August 27, 2010 ~ C'est moi encore

Bonjour tout le monde! I'm still loving the MTC. Elder Holland came this week for devotional and gave an amazing talk, of course. It was very similar to the one he gave in 2002 (I think?), and tell Rob that he did the yelling thing again telling us not to go home, and never waste one second! I thought it was awesome that 8 years later he's still saying that! One of the things that he said that inpsired me the most was, "This is war!" Right then it really hit me what I am doing here. I am literally in the Lord's army. We're in the business of helping people overcome the adversary and come unto Christ! He reminded me that a mission isn't something to do half-heartedly. There are people that the Lord is preparing for me to teach, and if I'm not prepared, I'm not going to be able to it effectively! He made this analogy: which "Russel" of the 12 would you rather have heart surgery from? Nelson or Ballard? Obviously Nelson! He had 20 years of training before he actually performed a heart surgery. I'm glad Elder Holland reminded me that I need to be learning and studying at every opportunity, because I have a responsibility to those people I will teach to be prepared the best I can to help them receive the Gospel. We have "progressing investigators" here at the MTC. They're usually teachers who pick an investigator to be from their own mission, and we can go teach them every week. I love this because it helps focus my personal and companion study on their needs. As we've done this, I've found that by finding how much the Gospel of Jesus Christ can help other people, you truly can realize and appreciate how much you have been blessed by it. I testify that if we forget ourselves and focus on the needs of others, they will feel the Savior's love and we will feel His love like we never could by thinking about ourselves! I'm so thankful to have the opportunity to help others find Christ's love in their own lives and to grow closer to the Savior myself! I love the Lord and trust in him more than anything. I can see His hand in my life every day as I learn here at the MTC. I testify that He will never fail us if we put our faith and trust in him!

Much Love!

Elder Tudor

August 20, 2010 ~ Greetings from the MTC

Bonjour! Things are going well here at the MTC! I don't really have anything too special to say. I'm finally used to the routine of waking up at 6:30 every day which is nice. It took about three weeks! I've seen Tracy quite a few times, his classroom is actually in the same building and on the same floor as mine. I also saw Sam this morning while I was eating breakfast. It was great to see them! It's weird how many friends I have here. It's awesome to see all of these people I've known my whole life here and to be serving with them. The language and the teaching is getting better every day. This last Wednesday, we started our goal as a district to only speak French from 8 a.m. til 9 p.m. every day. Or at least to try to say everything we want to say in French first, and if we don't know how to say something, we'll ask someone else how to say it or write it down to look it up later. We were afraid that everyone would just stop talking once we started this, but that hasn't happened! We've been pretty dedicated so far and have learned a lot from doing it. These last few days our French has improved so fast! Tonight I'm teaching in French for the first time. I'm nervous about it. We're not going to be learning the lessons in French til next week sometime, but my companion and I signed up to teach someone in French, so we'll see what happens! You never know how much you know until you try. I think it will be great for us to see how much we've learned already and how much (which is a LOT) we still need to learn.This week at the TRC we taught the second lesson (the plan of salvation) and it went great! We decided to go in without a detailed lesson plan. We just studied the doctrine, prepared scriptures, and went in there. It was the best lesson we've ever taught. We were able to connect with the investigator and get him involved, instead of just teach a lesson. The spirit was so strong, I even teared up a few times! I still can't believe how real it can feel when we're teaching role play investigators. It's as real as you make it. It makes me so much more excited to get out and teach real people!I don't really have much else to say. It's hard to remember all the things that happen here, because so much happens! When I write in my journal at night, it takes me awhile to remember what happened that day before dinner. The longer I'm here, the more I realize that this is the most important thing I could be doing, and the more I realize that I would trade nothing for this experience. I know that this is the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and that there are millions of people searching for the truth. I hope and pray that I'll be an effective tool in the hands of the Lord to help His children receive the Gospel. I love you all and I pray for you every day!

-Elder Tudor

P.S. we got a new district this week, so we are no longer the French noobs. We're the "old" missionaries now because all the older districts left to the field. It's weird!

August 13, 2010 ~ San Francisco

Hey everyone! It's been a crazy week. I went with nine other Elders that are going to France to San Francisco on Wednesday so we could get our visas. It was weird driving by the 1600 North exit! It made me miss home. It was so cool being out in the real world though! Everyone at the Salt Lake airport loved us of course. The most exciting thing about getting out of the MTC is that we got to talk to real people about the Gospel! While sitting at our gate at SLC we got to talk to a lot of non members and one companionship even placed a Book of Mormon! We talked to a middle aged couple from Austria, which I thought was super random for the SLC airport. They were really nice people! Once we got to San Francisco we got in a van and went to the Consulate. We got our visas there and then hopped back in the van to go to Pier 39. Everyone there stared at us, but I just gave them a smile and a wave. We ate some clam chowder in a breadbowl (best food I've had in weeks) and went and contacted people. It's so cool to get to know all sorts of different people and their backgrounds. Even if we never got to talk to them about the Gospel, I just loved getting to know them. Then we went back to the airport to find that our flight had been delayed two hours. We decided to walk around and see if we could share our message with anyone. I saw a young guy playing guitar waiting for his plane, decided I wanted to talk to him, and took Elder Heywood (from Mesa, AZ. also going to Toulouse) with me. We just sat down and talked with him for almost 20 minutes about his life. He basically told us his life story and it was so fun to get to know him. It's pretty amazing how much people open up to us! We connected with him pretty well and we could tell he was happy that we came and talked to him. He realized we weren't there to sell anything or force something on him, but that we were genuinely interested in him. He even asked me if I wanted to play his guitar!!! It felt like I hadn't played in years.. when it was only two weeks. As I was playing, he told us he picked up the guitar at a Bible study. We found out he was a non denomination Christian. Then, out of nowhere, I brought up the Book of Mormon. I didn't expect that to come out of my mouth, at least at that moment. I explained what it was and asked him if he'd like a copy. And he did!! We handed him a copy with Elder Heywood's testimony in it and a page number for Moroni 10. Both of us bore our testimonies of the Book of Mormon and asked him if he would start to read it and ask God if it was true. He told us he would and he acted quite excited about it actually. I know some people probably take Book of Mormons and say they'll read it just to get us to go away, but I felt that he was sincere, and he kept wanting to talk to us. He asked us if we had Facebook because he wanted to find out more. We told him he could go to Mormon.org and find out more. It was so cool! He had to go, but I wish we could have kept talking. I can't believe I've placed my first Book of Mormon! And I can't believe what an amazing opportunity I have to invite and help people come unto Christ like that every day. This has made me even more excited to get out in the field! Missionary work is all about love. It's not about me learning a language, being in France for two years, or just being able to say I served a mission. It's about loving others and showing that love by offering them the most precious thing we have to offer, which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I think the best way to follow God's commandment to love one another is to spread His message so others can receive it and find the joy that comes with it. I hope everything is going well at home! I love all of you and pray for you every day!

Much love,

Elder Tudor

August 6, 2010 ~ Hullo There

Bonjour! So guess what? I'm going to France next week! Just kidding... But, I AM going to San Francisco on Wednesday the 11th! In order to get our visas to France, we have to make a "personal appearance" at the French Consulate in San Francisco. We leave at 5 a.m. and get back some time that night. It should be interesting! I hear that you can get out and contact people for awhile because there's some down time. I'm excited! I love the MTC. It's a strange place though. It feels like one, long, never-ending day. I can't believe I've been here over a week, but at the same time, I can't believe I've only been here just over a week! It's weird. The laundry room here is insane. There's way too many people doing their laundry at the same time, so it's impossible to get a washer. And when people see that someone else's clothes are done washing, they take them out and put them in a random dryer, so a lot of people can't find their clothes. Madness. The MTC is also strange in that every little thing here is hilarious. I don't think I've laughed this hard so much in one week. I think part of it is that we're all super tired. I love it though, plus my district is hilarious. There are so many different personalities and the funniest things go on! We all enjoy singing though. Two days ago, I got everyone to sing parts during our hymn before class started (we only sing hymns in French, which is pretty awesome)... Now we're all harmonizing in the showers! (usually to hymns or disney songs) It actually sounds pretty good. Our teacher, Frere Drean (Frere means brother in French) said that we'll start getting weird and making jokes that relate to church subjects. I was the first one this happened to. We were having a discussion at lunch a couple days ago about whether Mayonnaise or Miracle Whip was superior, and I said that Mayonnaise was the great and abominable church and that Miracle Whip was the restored gospel. Probably the dumbest joke I've ever made, but for some reason we all laughed for five minutes. Go figure! I had a really cool experience at the TRC on Wednesday. I'm not sure what TRC stands for, but it's where you go teach a lesson to volunteer investigators. My companion and I were pretty nervous going in. First we got to contact three different people in French. One of them was a black guy from Haiti. He spoke some crazy fast French, but I actually had a conversation with him and in less than five minute I explained in French that Joseph Smith restored Christ's church to the earth. I don't know how I did it. We ended up teaching two girls and a guy (all in their lower 20's). Luckily, we got to teach the lesson in English. We taught the first lesson, which is about the restoration. It went really really well! We got them to committ to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it's truth, and also to pray to know if what we taught them about the restoration was true. They were all pretty receptive, but the guy had a few tough questions that I somehow answered to his satisfaction. I know it's just a role play, but it's amazing how strong the spirit was while we were teaching. My eyes even started watering! It was really awesome, and my testimony of the guiding power of the Holy Ghost was definitely strengthened. I love the scripture in D&C 100 that says the Spirit will give you what to say in the very moment you need it, and it really did. We had a plan for our lesson, but we said so many things that we hadn't necessarily planned. It was definitely better than what we had planned though! A few times, after I said something, I wondered to myself, "where did that come from?" Pretty amazing. I know that if we make an effort to share His message, the Lord will help us and give us words to say!I love this Gospel. I'm already so excited to get out in the field and find and teach those who are searching for the truth. It's hard to imagine what living without the Gospel would be like. It has blessed me so so much, and I want everyone to have it! The most important thing we can do with our time on earth is spread the truth. This is exactly where I'm supposed to be. I miss you all! The church is true.

LOTS OF LOVE!

Elder Tudor

July 31, 2010 ~ Bonjour!

Bonjour tout le monde! My first few days at the MTC have felt like weeks rather than days, but they've been some of the best days of my life! I love the MTC so far. My companion is Elder Noyce from Taylorsville. He's a little on the shy/quiet side but he's a great Elder and I'm excited to get to know him better. My district is mostly from Utah, but there is an Elder from Washington and one from Fresno, California. It's pretty intense being in class basically 16 hours a day. I'm so glad I had a lot of exposure to French before the MTC. Most of the Elders have too, but Elder Lewis (a short, stalky, black full back from Syracuse UT, our nickname for him is BEAST) had no previous French. I can understand and talk to all the Elders who have been here for 6 weeks which is awesome! Almost everything we do is in French, inlcuding prayer, which is really cool. J'aime la langue! We had a meeting and met our branch presidency. Among other things, they told us that every one of us has to prepare a sacarament talk for sunday...In French... and the branch presidency will randomly select Elders to give their talks during sacarament meeting just on the spot. Pretty intense! But I'm super excited to improve more and more with the language.The MTC is quite the place. Everyone is so happy and nice, and the spirit is stronger here than any place I've ever been. We've been doing a lot of role plays with acting investigators which is an awesome experience. I can tell already that everything we do here will help me to become an effective servant of the Lord! I'm not quite used to the sleep schedule yet and we're all pretty tired, but the older Elders say that after the first Sunday things get a lot better. During gym time my district usually plays soccer. I'm surprisingly not that bad, considering I've basically never played in my life. I even scored a goal! I thought about taking my shirt off and runnind and sliding on my knees, but I thought that might not be appropriate at the MTC. If anyone wants to write, don't be shy! I'm running out of time, but I know that this is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and that being by being faithful to its teachings and ordinances, we can be saved. I love my Savior and the Atonement. I know the Book of Mormom is the word of God and that Joseph Smith restored the Gospel. This is a great work, and I'm honored to be a part of it. I miss and love all of you!

Love,

Elder Tudor