Tuesday, October 20,2009

Dad was pacing the floor because it was 5:30 and we hadn't received an email from Kenneth. This thankfully came at about 5:45, or I don't know what dad would have done....

Hey Fam! I love you all! This past week has been another great week! I will try to explain as much as I can about what happened in this e mail but I don't think I'll have enough time so I will be writing you all letters! Have you been forwarding my emails to my friends??
So this past week was amazing yet again. Elder Brown and I taught our first lesson which wasn't amazing but wasn't bad. At the start of each lesson we have to do certain things in Russian with our "investigators". We did alright. This week we will be amazing though because we have improved in Russian so much and also are teaching abilities, esecially with the first lesson because that's all we've taught so far, is getting fantastic. So pray for us cause wednesday night is the lesson again.
We also went to a thing called the RC which is where we talk to investigators on the phone. That is about as real life and legit as it gets in the MTC. We call people who have ordered a Book of Mormon or Church movies and just talk to them about the church. Haha I didn't have anyone answere the phone so no real experiences there.. yet!! I am going to go there a lot more becuase I figure I need to get as much practice as I can!
I am going to try to answer as many questions as I can tell of some other really amazing experiences that I had but if I don't get to the questions just keep asking me and I will get around the them sooner or later. First off I better tell you that they best way to talk to me is through letters or Dear Elder because I can only check my e mail once a week and I don't have time in the thirty minute slot that they give us to really read and answer your letters...
A day in the life of Elder Kenneth Rone Weihing... This is an average day at the MTC.. You wake up at six thirty. You get showered and all dressed up and go to breakfast. No matter where you go in the MTC you are always in a full suit outside of your housing. After breakfast you go to class till eleven thirty where you learn Russian and how to teach from Preach My gospel. My class is made up of my district of 8 people and then one teacher. It is small. then at eleven thirty you eat lunch till twelve. At Twelve you have class until four thirty. in class you do the same thing.. Study Russian and learn how to teach from preach my gospel. At four thirty you eat dinner. At five you come back to class and this is when you usually have personal study, companion study, language study, and then a district study all without a teacher until nine. Then at nine you plan for the next day and set goals. how well you start out in the field depends a lot on how you used the last four hours of study without a teacher. You can go get help from a tutor or teach lessons for teachers to ask for advice. Oh an sometime in the day you have gym for thirty minutes. It is a very packed day and they fly by!! I have to be in my bed at ten thirty everynight. This schedule varies when we have devotionals or service projects.
what happened after we dropped off Elder Weihing... I took my suit cases to my room. I gave the front desk all my info and everything they needed. they gave me my two badges and other things I needed to survive in the MTC. After this we met our district, had orientation with all the new elders, and then went throught teaching excercises. We didn't waste anytime at all!
Now here as a really cool experience that I wanted to tell everyone about. Just recently they have started sending native Russian missionaries here to be taught for a few weeks and then are flown back. These such Russians just barely came last week. They are all new converts and do not speak any English. You can not understand them at all but you can feel how gratelful they are to be here and they just glow!! There is no Temple in Russia so none of them have recieved their endowments.. Well today was the day that they got to go to the temple and recieve their endowments. WOW! what an amazaing experiences. Our whole lives we are told how lucky we are to have temples so close.. I got to see in action how people react to temples who have never seen one let alone been inside one in their lives! Amazing. Most of them just started bawling because they felt so grateful for the experience to get to go in and do work for their own family members. It was a very humbling experience and probably my favorite so far being here. The Spirit present was so thick!
Things are sill amazing, Russian is simple ;) not really but it is coming along. The Lord has invested his time in me to learn it so I know I am having help! I feel so lucky to be away from the world! You are all the ones that I feel bad for :) Iget to have amazing experiences like this every single day while you have to drag on! Haha but I do miss you all and I pray for you everyday! I hope you know how much you mean to me and that everytime I get a letter I get so excited to read what you have to say! Keep my updated and keep asking me questions! I will answer as many as I can.. I only have one day to write back so I'm sorry if I can't! Remember who you are and Jesus loves you and so do I!!! :) :)