Elder Ethan May's Missionary Adventure

  Bonjour amis et familles! It's the one and only Elder May a  coming at you live from the online MTC, again! These weeks keep building on each other in terms of awesomeness and spiritualness and all-the -good-feelingsnesses. It's crazy that this upcoming week will be my last. MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK On Wednesday, I wanted to get out of my bedroom for a bit, so I went with my dad into his office in Downtown Portland, which, because we're living in unprecedented times b , has been empty and unused. It was really cool to be wearing the tag out in a city as I walked down the street to get some lunch, and I truly felt that 'in the world but not of the world' feeling. I know that this is God's work and I'm beginning to truly love the feeling of being out among people as a missionary.   FUNNY QUOTE OF THE WEEK "C'est très poggers!" Chalk this one up to Elder Johnston, who thought it would be funny to take 'poggers', a gaming term (a de...

  Bonjour amis et familles! Another spiritually productive week in the online MTC is in the books. This week went by really fast. It's crazy that I only have 2 weeks left until I go out to the field.  MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK Elder Israelsen and I had our 2nd French lesson yesterday. It was on the Plan of Salvation and our purpose on Earth, which is a pretty heavy lesson in terms of content, and it was hard to translate everything into French! The lesson was supposed to be 25 minutes, but we went like 6 minutes over and still couldn't cover everything! But, again, it was very spiritually enriching to teach an actual lesson to a relative stranger, even if it was probably a paid actor. FUNNY QUOTE OF THE WEEK "Oh my gosh, it's Friday!" This one comes from Elder Mandelin. Our afternoon class is usually from 3:30-6:30 mountain time, but on Fridays it's 2-5. With that knowledge, you can probably guess why Elder Mandelin put this into our google hangouts chat ...

  Bonjour amis et familles! (hey, that also rhymes!) Things are heating up in the MTC. The rate at which we are learning French is crazy fast now. Nothing too overwhelming for yours truly, though, which is good.  MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK Yesterday, my virtual companion and I taught our first virtual lesson in French! At the MTC there's this program called the TRC (Teaching Resource Center), where they have actors playing the role of a non-member for us to teach. We had prepared a rough outline in French, but the lady we were teaching made us go off-script for a bit with her thought-provoking questions. I don't remember what I said in that moment exactly, but I know that it was what the Lord wanted me to say at that moment. It was a really cool experience that made me even more excited to get out to the field.  FUNNY QUOTE OF THE WEEK "I  am  Jesus Christ?" This one comes from me. Apparently the translation for 'I am' (je suis) is the same as 'I follo...

Bonjour amis et familles! I'm going to start off with the transcription of a song my brother sang to me on my birthday on Tuesday: (to the tune of the  Spider-Man  theme) "Elder Man, Elder Man Does whatever an Elder can! Can he swim? NO!" (Missionaries aren't allowed to swim. It's a safety thing.) MISSIONARY MOMENTS OF THE WEEK This is a new category I thought I'd add from here on out.   I went on a bike ride with my mom on Thursday, and we randomly came across my old Physics teacher from high school! It was fun to catch up with him, as well as point out my tag and talk to him about what I'll be doing for the next 2 years.  FUNNY QUOTE OF THE WEEK "These noodles just blew our minds!"   This installment comes from Soeur Martial, again. After seeing an Elder snack on some stir-fry cup-o-noodles during class, she realized  that she had some in her pantry that she'd never tried. About an hour after the class ended, she sent a message to the Googl...

  Bonjour amis et familles! (Hello friends and family) I'll start by describing a couple of logistical things that I'm sure a lot of people have questions about in regards to how to adapt the MTC experience to a virtual platform, or if you have no background of what this looks like even in normal times.  My virtual district (group of missionaries) consists of 10 Elders and Sisters (6 and 4, respectively), and I'm the only one who was called to Africa. My virtual companion, Elder Israelsen, was called to Montréal, and the other 8 were assigned to labor in France (7 Paris, 1 Lyon). But, I'm not completely alone on this front, as one of my teachers, Frère (Brother) Bullock, served his mission in Benin, two countries over from Cameroon. Every day I have 6 hours of scheduled class time where I've learned how to teach people about the Gospel of Christ, while strengthening the knowledge I already have, as well as beginning to learn the French language, which so far is just...