June 27, 2013

Time is so crazy here at the MTC. While it feels like I've been here forever, it also feels like I only just arrived here yesterday. Yesterday marked 4 weeks at the MTC! Days really have been flying by of recent and I'm trying to enjoy every moment. I love being able to be a missionary and being able to wear Jesus Christ's name on my name tag every day, it is such a blessing and honor and I love every day of it. There have definitely been many challenges and hard times. But God knows us and He has helped me when I have needed more strength.

In class yesterday one of our teachers gave a very inspiring and empowering thought about how Satan tries to discourage us and how we can fulfill all that we need to in our missions and that we can do this work.I found the message uplifting and felt the spirit during it. However, as I was hearing what we were being told, I thought of the some new missionaries in my zone. Earlier in the day these missionaries that have now been here about 1 week, talked to me and told me how they were feeling overwhelmed and were having a tough day. I felt for them and tried to give them some encouraging words but I don't think much of what I said really hit the spot. That night (yesterday night) I was thinking about the spiritual thought we had heard and I realized it was exactly what this group of new missionaries needed to hear. I expressed my idea and another missionary in my district, my good friend Flake Elder, agreed with me and we decided to go over to the missionaries room and give them a spiritual thought to try to lift them up. Well, we didn't need to. These three missionaries that had been talking to me walked into our apartment to hang out with us. So, right away we gave them the thought on how Satan tries to tell us who we aren't and in trying to relate this message to them, after going through the verses and talking about them, I bore my testimony to these Elders about how I knew that they could learn their language and how I knew they could serve their mission, and how I knew us Hungarians (most of my district was there) could also do those things. I felt the spirit so immensely stronly. It was an incredible moment and one I hope I don't forget during the tough times of my mission. In trying to lift up and help these newer missionaries having a rough day, I was also lifted up and taught much by the Spirit as I bore my testimony. If any of you want to look into the thought we gave the newer missionaries, its in Matthew 4:3,6,9. Satan is tempting Jesus Christ. The similarity between the verses is that Satan continually questions who Jesus Christ is "If thou be the Son of God..." or "worship me" (not exact quote there sorry). Also a really neat, but different thought, is found just after that by reading the Joseph Smith Translation foot note for what happens after Satan leaves (sorry I don't remember the verse). The footnote shows how even after 40 days of fasting and being tempted by Satan, Jesus is still turning outward and serving others instead of thinking of himself (the footnote says that Jesus sent angels to John, NOT that angels administered to Jesus).

I could keep going with awesome experiences but I really don't have time. What I do have time for is to encourage all of you to incorporate God and serving others more into your lives. I promise it will be a blessing. I love you all so much and I am very grateful for all of your prayers, thoughts, and examples. I've said it over and over, but its true, it means so much to me to have a loving family. I am doing very well and I definitely think I have gained some weight too. The temple that us missionaries go to every PDay is closing next week so we think today was our last day getting to go to a temple at the MTC, and seeing as there is no temple in Hungary, potentially for 2ish years. Me and my companion are currently teaching 3 "investigators" (our teachers) in addition to teaching 1-2 vollunteers on Thursday. Mom, Sis. Locke's friend volunteered last Thrusday and I got to teach her. She was way awesome and super fun to talk with in Hungarian, very helpful too. So, we teach about 6 lessons a week in Hungarian and 1 in English every week. Teaching in Hungarian is very challenging but we are definitely getting better. Planning our schedule with what we are studying when defintiley helps lessons a lot too. There was one specific experience this last week where I really felt the Spirit very strong in a Hungarian lesson, it was awesome.

I need to go now, but I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Szeretlek Titeket! (I love you all!)
Shoop Elder

PS: Mom, please say hi to Aaron and Christ Orseth for me.

June 20, 2013

Another week! It is so great here at the MTC! Many of you seem to have noted that I sound happy and well in my emails and that is completely true so I'm glad it shows in my writing. I really want to send individual letters to each of you but I just haven't found the time, I'm so sorry. I was able to take some time to write a letter and I decided to write Mom and Dad, which I'm sure you will all understand. However, I've heard from every one atleast once and I appreciate that so much. I feel your love for me and it helps so much. Although I'm having the time of my life, the work is very very challenging in many different ways and I love getting to hear from all of you. Also, thank you very much to those who have sent me packages. And yes Mom, the missionary email a letter thing (sorry I forgot the name) does work well.

I'm going to take some time to talk about work. God blesses us (and by that I mean everyone not just missionaries) when we do the work he wants us to. I want to share an experience I had. Yesterday I prayed a lot for help with the language for my companion and I. There was a point during the day that I was focussing on learning the language. During this time something happened, I'm not sure what, but I think what I was working on seemed more clear and I felt much better about where I was with the language and more confident in what I had learned. It was an important feeling to me because in trying to learn the language you can at times get down on yourself. Trying to teach a lesson in Hungarian and want to say something and express something but not be able to is so challenging. However, as us missionaries work as hard as we can and trust in God and have faith, we're blessed because this is a work our Lord wants us to do. I have faith that as all of you ask Heavenly Father in prayer what work you need to do, and then do that work dilligently, Heavenly Father will bless you immensly.

As I have said before, there are 10 of us in my district. We are all super tight and the missionaries in my district make the work very enjoyable (maybe too enjoyable). Recently one of the Elders in my district said that he thought our district had more fun than any other district. I definitely agree with him. At the MTC we do a lot of goal making (very effective). In adition to individual goals, we make companionship goals and district goals. One of my districts' goals is to be Shoop-Positive. I think its pretty awesome that they think I'm super positive, and thats something I try to do, it really makes a big difference I think. I also have an awesome zone, my zone is composed of all missionaries going to Hungary, Estonia, Albania, and Finland. Recently, everyone in my zone left for the mission field except for my district. So the 10 of us were alone in the zone for a few days. Just a few days ago the older Hungarians (like 6 weeks ahead of us) left. We miss themand their language experience a lot but are excited for them and to be with them soon. Just yesterday after like 2 days of my district being alone in the zone, we got 21 new missionaries in our zone (Going to Finland and Estonia)! We are super excited to have new missionaries in our zone, but we have to wait another like 2 weeks to get more Hungarians.

I only have a few minutes for like a sentence or two to each sibling:

Bill: Congrats on the graduation! I'm sure the 10-11 year old boys LOVE having you help them with scouts and teaching lessons.

Amy: Thanks so much for the letter you sent awhile ago with the pictures your kids drew!

Julie: That package you sent in my first week meant a ton! I got it like the second night and it meant so much!

Becky: Thats awesome about the Hungarian in the news, I was pretty close with all of the older Hungarians so I definitely knew him.

Kyle: So sorry about Liam! And I still havent translated your first letter, maybe I'll try again tonight.

Dan: Your package was awesome, and the letter meant so much, thank you.

June 13, 2013

Dear Family,

Thank you all for the much love, support, and prayers I feel from all of you. It really does make a difference. I want to tell you all about so many amazing and awesome experiences I've had, and I will, but I know all of you want to know more about the MTC life and how things are at the West Campus:

There are two apartment complexes that are part of West Campus, RainTree and Wyview. My room, the chapel, the store, and gym are at Wyview, while we spend the majority of our days at RainTree which has our class rooms and the cafateria. I usually eat a bagel with jelly and maybe a doughnut for breakfast. I think Amy's kids wanted to know what cereal choices there were: Frootloops, lucky charms, honey nut cherios, and golden grams. Breakfasts aren't my favorite because almost all of the options are really sugary but I like the whole-wheat (I think) bagels and jelley. 

Anyways, we spend lots of time learning the language and learning how to better help people's relationship with Jesus Christ and God. I've learned a ton about being a missionary and just about helping people in general. Being a missionary has almost nothing to do with how well you can teach and everything to do with focusing on the investigator and their relationship with their Savior.

The language is definitely hard. I think learning any language would be hard, but the work is going well and I, along with my district, are continually getting better and better. I really love the Hungarian language though. There is tons of stuff to learn about it and the grammar is fun, but it makes so much sense to me. It's a very, very smart and efficient language and although I can barely speak it, I really love it. I think the hardest part for me is just memorizing all of the words, but that will come with time. Right now me and my companion are a bit behind in the language I think, but that is okay because we've been focusing on other, more important thing. I have faith that by the time we leave the MTC our language skills will be ready.

This last Monday we taught our first lesson in Hungarian. We've given two now and I've definitely learned a ton just since the first one. We gave a couple lessons in English before the Hungarian ones. My district is only the second (I think) district to be test running a new learning schedule for language learners. To my understanding, the normal learning schedule has language learners teaching lessons in their Mission language after only a few days and not teaching many (if any) lessons in English. This new schedule we are trying out has us teaching a fair amount of lessons in English first, so that we learn good teaching skills and then teaching the first misison language lesson about a week after the normal schedule. Our teachers are awesome. Really just incredible people, Grossen Tesver (Brother Grossen), Szuboda Neuver (Sister Szuboda), and Boamont Tesver. I think the fact that they are testing the new schedule shows how incredible they are. Great examples for all of us.

A few neat things: On June 23 there will be a Church general public broadcast about missionary work. This will be held in the Mariot center and all of the missionaries from both campuses will be there. I believe it is going to be broadcast to church building for the public to view (my understanding is that a letter was read about this to all of the wards). Additionally, the missionary chior will be performing two pieces along with some local church members in a combined chior. Unless something happens, right now I will be in the chior that is performing for this!

Now I will take a few minutes to write about the something more important than anything else I've written about. Prayer. Prayer has been something amazing to be over my stay here at the MTC. I have had multiple truly miraculous experiences. In addion to these couple of amazing experiences, pray in general just has been seeming so much more true to me, and I already had a testimony of it before I came on my misison. I truly have a testimony of prayer. When we pray, God does hear us. God loves us and has blessed us with prayer. He knows our struggles, he knows our weaknesses and he loves us. As we go to him in prayer he answers us. I know this, and I know as you all go to God in Prayer through Christ, he will answer your prayers.

I love you all so much,

Shoop Elder

June 6th, 2013

Szia sztok! (Hi everyone!) I am super sorry but this is going to be much shorter than I want it to. Today (Thursday) is our PDay, and PDays at the West Campus (where I am) is hard because we have to catch a bus to go to the other campus. I am sure next week we will have the timing down better so that we can take more time to email (PDay is generally the only day we can write emails or letters). I absolutely love the MTC! I want to make sure I answer your questions so I'll do that first: What are Sundays like the in MTC? Awesome! I'd say they're the best days but everyday here is the best day. Sacrament time is done by zone. There are a few districts in my zone. There are Albanians, Finns, Estonians, and Hungarians in my zone. I believe all 4 of these languages take 9 weeks at the MTC (I think 9 weeks is the max stay at the MTC). So our sacrament size is smaller than a usual ward.

There are 10 people in my district. All of us arrived on the same day and all of us are going to Hungary. I have 9 new best friends, all of us are amazing and I think all of them are incredible people. My companion's name is Weave Elder and we usually get along really well. Then there are Depallenz Elder, and Waldvogle Elder, Spedding Elder and Raymond Elder, Blackmann Elder and Flake Elder. There are 2 sisters in my district (somewhat unusual now to only have 2 out of 10 be Sisters), Peterson Neuver and Atkinson Neuver. (I'm not sure on all the name spellings).

Life at the new West Campus is very spoiled and very privileged, we've been told so many times how blessed we are to be here. I'd go more into schedules and stuff like that because I know you all really want to hear that but I don't have time.

I have been amazed at how many spiritual experiences I have had and how strongly I have felt the spirit here. The language is pretty tough but I have an awesome district so we make the most of it and I think we are doing well. But the main focus is growing in faith and that is something that happens all the time. There are so many awesome experiences I wish I had time to tell you all about. I want you all to know how much I love you all and how much I appreciate your love and support. Minden jo! Minden jo! (All is well! All is well!)

Much love!

Shoop Elder (In Hungarian, Elder/Seuver (Sister) comes after the last name)