Time Is Flying By!

Hello everyone! I hope you all are doing well and that Jesus and Heavenly Father are taking care of all of you! Everything is good here! I can’t believe how quickly my time here is going.  Some people say that the time at the MTC goes slow. However, I have not felt that. Especially this week.  I have had several friends here from High School and back home that will be leaving this week. I am going to miss having them here.  Because Amharic is so difficult to learn we are here for a longer time then missionaries learning other languages. The Ghana MTC is slotted to have 70 new missionaries arriving this week. This week they also changed my P-day to Thursday for the next few weeks and shortened it to end closer to the time I will experience on my mission.  I was not happy about this, but oh well.

 Here's my day-to-day short email journal entries

Sep 13 

Saturday was good, and we started following SYL (speak your language) meaning that they are trying to have us only speak Amharic with my companion and friends in class and anytime we are learning. I really feel like the language is coming for me and I am putting in a lot of effort to learn it.   Tomorrow is Sunday and I always love Sundays! For so many different reasons.

Sep 14 

SUNDAYYYYYYY!!!  Always the best day in my opinion. The spirit spoke to me so strongly today and it is hard for me to explain how awesome it was. I was having this feeling to apologize to my DL (District Leader) for a "fight" that we had got in earlier the other day.  When we were having class and everyone was doing SYL (speak your language), I was trying really hard to listen and understand and he would not stop talking.  Because we were only speaking Amharic and I do not have a good grasp of many ways to express myself I used the only Amharic word I know to ask him to “be quiet”.  I said to him “zimi beli”in Amharic  or translated “shut up”.  He was not amused and I believe I hurt his feelings, and it created a bad feeling between the two of us.  So, I went up to him and asked if we could speak and explained myself.  I then offered an apology for which he accepted, and it created a much better feeling between the two of us.  After we spoke, I was about to cry because i could feel the Spirit saying I did the right thing. 

Later that evening my companion hung out with his friends from Zambia, and I found a bunch of friends from home, and we played the longest game of Uno I have ever played. One round lasted 1 hour and 20 minutes! We had a great time, and it felt a little like home. It was a good Sunday 

Sep 15

Today was good! We learned how to invite someone to read the scriptures with us in class and honestly the day went fast.  One thing that happens here in the MTC and most likely throughout the mission is necktie trading.  This evening, we had missionaries come knocking on my room door. They were asking for tie trades, and I traded one for a beautiful blue tie. I may not have many of the same times I came with by the time I leave here😊 Today was pretty good!  I am not going to lie! 

Big Rain Storm Last Night! Look at all of the water coming down.

Sep 16

Not going to lie nothing special happened today, it was a Tuesday hahahahah. Tomorrow is a day closer to P-day. 

My new blue tie from the tie swapping.

Sep 17

Today was fast, so it was a good week! Do I keep saying this.  I think that should be the theme for the week.  Time is speeding by!  However, they kind of messed up our schedule for the last 4 weeks here in the MTC and I was not so happy about it. But it’s whatever, you know what I can do about it.  P-day was on Friday, and they moved it to Thursday and then shortened it by a few hours.  The food is getting better or maybe I have just figured out more things that I will eat.  I tried these wraps that they make and they are pretty good. I still have not eaten much of the Ghanaian food, and I am not sure that I will be brave enough to try it. I think that the language is going well, and I am learning more, and I can tell it is getting easier to talk Amharic!

The other thing that I am enjoying contrary to the fact that I told my mother I would never like and never do on my mission 😊 is playing the piano.  I have been playing a lot, especially hymns.  I swore I would not play the piano while on my mission. I even told my mom that I would be mad if she told anyone I knew how to play HAHAHA.  However, I have been playing a lot and realizing that it brings me a lot of peace and comfort.  I have been working on getting at least 10 hymns polished that I am able to play well and can do once I am in Ethiopia. 

Learning Amharic words and how to write the characters in class.

Spiritual thought. Go read Matthew! The reason i say the “whole book of Matthew” is because in that book alone this week I used most of my scripture tabs.  There was so much to highlight with the beautiful peaceful words, Jesus and Gods wrath, and miracles beyond demand. I kept noticing how much of the Book of Mormon would refer to references in the footnotes to Matthew, so I decide to read the entire book from beginning to end this week.  I promise if you read the Book of Matthew that the lord will show you some truth!

Love you guys!  Until next week,

Elder Frasier

This week's faces of Adam on Zoom