I've now passed the halfway mark of my time in the online MTC! My Spanish is getting a lot better, but it's still been very difficult at times. The first few months in San Diego will definitely be a grind. Huge learning curve incoming!
Several times a week we practice teaching. Usually, the person we are teaching is another missionary in the district or one of our teachers roleplaying as someone interested in the church. I remember how when we first started these roleplay sessions in all Spanish, I would rely almost entirely on notes and google translate. My companion and I would write a very rigid script, detailing who would say what and when. I would have my scriptures open in English and in Spanish, already turned to the verse we were planning on sharing (After sharing the scripture in Spanish, I'd quickly read it in English to remind myself of what I just read, before moving on).
I'd have both an English copy and a Spanish copy of Preach My Gospel out. I'd have google translate pulled up on my phone as well as on my laptop. I'd have sticky notes placed all over the place, containing important words and phrases I'd like to sprinkle in. I'd have little notes about what to say during the prayers that we would start and end our meetings with. I would even have basic questions like "¿Cómo está tu familia? (How is your family?)" written down, so I could attempt to small talk with the "investigator" before the meeting started. The conversations my companion and I would have with whoever was roleplaying as the investigator were always very unnatural haha.
I still have a very long way to go before I would consider myself close to fluent. But at this point, our meetings go a lot smoother. I still use some help, but mainly, we just listen and talk. I know enough now to be able to teach a simple lesson, have a conversation, bear my testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and understand the gist of what the other person is saying without having to type everything in Google Translate on the fly. It's been pretty cool to see how much I've learned in such a short time, but I'm also learning how much further there is to go.
As a way to combat boredom after my classes end at 6:30 pm, I've been going on bike rides when it gets dark (it's way too hot right now in Provo to bike during the day). On Sunday night I was biking around the BYU campus, and I could hear a big crowd of voices singing a church hymn somewhere nearby. I tracked it down to a tunnel nearby the Marriott Center (BYU basketball arena) and found a bunch of people there. It was pretty cool actually! Apparently, it's something that's been going over for over twenty years at BYU. Add it to the list of cool/interesting/social things I didn't know existed or didn't get to experience in my first semester at BYU because of the whole Covid situation :(
Here’s a funny story that’s not mission related: I had some food delivered to me through DoorDash. The app lets you type in specific delivery instructions, and ever since January, I’ve had the same instructions for every order- “After you drop it off, make your best animal noise instead of knocking”. Someone finally came through!! Watch the video for a good laugh.
Hope all is well!
Elder Pettit
Pics 1-2: Some zoom class pics!
Pic 3: Provo Temple at night
Pic 4: Tunnel Singing
