Well everyone it is that time to email again. i am sitting in the laundry room waiting on a free washer which is a lost cause haha. well i have had an eventful week. I got my russian name tag. It is so cool to look at haha. Well we are three weeks and counting to my departure date. I am cramming as much russian grammar and vocab right now. it is so cool. I am pleased to say that not only can i bear my testimony in russian or say a couple of gospel frazes but i can keep a conversation going. we have syl days which is speak your language. we speak in russian for the whole day! oh my goodness it is so hard! haha but I know that i will get it down.
Also we went to the temple this morning with some russian natives getting their endowments. it was so cool to feel the spirit in the temple. Our whole zone or branch was there with the branch presidency for these two elders. One is from Novasabirsk which is where my teacher served. in fact my teacher was good friends with this new elder and it was really cool to see them meet again after my teacher's mission. My teacher was his escort in the temple this morning which is even more exciting.
I got everyone's packages and i want to say thank you so much for everything. haha heather i know you didn't want to send the package overnight but i was so glad when i got it. I hung hannah and connor's dinosaur pic up on my bulletin board in my room. (yes it still smelt like a corn dog) Thank you mom and dad for the other package that i got today! the sd cards and the flash drive are so great. now i can keep up with my mission pics and have them all in one place. Also, I really enjoyed the shorts. I had brought an old pare with me that needed to be gotten rid of.
so Just to give insight on my day to day activities: i start the day at 6:30 of course and i either go to breakfast or go get sack breakfast and then to gym. then on any given day i will have 4 hours of mdt which is study time by myself and my companion. Also i have class time twice a day with Sister Chenina and Brother Anderson. Brother Anderson is the one mentioned above. Sister Chenina has a youtube video of her first day in the mtc called a mormon missionary from russia at the mtc. she gives her testimony and why she came on a mission. it was so cool. she is off her mission now and is teaching us to speak russian. Also i have learned a lot of spiritual knowledge from sister chenina. she talked about her parents yesterday and how they do not believe in god. Also she is worried that she will not get a chance to visit them again before they die. she says they are old and sick. I pray that she will be reunited with her family one of these days. She is taking a job in Japan this summer which is super hard because she is from Vladivostok. she is worried that if she goes to russia she will be trapped there because of visas and what not. I hope she gets to see them. then we have lunch and dinner in between these activities. on sundays and tuesdays we have devotionals which are always super good. then we are in bed by 10:30. there are variances to each day but it is along the lines of this each day. I just wanted you all to know what is going on.
so i got to keep this short today. I had to use my email time earlier on certain things and i am out of time but i will keep you all informed on what my travel plans will be and how i will be getting to Russia. until then
elder mccallon
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Week 7
hey everyone!
it is pday once again and i am sitting here in the laundry room washing clothes. It is just crazy how time is flying. i looked at my calendar and I have about 4 weeks left here at the mtc. Some of you will say well that is like a whole month but it really is less time than you would imagine. So we had a good visit to the provo temple this morning. always a good pday when we get to go do temple work. Also i got to take a well needed nap.
We got to listen to Elder Holland last week. It was amazing! I really enjoyed the message. In the mtc i would call it a prick your heart devotional because it is one of those times where you are listening to the message and then at the same time it feels like you are playing basketball or something. haha but he talked about how his mission was so important to him and that the decision to serve is a decision far more important than anything else right now. I really enjoyed that at the end he finished with the story of peter after Christ was crucified. he explained in the most interesting way i have every heard how the apostles just went back to their fishing again after the death and resurrection of christ. they fish all night catching nothing and then they see this stranger on the shore who tells them to cast their nets on the right side of the boat. when they could not even bring in the catch, peter knew that it was Christ. Jesus Christ now appearing for the third time to the apostles asks them if they love him. he asks three times and finishes by saying if you love me, feed my sheep! I am so blessed to be apart of this process. one of the great questions of the soul is how do I love everyone as the savior did and then I knew that loving comes from serving. President Peterson asked me why i wanted to serve a mission and i said something along the lines of that i wanted to gain more faith and a stronger testimony of the gospel. he then told me that if i loved the lord I would feed his sheep. I am so glad that i have already seen this start to change my life. the stronger faith and testimony in the gospel is and will fall into place. I am thankful that i get to experience what the savior was talking about to the apostles so long ago. it goes to show that the scriptures apply to everyones life and can bless them in their own personal way.
Also, in my exciting stay here we had the new districts come in. I met elder Busby and he is a pretty cool elder. he told me that his first day was pretty rough and i said to him that it deffinatelly gets better everyday. Today we have some natives again that will be coming to the mtc. the one that had to stay behind for the surgeory got a new companion from the new american elders who came to the mtc already speaking 6 months worth of russian. it was so crazy that he studies languages for fun. that is so much will power because if i were not here i probably would not be learning russian. I really think that it is one of the coolest languages in the world but it is so difficult. There are so many grammar rules. I was really pumped a couple of weeks ago learning the different cases and then we got 10 new grammar charts. it is going to take alot of practice and a lot of faith. haha I know that through the Lord i will be blessed to be able to learn the language. also everyone i forgot to say that if you want to send me long emails you can because i can log off and stop the timer. also by doing this we can print them off too. so if you want to send a long email telling me what is up then you can. I will just print it off and read it like a letter.
thank you everyone for the letters again because they really do brighten my day. I am getting so close to leaving the mtc already. I know it will be sad that i will not get to see all my friends but we all have a purpose and that is to feed the saviors sheep. If the metaphor is confusing, then we are really not feeding any real sheep at all but we will be preaching the gospel to those who are ready to here it. I am so excited for this but i know i must take advantage of every little moment in the mtc so i can be better prepared for this. I know that my savior lives and that he loves everyone. Through the atonement of Jesus Christ everyone has a chance at salvation. There is such peace in knowing this and I am overwhelmed that somehow through me the Lord is going to bless the lives of the people in Vladivostok. I know that it is possible and that i will be a great tool in the hands of the Lord. I know this because I know he loves me and he will bless me along the way.
got to go now thanks again
it is pday once again and i am sitting here in the laundry room washing clothes. It is just crazy how time is flying. i looked at my calendar and I have about 4 weeks left here at the mtc. Some of you will say well that is like a whole month but it really is less time than you would imagine. So we had a good visit to the provo temple this morning. always a good pday when we get to go do temple work. Also i got to take a well needed nap.
We got to listen to Elder Holland last week. It was amazing! I really enjoyed the message. In the mtc i would call it a prick your heart devotional because it is one of those times where you are listening to the message and then at the same time it feels like you are playing basketball or something. haha but he talked about how his mission was so important to him and that the decision to serve is a decision far more important than anything else right now. I really enjoyed that at the end he finished with the story of peter after Christ was crucified. he explained in the most interesting way i have every heard how the apostles just went back to their fishing again after the death and resurrection of christ. they fish all night catching nothing and then they see this stranger on the shore who tells them to cast their nets on the right side of the boat. when they could not even bring in the catch, peter knew that it was Christ. Jesus Christ now appearing for the third time to the apostles asks them if they love him. he asks three times and finishes by saying if you love me, feed my sheep! I am so blessed to be apart of this process. one of the great questions of the soul is how do I love everyone as the savior did and then I knew that loving comes from serving. President Peterson asked me why i wanted to serve a mission and i said something along the lines of that i wanted to gain more faith and a stronger testimony of the gospel. he then told me that if i loved the lord I would feed his sheep. I am so glad that i have already seen this start to change my life. the stronger faith and testimony in the gospel is and will fall into place. I am thankful that i get to experience what the savior was talking about to the apostles so long ago. it goes to show that the scriptures apply to everyones life and can bless them in their own personal way.
Also, in my exciting stay here we had the new districts come in. I met elder Busby and he is a pretty cool elder. he told me that his first day was pretty rough and i said to him that it deffinatelly gets better everyday. Today we have some natives again that will be coming to the mtc. the one that had to stay behind for the surgeory got a new companion from the new american elders who came to the mtc already speaking 6 months worth of russian. it was so crazy that he studies languages for fun. that is so much will power because if i were not here i probably would not be learning russian. I really think that it is one of the coolest languages in the world but it is so difficult. There are so many grammar rules. I was really pumped a couple of weeks ago learning the different cases and then we got 10 new grammar charts. it is going to take alot of practice and a lot of faith. haha I know that through the Lord i will be blessed to be able to learn the language. also everyone i forgot to say that if you want to send me long emails you can because i can log off and stop the timer. also by doing this we can print them off too. so if you want to send a long email telling me what is up then you can. I will just print it off and read it like a letter.
thank you everyone for the letters again because they really do brighten my day. I am getting so close to leaving the mtc already. I know it will be sad that i will not get to see all my friends but we all have a purpose and that is to feed the saviors sheep. If the metaphor is confusing, then we are really not feeding any real sheep at all but we will be preaching the gospel to those who are ready to here it. I am so excited for this but i know i must take advantage of every little moment in the mtc so i can be better prepared for this. I know that my savior lives and that he loves everyone. Through the atonement of Jesus Christ everyone has a chance at salvation. There is such peace in knowing this and I am overwhelmed that somehow through me the Lord is going to bless the lives of the people in Vladivostok. I know that it is possible and that i will be a great tool in the hands of the Lord. I know this because I know he loves me and he will bless me along the way.
got to go now thanks again
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Week 6
so it has been six weeks now in the mtc! A whole transfer already. We calculated that an 1/8 of our mission will be in the mtc. haha today we are going to the hospital with our new companion from ukraine. he is getting nose surgeory tomorrow and so today he will be going for prep. yesterday we walked to the student health center with him. it was so cool haha. it was only a block but we were able to get out and about for a little bit. We are now the older group of missionaries. tomorrow is the day the new elders and sisters get here so that will be good to see some new faces.
We started teaching in Russian last week at the Teaching Evaluation Center. it is so crazy how much Russian we have learned in the space of 5 weeks. I took three years in spanish and i can't even carry on a good conversation. We can only speak of the gospel and some small things but we can at least have a conversation. The hardest thing is word conjugation. Russian is difficult because it has cases that change the meaning of words. in english we just add or subtract words to the sentence and that changes the context. Well in russian the actual word itself changes the meaning. so you can have the same word but in 7 different forms to make the sentence. That is really what makes it so difficult. trying to figure out which form of the word in a conversation means we speak pretty slow with a lot of "umms" in between the words. haha but I think i will get it. Sorry if my english grammar and spelling is so bad right now. I am kind of putting that aside for right now. haha I can't wait to have the accent that i was hoping for. russians speak from the throat alot so i am sure that is what i will sound like when i return. My time here seems like it has been really short even though it has been 6 whole weeks.
As we start the downhill slope of our mtc stay I think the russian will get better and the knowledge of the gospel will increase. more importantly though, I am very interested in seeing how my testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ will change. We have a purpose that we recite from time to time. I happen to know it in english and russian, go figure, but the meaning behind the purpose is what really matters. we are here to invite people to know Jesus Christ is their savior and through him we can live with our heavenly father again after this life. Each and every day my understanding and knowledge of this is strengthened. i have seen many blessings in my life and in the lives of others. The Ukrainian Elder that is our companion right now told us how he came to know Jesus Christ for himself and I could feel the power of how this knowledge can make people happy. 75% of russia is Pravoslavnian or better known as russian orthodox. they either go to church because that is what their family does, it is tradition, they want to be accepted socially, or they just geniunely feel the peace of going to church. To me, it will be so exciting to be able to meet with these people and tell them of our savior jesus christ. Their is also alot of atheists in russia. this will be the most difficult probably. last night we had a excercise where we met people at a PblHOK or Renok. This means market. At the market we were buying things but with our main purpose in mind we told them of who we were and why we were in russia (figuratively). When we told them that we knew that heavenly father lives and that he loves us, they would reply, "I am an atheist, how do you know that" in russian of course. So learning how to bear our testimony in a way where people know how we know and why it is important is a task for sure, but i know that as the time progresses and my testimony is strenghtened, I will be able to tell people how I know that God lives and he loves us. Only through the spirit though can they truly learn this for themselves. This is why I pray to have the spirit with me everyday so i can be prepared to give the people what they need to hear.
This next week and the following weeks we will continue to teach in russian. the other day i thought to myself. Man that was not the way i wanted to sound in russian. I really don't know alot do i? well i learned a powerful lesson in this. The spirit can teach even if the language isn't all the way there. The power of the book of mormon and the bible can testify of what we are trying to say and they will know by the spirit that what we say is true. I know that i will get better with the language because i have faith that the lord can help me, but i am so glad that I get to feel the spirit still while I teach. Yes at the mtc i can know this because even though i am not teaching a real investigator, The practice is what leads me to teach those who are seeking the truth.
I love you all and thanks for the support. until next week
We started teaching in Russian last week at the Teaching Evaluation Center. it is so crazy how much Russian we have learned in the space of 5 weeks. I took three years in spanish and i can't even carry on a good conversation. We can only speak of the gospel and some small things but we can at least have a conversation. The hardest thing is word conjugation. Russian is difficult because it has cases that change the meaning of words. in english we just add or subtract words to the sentence and that changes the context. Well in russian the actual word itself changes the meaning. so you can have the same word but in 7 different forms to make the sentence. That is really what makes it so difficult. trying to figure out which form of the word in a conversation means we speak pretty slow with a lot of "umms" in between the words. haha but I think i will get it. Sorry if my english grammar and spelling is so bad right now. I am kind of putting that aside for right now. haha I can't wait to have the accent that i was hoping for. russians speak from the throat alot so i am sure that is what i will sound like when i return. My time here seems like it has been really short even though it has been 6 whole weeks.
As we start the downhill slope of our mtc stay I think the russian will get better and the knowledge of the gospel will increase. more importantly though, I am very interested in seeing how my testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ will change. We have a purpose that we recite from time to time. I happen to know it in english and russian, go figure, but the meaning behind the purpose is what really matters. we are here to invite people to know Jesus Christ is their savior and through him we can live with our heavenly father again after this life. Each and every day my understanding and knowledge of this is strengthened. i have seen many blessings in my life and in the lives of others. The Ukrainian Elder that is our companion right now told us how he came to know Jesus Christ for himself and I could feel the power of how this knowledge can make people happy. 75% of russia is Pravoslavnian or better known as russian orthodox. they either go to church because that is what their family does, it is tradition, they want to be accepted socially, or they just geniunely feel the peace of going to church. To me, it will be so exciting to be able to meet with these people and tell them of our savior jesus christ. Their is also alot of atheists in russia. this will be the most difficult probably. last night we had a excercise where we met people at a PblHOK or Renok. This means market. At the market we were buying things but with our main purpose in mind we told them of who we were and why we were in russia (figuratively). When we told them that we knew that heavenly father lives and that he loves us, they would reply, "I am an atheist, how do you know that" in russian of course. So learning how to bear our testimony in a way where people know how we know and why it is important is a task for sure, but i know that as the time progresses and my testimony is strenghtened, I will be able to tell people how I know that God lives and he loves us. Only through the spirit though can they truly learn this for themselves. This is why I pray to have the spirit with me everyday so i can be prepared to give the people what they need to hear.
This next week and the following weeks we will continue to teach in russian. the other day i thought to myself. Man that was not the way i wanted to sound in russian. I really don't know alot do i? well i learned a powerful lesson in this. The spirit can teach even if the language isn't all the way there. The power of the book of mormon and the bible can testify of what we are trying to say and they will know by the spirit that what we say is true. I know that i will get better with the language because i have faith that the lord can help me, but i am so glad that I get to feel the spirit still while I teach. Yes at the mtc i can know this because even though i am not teaching a real investigator, The practice is what leads me to teach those who are seeking the truth.
I love you all and thanks for the support. until next week
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Week 3
Well everyone this is an experiment. because my email time is so limited i think i am going to try this. any personal emails will be answered but i think that in general i will just create this letter thing.
Also, Matt and kari, I don't have kari's email address so if you could email it to me i will try next pday to get an email to her.
Well things are going pretty good. It snowed for the last 24 hours here in provo and so there is like 2 ft on the ground. haha i love it. Also did anyone hear about the provo tabernacle burning down last week. i though that was pretty sad that it was such an old building. it looked like it was a pretty building too. they are still investigatiing what happened but it started in the middle of the night last wednesday i think.
things are going good with my companion and all. We do what is called companionship inventory and i find that it really helps and no i am not being soft. We have gotten along pretty good since then and i find out that he even likes chicken tenders from different restaurants. He is pretty cool and I think that we will work for the next 7 weeks. The language is super hard. I always have trouble with the grammar.
There are several different rules to the grammar that make it hard to conjugate verbs. However in that aspect verbs are pretty stable as far as exceptions. English and some other languages have some pretty difficult exceptions in some verbs. I know spanish had alot of stupid exceptions that didn't make sense. In Russian even though the verbs are pretty lax, the cases are crazy! There is like the nominative case and what not. Accusitive inanimate and animate. prepostional, etc. it is pretty neat that we can already start speaking the few words that we know and form sentences. last night we were working on memorizing the first vision but not in the sense that we were memorizing it. one of our Teaching Evaluation workers was teaching our class because of the christmas holidays have made the teachers schedules crazy. he recited the vision twice in russian the first time was a recitation. the second time we could all see the events taking place in our heads and by the spirit we all knew what he was saying was true. We had a speaker sunday come to the mtc. He is a published writer and an institute teacher at one of the colleges. Dad you may have heard of him but his name is Ted Gibbons. his presentation was on the prophet Joseph Smith during his martyrdom. The view point that he took was from the journal of Willard Richards who was present when the prophet was killed. One of the things that never really made sense to me about the martyrdom was that joseph smith went to the window. I have always thought why if he knew he would die try to escape. That is not true. Brother gibbons explained this through the words of brother Richards. the prophet was not trying to escape but he was drawing the fire away from his good friends. After explaining that the mob was shooting at john taylor who was on the ground, I knew this was true. the Words "O Lord, My God" were not just a final exclamation, but they were a prayer of the prophet Joseph Smith. It was His Greeting to the Lord As he left this world and went to the next.
My testimony has grown so much in the last 3 weeks. I can't believe how fast everything has gone. I am excited about the christmas holidays that are coming up. they are so much more special now that i am not worrying about "what am i going to want this year". It is about the savior. I see that ever so clearly now. I have always known this but how much did i really worry about it as much as well ill get this computer game and this clothing and what not. I love the savior. he was born into this world to save mankind, and because of this we can be with our heavenly father for eternity. I am so blessed to be apart of this work and to help others realize this. We learned that Russia is not a hard place to be successful. it is proportionate to how much you work and I am excited for that. I will learn this language and through the savior many people will come to know the truth. I am so glad that you all support me and i am grateful to be a mccallon. thanks mom and mama for the package. I love the pillow case! I used it the day i got it. Also, my district elders really enjoyed the goodies and what not. No I didn't let them have everything. I shared generously which is weird from me because i am usually pretty stingy. look what these three weeks have done for all of us. I have seen growth from not only me but you all. thannks caleb for getting your friends to write me. I really thought that was cool. I will write as many letters as i can today. the temple is closed for christmas and next week we get to clean it for three hours. Well thanks for all the love and I will be thinking of you all.
love
Elder McCallon
Also, Matt and kari, I don't have kari's email address so if you could email it to me i will try next pday to get an email to her.
Well things are going pretty good. It snowed for the last 24 hours here in provo and so there is like 2 ft on the ground. haha i love it. Also did anyone hear about the provo tabernacle burning down last week. i though that was pretty sad that it was such an old building. it looked like it was a pretty building too. they are still investigatiing what happened but it started in the middle of the night last wednesday i think.
things are going good with my companion and all. We do what is called companionship inventory and i find that it really helps and no i am not being soft. We have gotten along pretty good since then and i find out that he even likes chicken tenders from different restaurants. He is pretty cool and I think that we will work for the next 7 weeks. The language is super hard. I always have trouble with the grammar.
There are several different rules to the grammar that make it hard to conjugate verbs. However in that aspect verbs are pretty stable as far as exceptions. English and some other languages have some pretty difficult exceptions in some verbs. I know spanish had alot of stupid exceptions that didn't make sense. In Russian even though the verbs are pretty lax, the cases are crazy! There is like the nominative case and what not. Accusitive inanimate and animate. prepostional, etc. it is pretty neat that we can already start speaking the few words that we know and form sentences. last night we were working on memorizing the first vision but not in the sense that we were memorizing it. one of our Teaching Evaluation workers was teaching our class because of the christmas holidays have made the teachers schedules crazy. he recited the vision twice in russian the first time was a recitation. the second time we could all see the events taking place in our heads and by the spirit we all knew what he was saying was true. We had a speaker sunday come to the mtc. He is a published writer and an institute teacher at one of the colleges. Dad you may have heard of him but his name is Ted Gibbons. his presentation was on the prophet Joseph Smith during his martyrdom. The view point that he took was from the journal of Willard Richards who was present when the prophet was killed. One of the things that never really made sense to me about the martyrdom was that joseph smith went to the window. I have always thought why if he knew he would die try to escape. That is not true. Brother gibbons explained this through the words of brother Richards. the prophet was not trying to escape but he was drawing the fire away from his good friends. After explaining that the mob was shooting at john taylor who was on the ground, I knew this was true. the Words "O Lord, My God" were not just a final exclamation, but they were a prayer of the prophet Joseph Smith. It was His Greeting to the Lord As he left this world and went to the next.
My testimony has grown so much in the last 3 weeks. I can't believe how fast everything has gone. I am excited about the christmas holidays that are coming up. they are so much more special now that i am not worrying about "what am i going to want this year". It is about the savior. I see that ever so clearly now. I have always known this but how much did i really worry about it as much as well ill get this computer game and this clothing and what not. I love the savior. he was born into this world to save mankind, and because of this we can be with our heavenly father for eternity. I am so blessed to be apart of this work and to help others realize this. We learned that Russia is not a hard place to be successful. it is proportionate to how much you work and I am excited for that. I will learn this language and through the savior many people will come to know the truth. I am so glad that you all support me and i am grateful to be a mccallon. thanks mom and mama for the package. I love the pillow case! I used it the day i got it. Also, my district elders really enjoyed the goodies and what not. No I didn't let them have everything. I shared generously which is weird from me because i am usually pretty stingy. look what these three weeks have done for all of us. I have seen growth from not only me but you all. thannks caleb for getting your friends to write me. I really thought that was cool. I will write as many letters as i can today. the temple is closed for christmas and next week we get to clean it for three hours. Well thanks for all the love and I will be thinking of you all.
love
Elder McCallon
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