First Email from the MTC!

Greetings from the MTC! Wow. What a rush. A lot of this will actually be repeated in the letter I'm sending home, sorry Mom and Dad. The first day was crazy, the second day was crazy, the third day was crazy. It's just been crazy. ;) There is so much to learn and we haven't had much time to take it in. And we won't have much time to take it in considering we leave on the 29th of October. Travel plans! We got them yesterday, our third day here. We leave on the 29th of October, like we thought. We have to be up BEFORE 4:00 in the morning in order to make it to the Travel Office at 4:30, bright and early. Or at least early. Our flight takes off around 8:34 in the morning. And we have to be there at least an hour or two early for in-country flights in order to check in, have our time to call home, etc. but that will be a fun day, getting up at 3:30 and stuff...and then talking to you guys. Can't wait! So much has happened so far, and I forgot my journal so I don't remember some of it. :( But that's okay because I do remember the story from my subject line! I'm saving it for later though. My companion is Elder Tils, he's 20 from Blue Springs, Missouri.We are going to the same mission. He was an amateur boxer about to go pro but said the Lord guided him to a mission instead. Very cool, considering he went inactive for three years to study other religions and was led back to the church somehow. Really cool. He's not that much taller than me, but I still am the shortest person in our district and (out of the Elders) I think zone... Elder Tils and I are rooming with Elders Jones and Huff, who are going to the Santa Rosa, California mission. They are our zone leaders in the MTC. They heard that they get iPad mini's and can use facebook and stuff. Pff. Whatever. I haven't heard anything about Roseville being able to use iPads or facebook or anything so I guess I still get to find that out. The other companionships are: Elder Sones (just like Jones, but with an S) and Geisler-Zenefski (the F is silent. Not kidding. It's awesome. Pronounced like Chrysler, but drop the R and replace the Ch with a G, and "Zen-ess-key") and Elder Vaughan and Ceslak (not sure if I spelled that right, but it is pronounced like "cease-lack" or "C-slack"). I love our district, we're all Elders and it's awesome. Apparently we're the first all Elder district in a while. Heck yes. Anyway, to hurry and cover at least one experience before I have to go, I'll cover the subject line. So, here in the MTC we create investigators that our companions have to practice teaching. We base them off of real people so that we can make it more realistic and make the feelings more real. My companion has family that lives in Denmark and believes in Norse Paganism. So like, Odin, Thor, Valhalla, stuff like that. Don't think Marvel comics, think REAL Norse Mythology. And I very first taught this guy - (my companion portraying his family member who believes in the viking gods) who believes what the vikings believed about the gods - about prayer. It was super crazy what happened. I was able to relate how Odin, the Allfather, is kind of like Heavenly Father. He supports us in our fights against our enemies and we pray (praise in Norse Paganism) to our Heavenly Father for help in fighting and for peace and things like that. He totally got the comparison and went with it. I compared our beliefs about the Armor of God and how it isn't literal like theirs is, but that it protects us from the adversary just like theirs does literally. It was an amazing lesson, definitely guided by the Spirit in order to be able to relate everything to Norse Paganism and wars and things like that. It was awesome. I invited him to pray to Heavenly Father and he said he would after I did so we said two prayers right in a row, he followed me. It was really cool. He accepted the invitation to continue praying like that as well, to see if the happy feeling he got kept coming back. So, basically, I sort of taught a viking. It was legit. Spirit definitely works to guide the lesson and help the investigator understand and I know that it was there helping me SO much. I had no idea how I would teach a viking about Praying to Heavenly Father - reverently - but it happened somehow. Loving the MTC! I miss you guys a ton, but I haven't had much time to think about it so I'm not very homesick at all. Things are going fantastic. Church is true and I can't wait to share it with the people of the Roseville, California mission! Love, Elder (Jacob) Cevering