More Questions from the Family

1. Are the other 3 Elders in the room with you all heading to Nicaragua North? Did they all arrive the same day you did? Or will some be leaving to the country sooner and you'll get a new companion?

They are all the same mission, same district, and arrived and leaving together. So we are with each other for the next 4 weeks. 

2. What was your spiritual highlight this week?

 My spiritual highlight was the district meeting we had last night. Though only 9 of the 12 could make it, because of choir practice for 2 of the people (and the remaining sister had to join the other district instead of being alone since we only have 2 sisters in our district) And we all felt the spirit the strongest in that meeting than anytime else here at the MTC. It was amazing. We all discussed the devotional from yesterday (we get them on Tuesdays and Sunday) and then all just were talking and bearing our testimonies, and our district leader, Elder Jenkins was inspired and said what each and every one of us needed to hear.

3. (This question is from Nathan and he says that "He NEEEEDS to know this!!" ) What food do you eat for lunch?

I eat all sorts of food, some days it's like burgers, other days beef and mashed potatoes, some days chicken and rice. It is different every day.

4. Are you happy?

Yeah I am. A couple times I've felt down, but so has everyone. We all just pick each other up. The hardest thing for me though is not being discouraged at learning the language.

5. What are you doing for exercise? How is the eating? Buffets are always tough!

My district mostly plays volleyball.  I've got a pretty accurate serve, so I'm not too bad. Eating is okay, my room decided no desserts for this week. So that should help.

6. What is your average day like? We would love to hear what the breakdown is like.

Average day, wake up, eat and exercise and class (not always in that order, just depeding on the schedule). Then lunch, more classes, then dinner and more classes, then bed.

7. How are things with your district and companion? Are you all pretty tight or is it still a work in progress?
Everyone is really close around here, and we all get along for the most part. We have all been blessed with who we need to be with.

8. Not really a question but we would just love to hear about the things you are enjoying, the experiences you are having, the good times, the bad times, pranks, shenanigans, and hijinks!
I'm really enjoying the times we have to just relax some days, it's only for about a half hour. But I'm also enjoying our district meetings. Last night in the district meeting was probabaly the most Spirit everyone in our district had felt this whole time. So that was amazing!

Week 2 in the MTC

Okay to start off this week has just gone by like a blur. It seems like it's been forever yet almost no time since I have written last. But luckily I brought a journal with me so I can at least remember what I did. 

So a brief summary of this week is We had our last lesson with Ricardo (our first investigator) And then this week we got bombarded with 7 new people we had to teach. One was one of our 2 teachers Brother Simonson ( AKA Carlos) 3 classmates, 2 member TRC people (like you had the missionaries over at your house for dinner if you are a member.) Those were fun. And a new investigator. Marco. He was so friendly and funny, even though he was an old man from Peru who knew hardly any English. But he was so fun and nice. We saw him at dinner and said Hi to him. 

Most of the days lately have all been pretty similar. We learn about spanish, teach in spanish. Then go back to the residence halls and try to speak in spanish. All in all, I feel I'm getting much better at it. I can hold up a basic conversation in it. And teach full 30 minute lessons in Spanish. Which is amazing to me.  We met Brother Simonson who is to be our second teacher along Brother cook. Both are really nice and friendly, and know what it feels like to do the same thing since they haven't been back from their missions long. So they know how to best help teach us. 

So on Sunday we had church, and went on our scheduled temple walk. But since thursday- Saturday were so wet and rainy I had my umbrella in the classroom, so I took it with me on the temple walk to photobomb group photos from the background. Because I mean they'll send the pictures home, their mothers will look at them 20-30 times, then realize. Why is there a guy in the background with an umbrella on a sunny day? So yeah. The devotional talk was by a Brother Allen who is the missionary coordinator for all the missionaries, and his talk was amazing and could relate to all of us. He told some very hard truths to some of the elders. Like that one girl that a tenth of them have seen that they knew was the one. She will be married by the time they're back. So yeah. Glad I wasn't in that book. He also talked about stuff people give up to go on missions. And we all enjoyed that talk.

Monday was the hardest waking up for my room so far, we aren't sure why. And the whole day was a daze. But we taught Brother Simonson, and Tyler and Jenny ( 2 of our district and classmates)

Yesterday was probably most of our favorite day so far. So we taught the 3 TRC people I mentioned earlier, and I felt those went really well. But the reason it was so good was because of the devotional later that night, and then our district meeting about it. The devotional was by Elder Schwitzer of the 70 ( In charge of missionary health department) and he talked about commandments. It was a really good talk, like he mentioned how the 10 commandments are in 3 categories, and by severity. They have to do with our relationships with certain people. 1-4 is our relationship to God. 5 is to our parents. and 6-10 are relationship with others. And in severity. Just like Murder 6 is more severe than lying 9. Though in the district meeting. (and for those who don't know. The district is made up of around 12 people, all in the same area or in our case all learning spanish. We have one set of sisters, and 5 sets of Elders.) But in it we discussed the talk, and then went on and discussed about so many other things. Near the end while we were all discussing, Our District Leader (he is going to serve in Ecuador) went around and said what each of us needed to hear. We only had 9 out of our 12 people because some had to go to choir. But it was the most touched this group of 9 men that are only 18 and 19 year olds felt. A few of us were in tears. And I felt close to it too. It really made me feel good how he talked about me for a bit to everyone and said that I was an inspiration to him because even though I don't get the language the best, I don't give up and keep trying. And how he doesn't want to give up, and he doesn't want me to ever give up. 

Anyways. A few random things.

Some people including us played a prank on others and collected cereal boxes from our breakfasts and lunches (if you get the sack breakfast and lunch compared to eating in the cafeteria.) And built up a cereal wall in front of someone's door. And today we ate in the Temple Cafeteria, and it was amazing!!!! Muy Bueno or something like that XD I don't know how to spell in spanish, just speak it. 

Also to my Dad. I shared the story of you offering to help some of your employees stop smoking, by offering to kick them in the balls. Everyone got a kick out of it. And everyone likes telling stories, and they really like all my Dairy Queen Stories. 

Attached below are a few pictures.

* 2 of them are the cereal prank. Very fun.

* one day I threw away some trash in the bathroom and saw something. Grabbed it, and found "The cursed sword of ya motha!"  But then someone later said it was theirs, so I gave it back. Even though they threw it away.  You all should send me a replacement sword of ya motha.
* One of Ryker (Elder Meyer) and I at the Temple

* And then one morning we decided to study in our residence, and like half the district fell asleep on the floor in the morning. So I have plenty of pictures of that. 

* And when it rained, there was snow on the mountains. So I enjoyed that. 

 

Questions asked by my Family

1. Who is your companion? What do you like best about him?

My Companion is Elder Simpson. He looks just like Dallas Clark and Joseph. It's scary. XD And I like how we both just seem to get along greatly. 

2. How did your biscuits and gravy hold up on the flight??? Are you glad you took them? Would you do it again!? LOL

The biscuits crumbled in the flight, but they were good that night. It made everyone smile seeing them

3. I'm guessing you've already dived right into the Language classes, right? How are they going?

The language classes are going okay I guess. Really confusing, but we are learning more and more. We can hold up conversations and bear our testimonies, as well as teach lessons.

4. Curious about the food. Is it like a school cafeteria where there is a set menu and you go through the line and they serve it up? or is it more of a buffet style and you serve yourself?

The food is more like a cafeteria, but there are between 2 and 3 options a meal. It's really good food, and I need to hold back because they offer desserts with every meal. Need to try to stay healthy here. But man the food is good.

5. How was your first Sabbath in the MTC? What did it consist of?

Sabbath was great. A wonderful day to unwind. We woke up, worked on our lessons, then had church. The lessons are one Elder and one sister is called to speak, so we make the lessons just in case. Then later that night we had choir and devotional. Choir was optional but 3/4 of the MTC was doing it. The devotional was good, and by a branch president and his wife here in the MTC

6. I know you were nervous and anxious last Tuesday before heading out... how are you feeling now? More comfortable? relaxed? uptight? anxious still?

It's just a mix of emotions really. It's hard to explain. We're just so busy it's hard to feel much though.

7. What's been your "Spiritual High" for the week?

 I think my spiritual high for the week was going to the Temple today. We went early in the morning, and most of my district was there in the same session. They do a session there every 20 minutes. Though the whole place is just so spiritual and focused on christ.

8. Tell us about your week - what is life like in the MTC?

The week was good, really busy. The days are mainly the same except for Wednesdays and Sundays. And we do service Friday morning. So in other words it's our zone's day to clean places.

9. Is there anything you would like us to send to you? 

Well some shaving cream might be nice because TSA wouldn't let me take it. The eletric razor is working well though. Also maybe some more Shampoo, because I'm not sure if it'll last the 6 weeks. Snacks are nice as well. XD ooooh and I think that might be it. But I won't say no to anything.  

10. Have you seen anyone that you know?

 I've seen ryker. I didn't see him till Sunday though I was looking for him all week, but now I can't stop seeing him everywhere. I met multiple people either from riding from the airport, or my Host who showed me around the first day. We see them a lot. My host was From New Zealand and is going to Fiji on his mission. But yeah. Having a good time. Thanks for sending the letters. And tell the children I love them. 

1st Week at the MTC

Hey everyone, I'm here at the MTC. So yeah my P-day is Wednesday, at least for the next 5 weeks. Man it's only been a week, but it's felt like half my mission has already gone by. Okay maybe not that bad, but at least a couple of months.

So to recount the week, I arrived at Wednesday, having to wake up early in the morning at 3:30am for the plane ride, so I had a 16 hour day of completely new everything on only 3 hours of sleep (including the plane ride.) It was hard to stay awake. But I got my companion and my district and on that day started learning Spanish. 

So as some of you may have heard, they start you in on a foreign language instantly. Like that first night we got in our class, and I'm in the beginner class, So our teacher. Hermano Cook, is only teaching in spanish. He is only supposed to speak in Spanish except for a couple small instructional words. Like if you say Que Significa then one of the words he said, he'll tell you the english translation. 

Side note, these computers won't let you right click words to fix them with spell check. So excuse all my lower case proper nouns. 

But yeah so I've gone from knowing no Spanish, to having taught 4 lessons only in Spanish to our investigators. It's really hard, but we have super great resources, and a wonderful teacher. On another side note, Brother Cook is 21 and Very White. So he gets our struggle. He had to go through the same thing. 

On both Sunday and last night we have had devotionals given to us by people. But where as the past 2 weeks 3 Apostles have spoken, we had the President of the 70, and one of the  Branch Presidents here. 

Well my laundry is almost done so I need to move on to my other emails. 

Sincerely 

Elder Vogt

Me and my District in class

Holding up my MTC Companion - Elder Simpson at the Provo Temple

Taking a Selfie from our room

At the Airport

Seth's flight left at 6am today. That meant we had to get up at 3:30 and leave the house shortly after 4am. That's always a bit tough when you don't even get to bed until after 1:30am! Then we were so worried we'd sleep through the alarm because we were so exhausted! But we didn't and we made it on time. We had done an online check-in and prepaid for his baggage (which both weighed in at exactly 50 pounds each! phew! I guess all of that rearranging things between the 2 suitcases paid off!). We stood by and watched as he went through security (and subsequently had his shaving cream confiscated from his carry on! Since we were right there, the TSA agent gave us the shaving cream). Then he walked up the stairs, turned to wave at us and then he was gone... It was definitely the saddest ride home ever! It really hit me hard that it would be TWO YEARS until we got to see him again. That's a long time. A very long time! Although it was hard and we cried most of the way home, dad put things into perspective when he said "He's at the Right Place, at the Right Time, doing the Right Thing!"

The Night Before...

So I recently was set apart as a missionary for  the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and I leave bright and early in the morning to begin this great and wonderful service. It's been one big great and wild ride. I received my call to serve 100 days ago today, and in that time I worked a summer Job, became an ordinance worker at the Billings Montana Temple, which was a wonderful and amazing experience. In addition I managed to spend a lot of valuable time with my family. I guess for going I feel really nervous and anxious, but also I know that this is the right thing for me to do, and that I and my family will be blessed and protected as I go out and serve. I know I will be able to bless the lives of many people, and will strive to do my best as I serve down in Nicaragua. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ Amen
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* Seth also served the family by making a delicious dinner for our last meal together!