Monday, August 24, 2015

Conrad's First Letter From the MTC

Ahoj Family and Friends,

First of all thank you to everyone that has written me and sent me emails
and letters and such. It has been really fun to hear from all of you and
hear all the encouragement. It's been a really interesting week because we
got here at the end of the mission president seminar which gave us a weird
schedule. We had extra class time and our first P-Day went away because of
weird scheduling on your first three days. There have definitely been some
ups and downs as I have learned to adjust to the mission life, but
ulitmately I love it here! It's fantastic! I am so excited to continue to
grow and learn here! Learning Czech was as difficult as everyone said it
was going to be, but I'm pushing through. It's been really fun to talk to
my companion in Czech. So far we have taught four lessons, somehow by a
miracle in Czech. It's been a very different experience. A little bit
frustrating, but overall has been very spiritual and amazing! I have
learned how to pray, bear testimony, and give a shot at the first
discussion. My companion and I are ready to commit our first investigator
to read the Book of Mormon tomorrow! Hope that all goes well! Here are some
awesome highlights from my week so far. When you first get here you are
literally running from place to place to get all your supplies and such.
You barely have time to even think which is kind of a normal around here.
It's pretty amazing how much you are able to accomplish each day in this
place. Right after we got the supplies you go straight to class where you
learn how to formally introduce yourself. Basically everyday we have 3 four
hour sessions of class, two of them are for classroom study and the evening
session is a personal, companion, and language study cycle. Other than that
Tuesday nights are General Authrotiy devotional nights and our first one
was with Elder Zitate who talked about the importance of using the
missionary tools of your companion, mission president, and the Holy Ghost
to be successful. It was really incredibly spiritual and really amazing to
be in. Oh and i forgot Tuesday mornings are service days and they don't
mess around when they give you service to do. You and your companion have
to work hard and well or they make you do the job again which worked pretty
well for us because my companion is awesome. His name is Elder Stacey and
he is from Idaho Falls. He was the national wrestling champion this last
year and gave up the chance to serve on the national team in order to serve
a mission, awesome example to me!! He is really stinking funny and is
really good at easing the stress because I can easily get stressed out and
overthink things which most of you already know ;). My district is
comprised up of all the Czech missionaries going to the Czech slovak
mission. There is another very small district that is comprised up of all
the slovak missionaries (two elders, and a solo sister). However, my
district is amazing!! All of them are really spitirual, have strong
testimonies, and are willing to serve. Most of them already know a second
language or even a third fluently so I am definitely behind the pack, but
I'll catch up soon enough. There is one international sister from Guatemala
who speaks Spanish, English, German, a little French and now is learning
Czech she also had gotten here a transfer before us so she has a lot of
background in the language so we have been heavily relying on her to learn
all of the material. My building is comprised up of the Eurasia
missionaries who are serving in that area, so almost all of them are
incredibly spiritually gifted, smart, and really fun to be around. Each
language is its own district in the eurasia building and the Czech one is
the biggest right now (except the Bulgarians who are getting 4 new people
next week to beat our numbers by one but we really dont care about them).
Our branch president is amazing and gave a really great talk in sacrament
meeting about being fully dedicated to the Lord and making the 2% of your
mission affect the rest of the 98% of your life. Oh and most importantly I
have come to get really good at Volleyball and this awesome game called
Spike Ball, it's a little trampoline with a tiny volleyball type ball. I
don't know how to describe it other than its like a combination of
volleyball and four square on a tiny trampline. I'm investing in it when I
get home, guaranteed. Thank you all again for all the letters of
encouragement and emails, I'm loving it here! I'm ready for some more
learning and spiritual growth. It is definietely the closest you can be to
your Heavenly Father other than the temple, especially since it's the only
other place you can't get in without a temple recommend!

Love,


Starsi Belshe

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