April 23, 2013

Hayden's address will change now that he has left the MTC. See the sidebar for his updated address.

Hallo!

Well, here it is, my last email from the MTC... Pretty crazy. Everything we do this week, we're like, "this is our last.... blah blah blah" haha. Going to be bittersweet next Tuesday for sure. But the past week has been really tight.

This week was cool. We have choir practice before Tuesday devotional, so they're always setting up while we sing. Everyone always speculates when they're setting up a teleprompter haha, so we were all like, it's gonna be an Apostle, it's gonna be an Apostle… And it was this time!  Elder Richard G. Scott came and spoke to us for Tuesday night devotional. It was so tight. They don't tell you beforehand so it was pretty cool when he came in. The choir sang, too... so I got to sing "Nearer, My God to Thee" in the presence of an apostle. Pretty tight.

He talked about prayer, and it was soooo good. And at the end he said "I feel impressed that I should give an Apostolic blessing on those of you learning languages... that through study and faith, you won't just learn the language, you'll master it." It was pretty sweet, especially since he hadn't talked at all about languages or anything. And then after the closing hymn, he got up and beat the sister giving the closing prayer to the pulpit and gave a little P.S. I don't really remember what he said but it was pretty funny.

Other than that, the week went well, just like all the other weeks. Our district hosted [the arriving new missionaries] last week, and we are again this week. It's pretty fun. And it makes you feel experienced haha. BYU Men's Chorus came for devotional last night and it was really good. But that's about it.

Next one will be from Germany. Crazy. But until then, love you guys, thanks for writing while I've been here. You guys are the best.

Auf Wiedersehen

Elder Brown

April 16, 2013

Hallo!!

Erste, Happy Late Birthday to the Grifsta, thought of you on Sunday man.

But anyways, the past week went great. It's kinda hard to write emails that I feel are interesting because we literally do the same thing every week... but it's a great same thing. Past week was good, though. Our Sunday devotional was with the Church's Director of Media, and he talked about the growing ad campaign by the church (largely in response to the Book of Mormon musical haha). It was really interesting. It's pretty crazy how much the Church is willing to put in to spread the Gospel (his point was that the Lord "hastening his work" didn't just mean more missionaries). But a lot of the talk was about how the Church has a huge ad presence in England right now and will be pushing further into Europe soon, so that's exciting.

Two weeks left... So weird. The MTC has seriously been one of the craziest, hardest, most rewarding experiences ever, and I know the mission field will be even crazier. It's going to be a really bittersweet morning on April 30th. But I'm so excited.

Had a weird experience yesterday. Our teacher told us about the terrorist act at the Boston Marathon, and it really kind of took us all aback. You forget what it's like to live in the real world here, literally. It was just really weird. Made me think a lot about President Kimball's quote about us being set apart from the world. But anyways, I'll keep those in Boston in my prayers.

MTC is going great, only one more email from in here! Love you guys, hope to hear all about how everyone is doing!

Auf Wiedersehen
Elder Brown

April 9, 2013

Hallo!! General Konferenz Wochenende war sehr, sehr gut. We literally just watched General Konferenz and then did whatever we wanted haha. It was awesome. On Saturday, we watched the morning and afternoon sessions, and then before Priesthood session a bunch of the elders from the Zone played hacky sack for like an hour. It was really nice to have a weekend to kind of unwind a little bit. But Konferenz was sweet! I loved Elder Cook's talk and Elder Uchtdorf's from Priesthood. Powerful stuff. But watching Konferenz in the MTC is pretty sweet. It was pretty funny when Elder Anderson (I think) made the comment about the "bulging Provo MTC"... Everyone laughed because that is very, very true. More people come every Wednesday than the last. By the time we leave, this place is gonna be crazy. But Sunday was even better! We watched morning and afternoon session just like Saturday, but then we had choir practice (yeah, I'm in the choir, whatever) and this week we're singing an awesome arrangement of Be Still, My Soul. Ich liebe dass Lied . So that was tight, especially after watching Konferenz. But then our Sunday Night Devotional was with Vocal Point, and it was pretty tight. They just sang hymns and gave testimonies about missions and stuff, but it was awesome. They said it was their first time at the MTC, so that's kinda cool. But that was basically the weekend for us. 

I blew it pretty bad in March Madness this year. I haven't even been thinking about it though haha... The first email I got about it I was like "wait, what?" Congrats to Dad though. 

Today is halfway in the MTC. Pretty crazy. It really has gone by so fast. We're all itching to go to Germany. But we're also enjoying the time here. By the way, I've gained 6 pounds since I've been here haha. Pretty tight. 

 It's hard to think of groundbreaking things to share about the MTC... I'll try to write things down throughout the week for the next one. But thank you guys so much for everything! Love you guys, the MTC is awesome, keep writing, the Church is true.... 

Auf Wiedersehen 

Elder Brown

April 3, 2013

**Hayden is limited in his email time each week and may not be able to email everyone because of mission guidelines. He can write letters to everyone and has time during the week to write them. If you send him an email, he would love it if you could put your mailing address in the email so that he can write you a letter. Thanks!

Freuliche Ostern! (kinda late but whatever)

First off, I got tons of mail this week so thank you everybody!! Hearing from you all is awesome in here. The MTC is great, but you get a little bit of cabin fever haha. Soooo, I think I'll start off by giving a little overview of what I do here every day.
So here's a little rundown of the schedule:
6:20 - wake up (unless it's Friday, then we wake up at 6 and clean bathrooms haha)
7-8 - Personal Study in our classroom (usually read the Book of Mormon)
8:00 - Breakfast
8:35-9:25 - Gym Time (sometimes we have it in the afternoon, but usually morning. I run with my ZL and play basketball usually)
10-11 - TALL (computer language program where we learn the discussions and stuff)
11-11:30 - Additional Study (basically whatever you want)
11:30-12:30 - Language Study (usually plan lessons for our untersuchers)
12:30 - Lunch (and get mail! Everyone is obsessed with mail, not just me haha)
1:20-2 - Additional Study
2-2:30 - Daily Planning
2:30-5:30 - Class (All sorts of stuff: Verkundet Mein Evangelium, Das Buch Mormon, Lektion Plan... and just basic Deutsch stuff too)
5:30 - Dinner (and get mail again!)
6:20 - 9:20 - Class
9:30 - 10:15 - Get ready for bed
10:30 - Lights Out (a wonderful time)

But anyways, that's basically my schedule every day besides today and Sunday. Stuff will switch around every couple days or so but we do the same things. Sometimes we'll have class in the morning, and then TALL and gym time and stuff in the afternoon, but that’s about it. P-Day is great. We have tons of free time and basically just have to eat, do laundry, email, and do whatever else we want. We also get to go to the Temple so that's awesome. And there's a Tuesday night devotional every week. Ostern Sonntag was awesome in the MTC! We had a special sacrament meeting with the whole MTC (over 3,000 of us) with Presiding Bishopric Counselor Cousse... and that was awesome. I love devotionals. But then we just had a great Sunday. Lots of personal study time, Elder Renn and I taught District Meeting and it went really well, and then a great Branch testimony meeting. Then last night we had our Easter devotional with Sheri Dew. It was super tight. Like I said, I love devotionals haha. MTC is great, though. The food is ein bisschen sketch every now and then, but usually it's actually pretty good. There are two zones of German missionaries, with about 36 or 37 in each I think. Lots of sisters. They drill elder/sister relationships all the time it's pretty funny. But it's packed in here with 3,000 of us, and guess how many are coming in August? Eight. Thousand. Glad I'll be out. They're opening up a second MTC in Provo and there's even a small chance that our zone may get moved to the Raintree apartments before we leave, but probably not. But anyways, it's going good! Thanks for the package! Good to hear from you guys!

Ich weiss, dass die Kirche wahr ist!

Auf Wiedersehen Elder Brown