Elder Nelson (instructor) - LeonaMissionary Training Center -Provo, Utah
30 August 1989 - Noon today started our second week here at the MTC. I wish I could say that we are speaking German fluently now, and that we are going to be ready to leave the German classes in 4 weeks as planned, but I am afraid we are not doing that well. They keep telling us that we are doing better than most couples have done and that we are learning very fast, but we don’t feel that it is that good. However, we are learning a lot of vocabulary, and we are surprised sometimes at how much we do know in just a week. President Healy blessed us to have Heavenly Father’s help with learning the language and that is why we are as successful as we are. We feel like if we could do our part a little better with some more study, we could learn even faster. But we are so pressed for time that we just can’t find the time when we are not so tired that we don’t function very well and have to get some rest.
We have three different teachers, and they are all young returned missionaries from either Germany or Switzerland. They are all just simply great young people and so patient and helpful that it makes us want to learn faster so as to make them look good.
5 September 1989 – Things are getting a little better, but the language is still coming pretty slowly. They are really pushing us to SYL (Speak Your Language) as much as we can, and we have hardly gotten started. Today we – with Sister Smith’s help – labeled the door, bed, mirror, wall, shower, window, and we are trying to not use the English word for them. The verbs and the grammar is what is holding us up, and the articles – but we are beginning to understand them.
7 September 1989 – We had another good day today, “sehr gut”, but very busy. We are moving quite fast now and are learning a lot of vocabulary plus a lot of grammar which I never had learned in school. We are conjugating verbs. It is pretty hard for me to understand and to remember all of the different ways to say things. I never dreamed that at 66 I would be learning another language! But, I am glad that we are, and I am enjoying it, even though it is pretty frustrating at times.
8 September 1989 – Today I gave a prayer at each of our three classes in German, without using a “crib sheet” for the first time! They weren’t very good, but it is a start. We really like all of our teachers. They are such good young people and they are so filled with the spirit. They study the scriptures every day and have some good insights into the gospel.
We’re learning the Dative case in grammar, and we learned how to give to directions. I didn’t do too bad with the book, but I’d hate to have to give someone direction from a street corner! I think they would decide that “you can’t get there from here!”
26 September 1989 – This morning one of our German teachers went to the temple with us to help us get started memorizing the ordinances in German. We went through them for pronunciation and for vocabulary understanding and then started memorizing them. I really expect that we will have all of them memorized before we leave next Friday, however! I won’t be terribly disappointed, if I don’t quite make it, but I plan to anyhow.
27 September 1989 – It is difficult to memorize in a language you don’t understand very well, but since we do know it [temple ordinances] in English, it helps. We will have to do better tomorrow than we did today, or we will be going over there only knowing part of it, but I think we will do better tomorrow. We are getting the hang of the language better now. In our evening class we are able to talk a little more with Sister Smith than before, and I have hope that this will help our memorizing.
But in spite of the challenge of learning the language, Mom and Dad loved the experiences they were having as Dad recorded:
16 September 1989 – We are having a most wonderful time here at the MTC. There are so many neat people here, and it is so much fun to talk to people who are going all over the world. It is just inspiring to see so many people preparing to go on missions and all studying so hard on so many different languages.
29 September 1989 – We are really having a great time here, lots of work and lots of frustration trying to learn German, but we are enjoying the great spirit that is here and the really great people.
Just one week from tonight we will be back in Pleasant View, getting ready to leave and “really start our mission.” It will be good to finally get going. We have planned to go since way back in March when they first asked if we could go. So it seems like a long time to finally get with the real program. Being here has been great. The MTC must have the greatest spirit of any place in the world, except in the temples, of course. But here it is a different spirit because there are so many people who are brought together for several weeks from all over the world and they are together most of 24 hours a day, except for sleeping time. They all seems to bring a great desire to serve the Lord, and they all have made some sacrifices, and it is just neat to be with people like that.
1 comment:
Senior missionaries had three class sessions a day. We'd stroll around the MTC grounds in the evening and see the younger missionaries having their fourth class. We were too exhausted to even study what we had learned that day. They called our building the 'Hilton' because the rooms were nicer and more private. We were fortunate because there weren't enough rooms in that building for all the senior missionaries. Each week we had a service project --washing windows or something like that. We spent the last three weeks of our time in the temple learning the German we would use in the temple. We were suppose to stay at the MTC eight weeks, but they needed us in the Swiss Temple, so we only spent six weeks at the MTC.
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