Week 3 - Missionary Training Center, Provo, Utah

Halfway done with the MTC and I still don't know where my room is.

Bonjour Family and Friends,

This week has been great! On Monday the Missionaries that are going to Tahiti left, which was really sad, but also very exiting. They have been in the MTC for 11 weeks learning French and Tahitian and they are so ready to go. All of them are going to be awesome missionaries and I am so glad I got to know them. I sent some pictures of them too. Elder Langua from New Zealand and Elder Pichon from Southern France.



Now there are only 10 of us in the zone. The other district has 2 Sisters and 2 Elders going to Canada and one Elder who is going to The Congo (Elder Ethrington). I will attach a really funny picture of them. A few days ago it was our teacher, Frier Hendrecks, birthday. I had the idea to pretend we forgot his birthday and then when we sang our opening song we all surprised him by singing Happy birthday in French. It went perfectly and we had to stop and laugh for a few minutes before we could sing again. A few other fun things we do: We have an obvious French word of the day which is a French word that is the same in French and English. We also had a joke with the Tahitians where we would greet each other and say good bye by saying Tatarahapa. Tatarahapa means Repent in Tahitian!


I would like to tell a really cool story about two Elders in another Zone that left for New Caledonia on Sunday. One of them is Elder Ellingson who lives in the same word as my cousins Alex and Alysia Ririe. The other one is his companion Elder Matiara. They left the MTC Sunday afternoon but then on Monday I was in class and saw them walking back into our building. They told us how they got to the airport with plenty of time and got onto the plane going to LA. after the plane was about to leave they had to wait a half hour. Then they had to wait another hour. Then they decided the plane was having a problem and they needed to get off. Then the two Elders had to wait in the airport for 10 hours. While they were in the airport a man came up to them and told them he felt bad for them because religion was tying them down and they had to obey all these rules and go on missions. The Elders explained to the man that they thought their religion helped them have more choices and that they chose to serve missions. He told them how his wife and child died in a car crash and now he hates God. These missionaries then spent the next 7 hours talking to this man in the airport and told him pretty much everything they knew about the gospel. By the end of this time the man had completely changed and was referring to himself as a Mormon. He committed to being baptized and asked the Elders to e-mail him every week to encourage him to read the Book of Mormon and pray. I was really glad that I could hear this and I know that there is a reason those Elders had to get off their plane. God loves this man very much and provided a way for him to hear about the restored gospel and how it can bring peace into his life. I know that God loves all of his children very much and wants all of them to here about the gospel of His son Jesus Christ. After these Elders came back, and before they left the MTC for the final time, Elder Matiara came to my class and bore his testimony to us about missionary work. It was super powerful and made me very exited to get out into the field. They told me that they do not really remember the things they said because they just said what the Holy Ghost prompted them to say. I hope that I can be worthy to always have the Holy Ghost with me so that I can help others come unto Christ.

My good Friend Elder Ryan Doss also left on Sunday. It was really great seeing him here at the MTC and I got to talk to him a lot. It is amazing how good his Japanese is and how strong his testimony of the gospel is. I was talking to him one time and he just started talking in Japanese without realizing it until he finally saw the confused look on my face. Ha ha he is going to be an awesome missionary. My French is getting a lot better. The other day I was bearing my testimony of the Book of Mormon in French and I was surprised at how good I was! Speaking of the Book of Mormon, read it! I do not think a lot of people, including myself, realize how amazing of a gift it is. It truly is the word of God and it testifies of Jesus Christ!

I hope all of you are doing well. 

I have decided to start learning Tahitian because it is awesome. I already now 6 words.  

Love,

Elder Bake

  

Week 2 - Missionary Training Center, Provo, UT and San Francisco, CA

Dear Family and Friends,

They say that in the MTC days become weeks and weeks become days. It is so true! This week has been Genial! First off, on Thursday we went to San Francisco for the day to pick up our French visas. We had to leave at 2:00 in the morning and were there all day. It was really fun because it was the first time being out in the real world as a missionary. I had a fun conversation with the security guard at the French consulate and I gave him a Mormon.org card. After, we got to look around the waterfront in downtown San Francisco. It was cool to be in all of the places that we went for vacation last year. I had clam chowder in a bread bowl for lunch which was super good. We had a driver who was paid to take us wherever we wanted. We were going to go to the Golden Gate Bridge but then everyone fell asleep so we just went back to the airport ha ha. It was really funny trying to explain to everyone what we were doing and that we were in San Francisco for the day only and that we had already been to the MTC for a week and were going back. We tried explaining this to a lot of people but no one seemed to understand. In the airport I met someone who just got back from a mission in Vancouver and another guy who went to the Portland Oregon Mission 10 years ago.

In the Airport waiting to fly to San Francisco

My French has gotten a lot better in the last week. I have found that the best way for me to learn phrases is to put them on flash cards and carry them around all day. It is funny because I walk around all day with a big stack of flash cards and a billion other things stuffed in my front pocket. I have gotten pretty good at saying prayers in French and I've memorized the Missionary purpose in French. So we've had a pretend investigator that we meet with everyday named Nicholas. On Friday Nicholas surprised us and told us that he was our new teacher. I already sort of knew this would happen because a guy I used to work with at BYU told me about it but I thought it would have happen the first day, not after a week! Now we have two teachers that each come for about 3 hours every day. Our first teacher, Freir Headrick, is super awesome and has really cool mission stories. I am still having a hard time comprehending that Nicholas is now teaching us but he is also an amazing teacher and has made French really fun. Both of our teachers are very loving and have been the best teachers I could have asked for. I have decided that when I get back from my mission I would love to be a French teacher at the MTC but I am trying not to think about that now. It is cool because our teachers are not just teaching us French but spend a lot of the time teaching us the gospel and how we can be better missionaries.

The food here is really good. It's pretty much the same stuff they have at the Cannon Center at BYU but there is a little more variety. Today we had Navajo tacos which reminded me of home. I see a lot of my friends from school around during the day and it is really fun to see them. I have also made a lot of friends here. There are some really cool people in my zone but a lot of them are leaving for Tahiti next week. It's really funny because they taught us that the word for repent in Tahitian is Tatarahapa and we use it as a way of saying hello and goodbye to each other. There are three people in my zone from France which is really cool because they can tell us what France is really like and they know all the words that our teachers don't. It was funny this morning because one of them, Soeur Anzi, was asking me if my ankle was OK because I was limping a little bit, but I thought she was complimenting me on my shoes! ha ha. Speaking of language problems, Nicholas told me that in my first lesson I told him that "God is our heavenly stone." ( I meant to say Heavenly Father).

Last night we had a cinnamon roll party in my room with all my Zone thanks to the Painter family. It was super fun to hear from them. Tell them Thank You for me. 

One thing I have learned this week is that we all need Christ in our lives. I was reading in Ether and in one of the chapters Mormon commands us to follow Christ and then he bears his testimony. I was thinking how he ended his words the same way all of the General Authorities do which is with their testimony of Jesus Christ and that He lives.

My awesome zone at the temple

I got a hair cut today. It is very short.

Love Elder Bake.

Week 1 - Missionary Training Center, Provo, Utah

Bonjour,

I have so much to say but I want all of you to know that I am doing very well and that I have learned so much here at the MTC. I have never felt closer to God then in these last few days. The first day was super crazy! I was pretty much running the whole time as soon as I got out of Uncle Bryce's car. We spend most of the day learning language, teaching and studying. Everything revolves around our missionary purpose which is to "Invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and his atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end"! Everything we do is something that helps us fulfill our purpose.

My companion is awesome! His name is Elder Taylor, he is from Riverton Utah and he really likes art and working out. We get along really well. We are in a district with three other Elders going to Lyon who are in a three person companionship. There are three other Districts in my Zone. The people in my Zone go to church with us and are in class rooms and residences next to each other. We also eat together and have the same schedules. Two of the other districts are going to Tahiti and are learning French and Tahitian. The other one is going to Canada. It is a bit of an adjustment being with my companion literally 24/7 but it is fun and I really like everyone in my district. We have a teacher for about 3 hours a day but the rest of the time we just do everything on our own. We are all pretty good at staying focused and working hard. 

I almost forgot to tell you that I saw about 10 of my friends from BYU and Ryan Doss! It has been super fun seeing people around the MTC. There are a lot more people here that I know than I thought. Elder Doss, Elder Gibson, Elder Ritter and Elder Thomas.

French is going really well. Sometimes it can be discouraging to think about how far I still have to go but one thing I learned is that it is better to think of how far we have come and not how far we have to go. This can also apply to all of our lives in thinking about our spiritual progress in coming closer to Christ. One way we learn French in the MTC is by SYL. "speak your language". This means that the teacher pretty much only speaks in French! It is super hard but he makes sure we understand the important stuff and it has helped me so much. My teacher said that the reason missionary's learn languages so fast is because 1. we learn all day every day. 2. we have a purpose for learning the language. and 3 the most important reason is that we have the Gift of Tongues  which means that God helps us learn faster because we are doing what he wants us to do. One thing that my Branch president told us that I thought was really cool is that I am EXACTLY where God want me to be and doing EXACTLY what God wants me to be doing. 

I really like the 2nd reason; we learn the language so fast because we have a purpose. When we learn French we learn the words and phrases we need as missionaries. On the 3rd day we taught our first lesson with a pretend investigator named Nicholas. (one thing I love about French is that instead of calling the people who are looking into the church Investigators, we call them "amis de l'eglise" which means "friends of the Church" . I like this way a lot more because I think it is a much happier and less formal definition.) Every day we teach Nicholas and we do it in 100% French. When we study French or the scriptures in our personal study we are supposed to focus on how we can help Nicholas. This is exactly how we will be studying in the Mission field so it is a super great way to prepare. When we study, it is not just to learn French but to be able to communicate with Nicholas and help him come unto Christ. 

So far It has been a full week since coming to the MTC and my favorite day was defiantly Sunday. P day is today and it is a close second. Sunday truly was a day of rest because we have been super busy and working really hard. We listened to a devotional given my Elder Bednar on Christmas in the MTC and it was the best talk I have ever heard. He talked about how Christ is our perfect example and we should always be looking to be more like Him. One attribute that Christ had was that he was ALWAYS looking outward and helping others. He never did anything for himself even is the most painful moments of His life. I am so happy to be here. My experience so far has been super humbling and is really hard work but I have never been happier. I hope all of you are doing well. 

Love

Elder Bake