Beginning my Service and the First Week in the Online MTC!

Hello, everyone!

    This week I started my service as a missionary. For the next two years, I will dedicate my time and efforts to serving God. On Wednesday I started my work in the online MTC. The MTC is the missionary training center where all missionaries spend some time learning gospel lessons, how to teach, how to act, and how to best fulfill our role as a disciple of Christ. It teaches us so that our service can be most effective. The work is busy of course. With MTC being online I have six hours of online classes, one hour of personal study, one hour of companion study, one hour of practice lessons, and one hour of language study. It is rigorous and tiring but I am managing well.

    As a part of being in the MTC, I am assigned a group of missionaries to attend classes with called a district and a companion. Under normal circumstances, I would be with my companion at virtually all times. However, because of circumstances I really only see him in classes and study. Outside of this, I have my family to help me in my endeavors. After hours of online class, I have been really tired. I have used this opportunity to play board games with my family which has been quite fun.

    Another part of the MTC is teaching lessons often called TRC's. For about 30 minutes my companion and I will teach an "investigator" (often they are a church member roleplaying) a gospel lesson in a regular setting. I would be lying if I wasn't a little nervous about this. It will only be my second week in training and my companion and I will be teaching a full-length lesson. It will be even more intimidating when I will have to teach these lessons in Portuguese only one week after teaching in English.

    Work in the MTC is far from especially with it being online, however, I know this work is important and the time I take to prepare will be invaluable when I go into the field. The MTC in many ways reminds me of school yet they are distinctly different. They both take effort and both are often stressful but the Missionary Training Center gives me knowledge that will serve others more than myself. This selfless work has an important place in today's world and means a lot to me.