MTC Instruction: Grooming and Appearance

Han Laoshi

MTC Provo

5 February 2009

Wear make-up and look presentable every day, remember others are children of God. The little things take care of the big things.

Floss once a day.

Teaching--Focus on doctrine.

Conversion story--some people have no family support and yet they are happy through the gospel. How much more grateful should the sisters be who have a family that loves and respects them for serving a mission? To have not only the gospel, but a support behind it as well.

MTC Instruction: Ask Direct Questions

Han Laoshi

MTC Provo
5 February 2009

Ask Direct Questions

"Will you"--require yes/no response. Specific, direct, clear

Lead people

DQ require people to make commitment and exercise active faith.

Practice and critique, simple, direct and clear.

• explain Lord's promised blessings
• do/would you avoid is it awkard? how important to you, how to improve
  

Missionary Friend Letter: Finish Happy On Your Mission

February 3rd 2009

Sister Bruno (LOL)

I hope all is going well in the MTC. I think its been about one week since I sent you a letter. I remember getting letters in the MTC and being glad I got them, but also I was thinking to myself I'm not even in the field! Maybe these will make a difference to you though!

The other day we had interviews (yesterday actually). It went alright. Me and the Prez-man came to a good common ground. He wants me to finish happy and I want to finish. We had gotten into a bit of an argument over the phone and so it was a good end.

My family got my flight plans the other day. I get home April 9th 2009 at 2:13 pm. I give my talk on the Resurrection April 12th (Easter). They also got a letter that all the parents of missionaries get explaining why (mom and dad) should not make us trunky because we are the most effective now.

I've been trunky day 1. I've just learned to live with it recently and still function as a missionary or even a human being for that matter. Prez. Munday said "it's ok to be trunky so long as it motivates you to work." Remember that.

I think I'm going to Cy-Fair College when I get back. Cy-Fair is the way the heck and there, but I've been there before and it's nice. I'm going to have to take the THEA(Pre-Texas-College Test) I'm nervous. I had to get into school as fast as I can. I'll pretty much be going a bazillion miles an hour when I get back. I've got 65 days to get myself ready.

Enough about me though, what's up with you? How's life? I hope all is well. Send me some MTC pictures! Your comp and others in your district! Who knows, maybe there is a cuties. I'd wait for.

One more interesting thing the chapel back homes has severe water and termite damage so I'm going to have to give my homecoming talk in the cultural hall.

Miss ya much,

Elder S.

Parent Letter: Wow I actually wrote!‏

Mon 2/02/09 8:24 AM

Hello Flora,

I am sorry I suck at being a mother and a letter writer. but I hope at least this email is going out before you check it today. Nothing much happens around here, as you know, so it is hard to think of anything to write. We finally found your mission call so I am sending out the package today.

Dad had a fun trip to Denmark and Sweden and was gone 4 days last week. We ate pretty good while he was gone, I actually made dinner every night. AMAZING!! And we didn't eat pizza or junk. Franny decided to make a new kitchen schedule for us because the old one wasn't working. Now instead of having a night, we each have a job like dishes, floor, counters, etc. Tonight will be our first night trying it, so we will see how it works.

Genevieve is busy trying to organize our genealogy. She is trying to think of a system so we can systematically do the ordinances and work together on it. Right now it's hard because the new system is not up in Provo. So they all have to sign in under my name, and you can't tell who is working on what. Hopefully she can figure something out. Michael, Franny and Desi went on a youth temple trip Friday and did 11 male names and 7 female names from our line. So they had a good time.

I hope you are having fun at the MTC. I really loved my time there. It was probably the most spiritual time of my life. I loved the singing and the huge groups of missionaries all singing in different languages. I loved everything about the MTC actually. Can't wait to hear from you today.
Love,
Mom

Second Email: Drama and Loss

Monday, February 2, 2009 2:22 PM

Ahhh, my last email got lost, so now I have like a couple minutes, like 12, to write this one. Hopefully I can do it in six so I can check my email again today.

This week has been the biggest drama fest of my life. I already dislike DTRs and have avoided having them in my life. I would say I can probably count on my fingers previous to my mission the amount of DTRs I've had. However, this week at the MTC has been an insane amount of DTRs. Well, at least I refer to them as such, even though we aren't really defining our relationship persay, but we are doing some kind of figuring out, and I don't like it. In fact, twice this week I have stayed up past quiet time to try to smooth things out. I know dad posts these emails online so if you want more detail on that, write me and if i have time next week and the computer doesn't CLOSE my email, I'll tell you about it.

DAD strike this paragraph to post online, but Gianina: no, I'm not companions with sister T. She is serving in the same mission, but she is a solo sister here. She is actually our coordinating sister by default since she was the only sister. hahhaha. But yeah, since she's solo, she was on a split with us and we saw Kristi, so Kristi probably thought we were companions. But alas, it is not true. And I am thankful. She's an SYL hardliner. Which can be good, but you need to be careful who you are SYLing with. In the Bible it talked about how if you talk in tongues and nobody understands then it is not a good thing. Well by my interpretation of that scripture. Most of the new missionaries are beginning Chinese speakers. They can pray, testify, and say, hi what is your name. Obviously they can't understand a long stream of Chinese and sometimes she refuses to translate. It can be frustrating for some. And I won't lie, she's a LARGE part of the drama happening and a large part of the tears.

But for something dad can post online, the MTC hasn't been the experience I was hoping for quite yet. But alas, maybe after all these discussions this week next week will lead us in a different direction. My companion and I were talking about how we can see the vision of what it is supposed to be, but because of all the hindrances, it has been impossible to quite get there yet. But we have hope that it will come.

I'm grateful for the older elders. My companion Sister Ackerson and I have kind of let some of them become our teachers. We SYL with them at meals and they teach us new words. They are patient with us and always teaching us. They also shield us from a couple of Elders that have a tendency to flirt with the sisters, for our sake as well as those Elders. Hahaha. But it doesn't bother me. I'm outgoing and I realize that people don't change at the drop of a hat. And so, they will change slowly but surely. It helps to just remember they are 19 year old boys (even the "older" elders are 19, they just have been learning Chinese for 8 weeks)

Sunday is my favorite day. We get to have talks by members of the 70 and then after amazing talks we get to watch a movie. Sister A and I were talking about how cool it is that we get a Sunday movie. This week we watched the Testaments. Or however you spell that.

I'm really upset my last email closed because now I have 4 minutes left so I'll have to wait until next week to check my email...but yeah, the MTC is an adjustment. And mission politics already. But everything comes for a reason, and I'm just blessed that I got the best companion in our entire zone. Because we have fun and we aren't hardliners...everyone in our zone is our friends because we don't judge them for their mistakes and weaknesses and disobedience at least not to a harsh extent...but we encourage them in their strengths. I'm glad that we have become friends with the other districts. I will be sad when they leave because my teachers will be gone! But then we will become the teachers. Haha. Woooo.

It's crazy, days creep by and weeks fly. Oh by the way, they drew my blood and it's getting worse. I can see internal bleeding and huge bruises. It started hurting yesterday. We will have to take me to the health clinic tomorrow. Wei zhanglao said that he had that happen and they had poked all the way through the vein. SICK. Hopefully that's not true or he said it takes over a month to heal,

DONT FORGET TO DEAR ELDER ME!

Love yall

Sibling Letter: Never Forget Why Doing Things in MTC

From: Genevieve Victoria Bruno
To: FloraAimee@myldsmail.net
Date: 02/02/09 07:22 am
Subject: Re: Repitition, Repitition

Dear Flora,

We are so happy that you are enjoying your companion and the MTC. Remember that the most important thing you can do is help your companion learn the language. For some reason on missions when you do your best to help those around you, you make the most progress personally. My MTC teacher told me "never forget WHY you are doing things, learning the language, studying, etc". The most precious times to me were studying the gospel. The more simply you can teach it. We were really lucky to get to go to the Draper Temple open house with Annika and Gigi. It was so cool to see how excited Annika was to see the rooms in the temple and for us to teach her what happens there. She wanted to go back through again at the end! It was also wonderful to remember that I am sealed to a sweet husband for eternity. The only complaint I have about being married so far is that Stuart does EVERYTHING for me! I told him we need to hurry up and have kids so I have things to do. Since I have a little extra time I started doing Family history work, I discovered I don't have the Spirit of Elijah...I think it should be called Family Frustration Work, but I am starting to things organized bit by bit.

I was doing personal study today and I found this quote that I hope means as much to you as it did to me, I felt prompted that you could use it:

Self-understanding was never an easy prize, and this is particularly true today. We live in a rapid, changing world; an environment of scheduled necessity, transient phenomena, attention-idverting advertising and news. David Riesman, Erik Erikson, Hendrik Ruttenbeek, and numerous other sociologist warn of an identity crisis--the desperate search of millions for a stable identity and peace not offered by material things.

Revealed truth concerning man's origin and destiny give the Latter-day Saint a much sounder basis for self-knowledge than most people have. A testimony of the simple scripture "Man was also in the beginning with God" (D&C 93:29) should add peace to any life. Nevertheless, even dedicated Church members sometimes permit themselves a "years-are-slipping-by-so-fast" despair, complaining of the shallowness of life, worrying over the mundane.

It need not be so. Only when we fail to search inward and find the beauty of our divininely sired spirits does frustration become a habit. Contrarily, a greater understanding of our premortal heritage and possible postmortal inheritance enables us to view daily affairs in the light of eternity. Frustration diminishes.

Self-knowledge is likewise an important element in the process of perfection. To his people in the Old World and later in the New, the Savior distilled the message of his Sermon on the Mount with the commandment, "Be ye therefore perfect." (Matt. 5:48. See also 3 Ne. 12:48.) To reach that ideal, we must know ourselves, for until we are conscious of our weaknesses, we cannot correct them; until we know our strengths, we cannot use them well.

I hope you are learning about your weaknesses so that Christ can lift you up...don't get discouraged, just remember "if Satan can't ruin this work, then don't be so prideful to think you can!" We love you and are proud of you.

Genevieve

Hey this is Stuart. What's up? How is MTC Life in Provo? I have never been a missionary there so I don't know how it is. I know that the mission is such an amazing time in your life and you have the chance to do a work that is unparalleled to anything else. Take advantage of all the incredible resources you have available to you. You will be a great missionary. Let the Lord guide you. We love you a lot.

Stuart