First Week in the MTC!

Sister Bassett & Sister Sieverts

Dear Family,

I made it to P-day! Whoot whoo! Everyone kept assuring me that if I made it to Sunday, I was good to go. And here I am! Time is so crazy here...half the time I don't know if I've had lunch or dinner...we just study the gospel and try to speak Korean. It's awesome! 

Being dropped off at the MTC was an emotional rollercoaster. Saying goodbye, and then less than an hour later I am sitting in a classroom reciting the Korean alphabet. What? The teacher didn't speak ANY English until about Sunday. I know that it will help in the long run, but for the moment it is hard to not understand what is being said. Most of the time I feel like my head is going to explode, and it is great! I am learning so much. Everyone talks about how much they learned and grew their first few days in the MTC, but I guess I didn't really understand it until I got here. It is incredible! God's hand is in this work and I get to experience that everyday.

We taught our investigator for the first time on Friday. yeah, FRIDAY! after only two days! They really get you right to work here. I don't even have time to miss home or family! Anyway...Sister Sieverts (my companion) and I totally bombed the first lesson. So we could only go up from there! But last night was completely different. It was our third lesson and we were teaching on the Atonement as part of the lesson. At first, it was going alright. We were reading from our TALL books in broken Korean with awful pronunciation. And he was listening. But then, as we were about to close up, Cho-young-min (our investigator) started asking questions. He was asking about who the Savior was, why He died for us, how He could love us so much, and what he could do to repay Christ. And we started answering him... IN KOREAN! It was amazing! Our verbs probably weren't conjugated correctly and our sentences weren't complete, but we were answering. I told him that Christ is our brother, and just like Cho-young-min loves his twin brother, Christ loves us. We taught about God's love for us, that through the atonement, the Lord will take our burdens, and that we cannot repay Him. We can only have faith, repent, and strive to live righteously. As soon as we left our lesson plan, really tried to answer his questions, and let the Holy Ghost guide us, the Spirit filled the room. It was like Heavenly Father was saying to me "don't worry...I am in charge of this. And everything will turn out right." The gift of tongues is real! 

My District is the best! I seriously love them. God knew who I would need before I ever got to the MTC. And my District is it. We have so much fun and laugh our faces off at meal times. But we study hard as well. And we cry together when the Spirit touches our heart. One of those moments happened last night. Brother Madsen (our teacher) pulled us out one by one to talk with us. In my 'interview' I expressed my concerns about the language...among other things. One thing he shared with me was the section in Preach My Gospel, under "Learning the Language", called 'The Gift of Tongues.' It talks about the struggle that we need to go through in order to learn a foreign language. We have to work and study and do all we can. That hardship is part of the beauty of it. And each of us needs that. But it also talks about the language of the Spirit, and that is what allows us to "overcome obstacles and touch the human heart" as President Monson says. We are learning Korean so we can proclaim the gospel of Christ. Not the other way around. I cannot do this on my own. But the atonement in our lives isn't just for forgiveness. It is also for giving us more power than we possess on our own. We all need that. And we can all have that. [read that section in PmyG. you'll love it.]

Life is good. I sleep like a rock every night. The MTC is wonderful.

All my Love,

Sister Bassett

ps- the subject title...sometimes we add a Korean ending onto English words when we are learning how to conjugate. Like hard-ni-da. and then we laugh and laugh at ourselves. 

and I don't have time to reread this letter. so I hope it makes sense!