Bonjour!
Comment-allez vous? Je suis tres fatigué. The MTC is amazing. I second President Monson's comment to the Aaronic Priesthood Saturday night when he said that missions are hard, require long hours, and diligence... AMEN. Within my first 24 hours here I was called to be District leader. I thought I was overwhelmed trying to soak in all the french I've forgotten since junior year. But it has turned out to be such a wonderful blessing for me. It really has. As DL, I have been called to minister and administer as Christ did in his mortal life. I was prompted to administer 20% of my time and minister 80%. After hearing Pres. Beck talk in Priesthood about ministering I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on the subject of ministering. As I was reading my training materials, I was a little confused about what that all meant but I have come to understand that I really am to just love and serve the 4 elders and 6 soeurs in my district. I really do love each and every one of them. They are such an example to me. It's really a blessing to be DL. I feel like I have less stress about learning french because I am more focused on the other missionaries. We constantly help one another, but I find myself helping others learn things more than I'm learing. Which isn't a bad thing at all because I still feel like I am pushing myself past my comfort zone. For example, I only pray in french. I am quite fluent when it comes to prayer actually. I can talk fast and not worry about what I am saying because I know it all. I can bear testimony as well. It is very easy to me. What was hard was the lesson Elder Erickson and I taught on Vendredi. Our investigator is name Vincent and he studies nuclear chemistry at BYU. He is paid $10/hr by BYU to come take the lessons because he really isn't a member. Otherwise the investigators are usually volunteers but Vincent is the REAL DEAL. So Elder Erickson and I felt we should teach just the simple lesson that God is our loving Heavenly Father. We didn't have much time and felt that that was fair enough. So we prepared and went to work. Before the lesson I was asking Vincent questions like why he is studying nuclear chemistry and he told us that he wanted to know how to give power to such a big city such as salt lake with nuclear power. He said it was very interesting to him and he wanted to take his knowledge to France and imply it at his home near Versailles. (this is all in French by the way..) I have enjoyed speaking french and I am greatful for my background in it. 2 of my Elders didn't know a "lick of french" as they called it a week ago. Up until Sunday the only phrase they knew was "Puis-je aller au toilette s'il vous plait?" which shockingly means may i please use the toilet? So one day a tongan elder asked one of my elders what the missionary purpose was in french.. well the poor elder just responded "Puis-je aller au toilette s'il vous plait?" It was hilarious.. then one day in general conference, the other elder had to go and said "Je suis un toilette s'il vous plait?" He didn't know that he just called himself a toilet. Needless to say it has been fun. I warned one of them one day that le foie is the liver and la foi is faith. Well in the lesson they said J'ai le foie dans Jésus-Christ. So Vincent laughed that they said they had a liver in Christ. It is so fun learing new things. Seriously. Yesterday we got to go to San Francisco for the day because we had to make a personal appearance at the French Consulate to apply for our visas. So we woke up at 4:30 and got a ride to the airport then flew out to SanFran. We got there at 10 and our appointments started at 10:30 so we called a shuttle and they drove us there and we were expecting to be there for a few hours.. We were in and out (8 of us) within 30 min. We were then instructed to go get lunch somewhere and then head back to the airport to catch our flight home. So we got dropped off at the pier. We had some good food there and walked around enjoying the seabreeze. I've missed that. We saw the Golden gate bridge and a ton of other things and talked to LOTS of people. It was so fun. Then we went back to the airport where we got to hang out for a few hours before going back to SLC. While waiting we met some sisters from tonga that report tomorrow. They told us that there were 2 elders from New Zealand that were going to be on our flight. One needed a place to stay so I told him to come with us. We took him and checked him in at 9:30pm when we arrived home. He was so grateful to us for befriending him so quickly especially because he has never been to the states. We all love him. I've seen him 3 times today. I miss you all. It has been a great first week here in the MTC. Being district leader is such a blessing to me. I love it, I love my missionaries and I love serving the Lord. It brings me such joy knowing that I am doing the right thing at the right time.
Love,
Elder Dover
August 9, 2013
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