Swedes though. We have the best teachers in the MTC!!! Zuster Schwab and Broerer Molten. Zuster Schwab served her mission in Holland, and Broerer Molten served in Suriname. Broerer Molten gives the most spiritual lessons. The spirit is so powerful when he's teaching. Zuster Schwab teaches is us Dutch grammar, since she knows "proper" Dutch and not Surinamer Dutch. Meals are good, not as legendary as I thought they were. I've seen just about everyone I know here. I saw Elder Christensen my first day here. I see Elder Muir a tone. I've seen Elder White. It was cool because he was in the room just above ours. I only got to see him a couple of days though. He's shipped off now.

Sunday was really cool. We went to choir cuz the Nords told us to, so we did. Turns out the choir was singing with the Nashville Tribune Band live. Our "devotional" was we got to hear from the Nashville Tribune Band live (It was a concert with opening and closing prayers). I got a picture with the lead singer afterwards.

I'm loving it here at the MTC, the spirit is so strong here. It's hard teaching lessons in Dutch because you're trying to balance teaching a lesson, translating it into Dutch, and then abiding by the spirit (in Dutch) during the lesson. It's also been hard since our district is so small. Our branch presidency says that the four of us are a companionship since Zuster Parker is supposed to be with either us or her companionship all the time. We feel kinda lonely in our residential floor too because there's no one from our zone there. We get the new Dutchies with us today though! I'm super excited for that.

The Dutch is coming along. Our investigator is supper easy. Greet komt uit Gent, Belgie. Pretty much she's confused about Christianity so she wants clarity. There's a bunch of crazy Dutch words though like "de gehoorzamheid" means obedience, "de barmehaarteheid" means mercy. My favorite words right now are alstublieft, gebracht, and geweldig. I'm liking Dutch though. You can sound pretty snobbish speaking Dutch. It's cool though because it sounds so medieval.

Ik hou van het hier in de MTC, Ik hou van de evangelie van Jesus Christus. Ik weet dat de kerk true is.

Ik hou van jullie!

Elder Hunt

He is so happy these are all the books he got on the first day