For Thy Good and Experience

HELLO EVERYONE

So I guess I'll just start with the changes going on here at the MTC.

First of all, the MTC is getting  SUPER busy. All of the missionaries

who are getting off from school and set their availability for the

summer more and more every Wednesday. The cafeteria might as well be a

gauntlet at this point. And residences/classrooms are getting filled

at the same rate. But the good news is, and second of all, the new

buildings here are opening up next week and they look awesome. The

only bummer is that I don't think any of the foreign languages get to

move to the new buildings. Which really is unfair if you think about

it, the foreign language missionaries are the ones who have less of an

ephemeral stay here at the MTC. But oh well. Maybe they'll move us to

a bigger classrooms to fill out our zone. And speaking of the zone,

and third of all, they just called me to be the zone leader for the

Korean Branch for the next four weeks. I felt like I already had

enough on my plate but I guess the Lord saw it fit to afflict more

blessings towards me. I'm still adjusting to the calling but I'm

looking forward to whatever may come of it.

But as far as how my general experience at the MTC is going, it's

still good. I look forward to learning something new everyday, I'm not

even kidding. Maybe it's because I know so little about Korean and how

to properly teach that I'm grasping at whatever I can get but I really

do enjoy all the things that I'm learning in one way or another. It's

pretty easy to get stressed out or overwhelmed though, if you don't

have the right mindset. Like when I start to get anxious or fret about

things that are out of my control, it obstructs the learning and

definitely obstructs the Spirit. Here at the MTC there is a lot of

talk about the "character of Christ" and how if you boiled it all down

you would know that the Savior always "turns out" instead of "turning

in". Put more simply, every missionary should be striving to forget

about themselves and instead focusing on the work. This can be

difficult when you feel like you have worry about yourself first, fix

whatever, then deal with the work. Bzzzt. Wrong. This whole week I've

been struggling with my own stress and my own problems but I saw that

as I put that aside and put my effort towards our investigators or in

strengthening my knowledge in the gospel that the problems fix

themselves. And I know for a fact that when times do start to weigh on

you, that that's just for your experience, and for thy good. He's

stretching us to make us tools in his hands, and that's something to

take joy in. But accepting and being able to always remember that

takes some patience, which is something I'm trying to work on because

another big focus here at the MTC is becoming more like Him. Which is

really just a goal for any disciple of Christ but even more befitting

for missionaries, who wear His name everyday and teach and testify of

him full time.

Well, that's all I got this week. I hope everyone is doing well, and

thanks to everyone who writes I appreciate it!

-Elder Metcalf

MY KOREAN NAME TAG

So there's no "f" sound in Korean so when I head over there I will

thence be known as "Met-keh-puh" (Metcalf) "Jang-no" (Elder). But the

natives here just call me Metkap Jangno based on my English name tag,

but here it is: