Tuesday, February 24, 2015

MTC: Week 5


There wasnt much that happened this week for me to tell but one of the districts in our zone left this week (the cantonese speaking people going to Hong Kong) and I don't know what song they sang, and they were all terrible singers but I still felt the spirit. In fact it was really cool to me because even though our methods of communication can be imperfect, the message that is carried within that communication IS perfect because its the gospel of Jesus Christ. So I could apply their terrible singing to my even worse cambodian speaking. Because when I am out in cambodia, without the spirit I'm pretty much nothing until maybe like the last three months of my mission when I'm actually a proficient speaker. 

Aside from that I'm just thankful for all your continued support! 

I love you guys!


Elder Hall

[I asked Wyatt a few questions in my email. Here are his answers:]

  • How is the language coming? "The language is getting better. I accidentally say a bunch of cambodian words when I try to speak spanish to this guy from argentina that doesnt really speak english, so I think thats good?"
  • Have you taught any actual investigators, or is it all role play? "The investigators are just our teachers taking on the personalities of some of their personal investigators on their missions. And we also play the role of investigators for other elders and sisters in our district."
  • Do you know your exact travel date to Cambodia? "My actual travel date isssss! I dont know. We dont find out until about two weeks before, so in two weeks you will find out."

 Companionship Selfie of the week


Ryan Nearon, a friend from BYU, will be serving a mission in Germany after Winter Semester. 


Elder Slavens with leftover Halloween temporary tattoos.

Monday, February 16, 2015

From a very happy and humbled Cambodian Missionary

Cumriabsua Sister Hall!,

                I just need to let you, missionary moms Facebook page and members nationwide that: "I'm so grateful and humbled from all of the gifts given to me for my 19th Birthday! God bless each and everyone of you! Each of you are the best! I love you all back so much! It's in my prayers that I remain strong in the MTC along with my companion Elder Hall! I REALLY LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH! I am in so much debt. of gratitude to all of you! I really mean it with all my heart! You all made me so happy! I really witnessed  the love I've been given when you all notice my desire to serve the Lord and so many gifts given to me! 4 weeks left until I hit the mission field in Cambodia!" -Elder Ros

P.S. I have a Blogger you can look up in google just search "Elder Johnny Ros Blogger" so you and the missionary moms will definitely be able to hear from me while I am in the MTC and the mission field!


                                            Cumriablei!,
  -Elder Ros
                                                   




Thank you!

Dear people.
I don't really know how to thank you for the magnitude of what you did for Elder Ros. All the emails, letters, dear elders, and packages caused him to say things like "I think I'm in the celestial kingdom right now" or my personal favorite, "this is the best birthday in the planet." And I know that without what you have done he would have had probably one of his worst days of his life having a birthday with nothing and being away from his family. But rather he felt like he was in heaven! I know that God saw what you did and he will bless you, for "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." (Matthew 25:40) So not only thank you from me for making him think that I'm the best companion ever when I didn't really even do anything but A LOT of thanks from Elder Ros. He kept telling me how thankful he was for everything that I did for him but I had to keep reminding him that it was all these people out in the world that love their missionaries and not only that but say thank you to Heavenly Father. Another honorable mention in the Elder Ros bday quotes category: 
  • "I'm surprised I'm not even crying right now." (He doesnt really cry.)
  • "God bless these people so much," as he opens a package with a huge smile.

-Aside from that which was really the highlight of the week for the whole district to see a pile of packages waiting for him on his birthday, my roommates and I have started a sandwich tower in our room like Shia Lebeouf does with twinkies in Disturbia, which I never saw but apparently what we are doing is similar, but anyways we get a free pb and j sandwich every day and nobody ever eats them so we just decided to make the best out of it. 

-Tell Stephanie that if she gets called to Cambodia she should forget all about that "bf" of hers and go, because Cambodia is the bomb. I mean I don't actually know that yet but from the amount of people that have been telling me that, I can only assume that it's the bomb. OH! and one of my teachers here was companions with Elder Khem! Elder Ros got a package from them and he [the teacher] saw the label and he said "tau eldee skoal eldee Khem?" (do you know elder Khem?) and I was like "baat lookkruu! yung cia homies back in the day!" (we were homies back in the day) and he said that he was his companion at one point and that he was really funny. So that's really cool, and I told him that he used to be in my ward.

-SO last monday I lost my laundry shortly after I emailed home. I don't really know what happened but my laundry was no where to be found. I started to get really mad because all of my white shirts were in there, but then I remembered the scripture in Alma 56(or 57) that says "if we do not doubt, God will deliver us" so I decided that I wouldn't doubt and a couple hours later after I decided to not worry about it, I had a feeling I should check the laundry room again, and the first dryer (out of like the 50 dryers in that room that I checked) had all of my stuff in it, so that was a super cool experience that I would like you to know, because God will deliver if we do not doubt him. 

The end

Elder Hall

Wyatt's district's tags and a Cambodian Book of Mormon

Elder Ros' birthday party

Wyatt and Elder Ros

All of us with those pore cleansing masks on and we were about to rip them off. Do you notice our faces are sort of shiny?

Elder Hall


Monday, February 9, 2015

Amplify the Small Things

Three weeks in already and it feels like I started two days ago. Mostly because thats how much language I think I know. I'm just kidding I'm learning the language steadily still.
Not much really happens at the MTC so we have to amplify the small things like:

1) On wednesday Elder Slavens and I decided to have a competition to see who could last longer, me eating only rice and drinking only water (nothing on the rice like hot sauce or anything, literally JUST rice) or him drinking only chocolate milk and water. Four meals later I gave in since I was gagging at the thought of rice, and while that sounds super dumb (like why would I do that lol), but I gained a greater understanding of the people in cambodia that have only rice to eat EVERY SINGLE DAY and I couldnt even make it for FOUR days. 

2) My companion, Elder Ros, has never shaved before in his whole life so last night we had something of a ceremony where all the guys in our district gave him their two cents on the best way to shave and took pictures of him shaving for the first time. I think that he hasnt been taught something as simple as this because his older brother and his father are not in his life anymore, since he was 8, because of an accident. Also his birthday is on the 13th and he hasnt gotten a letter the whole time he has been at the MTC so I know none of you know him but he is very discouraged and sad, but if you could just send him an email or write him a dear elder that would seriously make him more happy than anything. His email is johnny.ros@myldsmail.net and his mailing info for dear elder is the exact same as mine except his name is Elder Johnny Ros. If you could do this not only will he be happy but Jesus will be happy because "When ye are in the service of your fellow being, ye are only in the service of your God"

Love, Elder Hall

[Wyatt only sent one caption this week, so I will do my best to identify the people.]
Wyatt's caption: also this is a picture from my comp camera. The first week i told him to always show his ice in his pictures ( here mom great opportunity to learn some slang, ice means wristwatch) so yesterday he goes "elder hall you forgot to show your ice" and then we took this picture hahah

Elder Palmer and his companion at the Provo Temple


Donning his Texas pride on Pday.

In the cafeteria: Elder Lamborn on the right (up close).


Elder Slavens


Provo Temple


Wyatt's friends, Race Peterson (serving in Tempe, AZ) and Sis Weston, from BYU.

Elder Slavens in the classroom.


Elder Hall with Elder Josh (the) Stott


Teaching Elder Ros (center--Wyatt's companion) how to shave. Elder Palmer on the left and Elder Maurer on the right.

More shave lessons.



Friday, February 6, 2015

Snail Mail from Elder Hall

1/24/2015:

Today is the end of my 4th day at the MTC and my language is coming along actually very well. It's definitely a lot of work that I have to do to learn but I think it's coming. We taught an "investigator" (neak rian) today named [Bong Poan] and I surprisingly could communicate somewhat with him. It's really difficult when he's speaking so fast but I can sort of pick out some of the words he says in a sentence and get the gist of what he's saying and answer. I mostly just stick to asking him questions and not letting him ask me any back. Tomorrow is Sunday and then after that I'm on the same schedule until the week I leave to Cambodia.

....

1/31/2015:

Today we learned the consonants and I learned them in like 30 minutes with help from some tricks from Elder Slavens. Then later today I promised myself from now on I would learn 20 new words a day for the rest of the MTC to put me at a vocabulary of about 1000 words by the time I'm out in the field, and I taught myself all the 20 words in like an hour. Then my district leader didn't believe me so he quizzed me on all 20 words and I got them all right and he was super amazed, but while I was studying I realized that these words were REALLY complicated looking, and I surprised myself at how well I was able to memorize them, so my district leader asked me how I did it and I was like, "Its not me. I swear the Spirit is helping," and right then I felt the spirit super strongly, so I know that the Holy Ghost has been helping me to learn the language. Which also means that there are people in Cambodia that don't just need the Gospel, they need to hear it from me. For some reason in Heavenly Father's grand scheme he is taking time to help me learn the language so that when I am in the right place at just the right time, I will be able to turn somebody to the teachings of Jesus Christ. I can't wait to finish learning and just go to Cambodia.

I was so excited to play basketball in the MTC. I thought it was going to be actual intense pickup basketball, but we aren't allowed to do that so we just play knockout the whole time, and then when I get bored I run as fast as I can till I'm tired on the track. So its not that bad, but its also not great.

Sincerely,

Elder Hall

Monday, February 2, 2015

MTC: Week 2

Well, things have really started to speed up here at the MTC since I have a minor grasp of the language. If I got sent there right now I would know enough to survive so I think that's pretty good. Not enough to teach though, so I really gotta keep working. We were challenged by one of our teachers to learn the consonants (which is about a third of all the letters) by tomorrow, but I learned the whole alphabet already (excluding the special didactic marks which our teacher has to teach us) and I know that Heavenly Father is helping me, because considering my grades I just got at my first semester and a half at BYU there is no way I could do this by myself. Anyways, thank you for all of your prayers because I know they are helping me! Feel free to email my mom questions and she'll send them to me. I mean you probably don't have any while I'm here in the MTC but once I'm out in the field I'll be happy to answer all of your Cambodian/Mormon questions in general.

សេចក្ដីរសលាញ់ 
Elder Hall

"324" Date to leave MTC

This is what you have to do when you say hello in cambodia.

Elder Slavens and Elder Osbourne with some classy middle parts

Class with my district while sister Christensen flirts with other non-district elders smh

This is my whole district at our regular Sunday Temple Walk

Post devotional. I really dont have anything to take pictures of lol Im sorry

Working on TALL (technology assisted language learning)

White Tie Wednesday. Just kidding it was sunday but that doesn't really flow. White tie Sunday?