Seeing Ike and Other Tender Mercies

(Sent on Wednesday, 12/19/18)

Today was a week of the hardest struggles and the greatest tender mercies!

We had our final TRC this week, or so we thought! Me and my companion, Elder Gale, were really sad because our teachers had told us that this was our last in person TRC. We had become such great friends with those that we taught so the TRCs were always the greatest part of our week. One brother who we had taught before was named Gary, and after we were finished with teaching our lesson in Russian he asked for a picture with us.  He was such a nice guy. Lucky for us, we got the wonderful tender mercy of getting another in person TRC! They're seriously the greatest things ever. Although they're so hard they're so spiritually uplifting and gives me confidence that maybe someday I'll be able to give some lessons out to some real Russian speakers 😊

Our new roommates from our zone, Elder Rosenkrantz and Elder Marlow, along with Elder Crockett in the middle who was visa delayed. He stayed with us an extra week and became our MTC 'stepdad.'

Another thing that has been so great about the TRC and has been a consistent tender mercy in my life - exercise time. It's the greatest stress reliever in the world. Every Saturday, we get super hyped for exercise time with the zone. We have this little chant we do and the oldest elders in the zone wear their mission's flag on their back and we all sprint over to the volleyball courts. It's so much fun to play volleyball with the zone. I like to switch back between 4 - Square and volleyball depending on how well I'm doing at one thing or another. This past week on Saturday we built a dream volleyball team to challenge other competitors from the zone and we were destroying. It honestly felt dirty we were playing so well. Every time we would score, we would cheer "Glory to Ukraine!" in Russian. We started to feel bad that we were winning too much so we purposely tossed a game and then ran over to the 4 - square court and joined in the fun. I love my zone so much. They're such great Elders and they make the MTC a great experience. I'm going to miss all of them so dearly.

Flag Bearer Slav Squat
The zone flag bearers for our Saturday exercise times.

Another great tender mercy this week - me and Elder Gale needed to give a lesson on the apostasy and the restoration in priesthood. We didn't have a lot of time to prepare it and it was supposed to be a pretty long lesson, so we were a bit stressed. We started to give the lesson and tender mercies were so apparent. People started a great discussion about the apostasy and interesting concepts such as the reformers and the truth in other churches. Super interesting stuff and we were so blessed that the spirit was in that room and that the discussion helped carry us. Was a small tender mercy but meant so much to me to have that lesson go well.

Another incredible tender mercy - Russian is HARD. So unbelievably hard. It's borderline impossible but I'll keep working on it. A great tender mercy that happened to me this week was when we were reading the Книгy Мормонa (BoM, in the accusative case) and it was about to be my turn and I was just really concerned that I wasn't going to do well, so I said a quick prayer in my heart asking Heavenly Father to please bless me with the gift of tongues that I may be able to read my lines well. After the prayer, I read the lines and I was able to do them super fast! It all made sense to me in that moment. I felt so blessed and I was so grateful to my Heavenly Father for helping me during that moment.

One more amazing tender mercy in my life. Yesterday, during lunch, I got to see one of my best friends in the entire world, Ike Melanson! It was so amazing to see him. He works for BYU taking pictures, and he said that they were in the MTC taking pictures of the food and things for his job. He was in the cafeteria and he said that he was hoping so badly that he would see me. Luckily, I walked in at the exact right time! When I saw him, I couldn't believe it. It felt surreal to see him. It was just such a nice moment and so great to see one of my greatest friends again. We were able to talk for a few minutes and say hi. It was such a wonderful blessing for me during such a challenging week. Really lifted my spirits and I just felt the love from my Heavenly Father so much for blessing me in that moment.

Me and one of my best friends, Ike Melanson, taking a picture together in the MTC cafeteria.

Love y'all so so very much and I hope that you all have an amazing Christmas. It's been really fun and challenging to be here in the MTC during Christmas time. It's been nice to just be focusing on the savior and be thinking about what he has done for me and his love. Remember what this Christmas season is all about, and I'm sure that it'll be one of the best!

Love everyone so much.