3rd. Week in the MTC

this last week was pretty good, we taught the 1st lesson 
 in Mongolian on Friday..it was kinda rough to get through
 but we did it and i felt pretty good about it.we've been
 working on it throughout this week as well to get it down
 better and get the vocab memorized and we'll give it again
 tomorrow,i feel a bit more confident about it this time! 
 we've also been working on small talk type conversation
 and have started working on whats called taxi referrals,
 in other words we just talk to someone for like two minutes
 and then give them a short one minute explanation/
 testimony of God and Jesus Christ and to get them to commit
 to us to come to their house (ger) and teach them more.
 Since Mongolians are Buddhists they don't anything about 
 god so we have to start from scratch and  work our way up..
 but the funny thing is that the majority of them have seen
 the passion of Christ it got translated and it was this
 huge epidemic that swept through the country and everyone
 saw it! so most of them have heard of Jesus Christ, they
 just don't know understand His role and what He did for us,
 so that's a good thing to hit em with.. just a real quick
 explanation and them with a cliffhanger! also another
 really cool thing about Mongolians is they are so nice 
 welcoming that if you ask to come to their house they
 will say yes just about every single time and they'll
 let you in and listen to what you have to say. so we've
 been working on short conversations-and testimonies.
 this last Tuesday for our devotional we had  elder
 Dellenbach come and talk to us about how much of a
 miracle the book of Mormon is, it was really
 interesting and i wanna tell ya all about it but im
 outta time so if i remember I'll do it next week! 
 well i love you all and hope to hear from everyone shortly
 sooo... write letters!!!


 I will email to Greg any comments that are made so he can
 read them.  Greg's mom 

Second week in the MTC

I think I was getting a little too confident in the language because when I started translating the first lesson I realized just how much I didn't know about the language! but no worries I learned what I needed to be able to do it.. but now I'm working on memorizing it all and let me tell ya.. it aint as easy as memorizing my testimony! but its coming along and we're giving it tomorrow so wish me luck! Time has started to pick up speed.. it seems like I just barely wrote the last email... we started doing the call center, last week we did outbound calls which I didn't like very much cuz it just felt like I was a salesman but this week we did inbound calls where people call in to ask about the church and I liked that ALOT better, I got a family and an old man to agree to have the missionaries come and teach them about Christ so that was a neat experience because we were able to work with real people which was a nice change and somewhat nerve rackin too!

Have you ever seen the Disney movie the other side of heaven?? if not you should check it out, its about a missionary named John Groberg who went to Tonga.. well on Tuesday John Groberg came to talk to us, he brings with him a strong spirit that was felt by everyone there, he talked about how the temple is the end result in everything we do in the church, he had a lot of good insight on families and missionary work, it was a great devotional! Its interesting to watch all the other missionaries leave and to think about the day that I?ll be leaving for the airport to head to Mongolia.. We've had 3 groups so far leave in our zone and the elders that came in the same day as us leave on Monday and we'll still have 9 more weeks!! Our zone consists of everyone on our dorm floor.. We have us, the Mongolians, Malagasies, Indonesians, and a few state side english elders, so its kinda funny to walk through the halls at night and hear all the different languages! well my time is running short and I wanna thank everyone for your prayers and your support, I have felt them and I love you all. I love this work and hope and pray that the Lord will continue to shape and mold me into the missionary He needs me to be and into the man that I was foreordained to become!

Ist. week in the MTC

Well my first week is officially up! my companions name is
elder marquis, we've got a whole lot in common so its been
good! making it to the first Sunday wasn't nearly as hard
as people kept saying it is.. the first day was all just
informational which was kind of disappointing because i
wanted to jump right in to the language but no worries
because the next couple of days we got slammed with it!
they use the cyrillic alphabet which has been fun
getting used to, we can all pretty much read everything
just fine and can bear a simple testimony, by this time
next week we should be able to give the first discussion
in the language which is kinda hard to believe but not
really considering the rate we're learning, i can already
see the effects of the gift of tongues and its amazing!
there's 13 of us going, 7 elders and 6 sisters, we tie
with the largest number going at one time and double the
amount of  the most sisters to go. we had our first
devotional Tuesday night and it was awesome, it was
Robert R Steuer, he was able to bring the spirit and
we all felt it and it was a good reminder that i am where
im supposed to be, when im supposed to be and going where
im supposed to be going. the holy ghost has confirmed
that to me many times this past week.. I love this place
and im glad i get to spend twelve weeks here.. im really
excited to learn this language so i can go and teach the
people of Mongolia and bring to them our Father in Heaven's
gospel to bring them true happiness in this life! My
testimony has grown so much in the past week, im anxious
to see what eleven more will do to me! I love you all very
much and thank you for your support! by the way.. everyone
here gets like three letters a day and ive only received
two.. total! so come on make a missionary feel loved and
send me some mail!!! there's an awesome sight thats free
and i'll get the letter the same day you write it, its
called dearelder.com and all you gotta do is find my
name.. its pretty self explanatory but that would be
AWESOME!! well my time is running out, i love you all and
hope to hear from EVERYONE shortly!!

Farewell!

Well its the last day before i go into the MTC and i'd just like to say I love you all and thank you so much for all of your support.. you have all helped me to get to this point.. I hope to hear from ya while I'm out there but if not I'll see ya in a couple!!