Week #8 MTC

***Before you read this email, go to your nearest music playing device and turn on "Anthony's Song/Im Moving Out" by Billy Joel and listen to it for the duration of this email***

3 1/2 days and I am out of this place. I am screaming for joy on the inside (because showing any outer joy is a one way ticket to a District Presidents office). I am excited to eat fast food at the airports. I may fill my carry on with Chick Fil A sandwiches. **If anyone has been to O'Hare and knows if there is a Chick Fil A, send me a "yes" really soon. I need to know** We fly out of SLC at 8:50 and have a layover at O'Hare in Chicago. We then take the long trip across the Atlantic to Frankfurt, Germany and from their to Riga. It will be a long flight, but fun. The sisters will stay in the Mission home the first night, and the elders will stay in some bug infested hotel. Yay.

I think a small part of my soul (if I even have one) will miss the MTC. I have loved everyone here. Teachers, Missionaries, The Presidency, and other workers here. Our Zone basically runs this place. They reserved the two front rows at the Devotional for us, only because we always get there early for those rows. They just randomly reserved them. The Baltics, from what I hear, always rule the MTC. The devotional happened to be may favorite apostle (behind Holland), Dale G. Renland. He is the best. We made eye contact.

In my first 8 weeks I had only been off campus for temple walks, but I went off campus 2 in the last week. First on Saturday night to the ER (with another elder) and on Monday because if have a pre existing condition that I do not want to go into the details of at this time. If you are a close friend of mine, you can probably guess (Mark especially). If not, ask my Mom. She would be happy to tell you all about it.

The Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah and Disneyland in Anaheim, California are quite the same. You start out the MTC on Space Mountain if it never stopped and just kept going and going. It is like that for 2 weeks. Weeks 3-6 are like the teacups. You just cannot help but throw up and hate your life. Then suddenly, you are on Splash Mountain and some creepy birds and turtles and bunnies are singing Zippidy-Doo-Dah and you fell uneasy and excited all at once for the last 3 weeks. I assume leaving the MTC will be just like the walk down Main Street after a long trip in the park, just with happiness instead of depression. I may have to take on look back at the Brown Brick castle where I was, for 9 short/long weeks, a king.

I hope you all were listening to Billy Joel while reading this. I hope it really set the mood for you. If you didn't listen while reading, you are not worthy of my words and should not read future emails.

Elders Josts

Week #7 MTC

The Latvians (my other favorites)

Snooki is my princess, Ellen is my queen, put it all together, that is the Hollywood dream.

May 19, 2016 10:58 AM

This email will be slightly different than the past few that have been. I don't have too many sarcastic anti-MTC things to say this week, so buckle up. I am going to go against my better judgement and be serious for a minute.

The lord will give you what you need when you need it, if you put in the work. I see it everyday here. I think I am the most happy I have ever been. I am also the most stressed and nervous I have ever been. Here is an experience from this last week.

The devotionals that we have every Tuesday and Sunday are all great, but this Tuesdays was the best of all time. It was Von G. Keech of the Quorum of the Seventy. He talked about how he always saw his mission as somewhat of a failure. He had 1 baptism the whole time. Turns out, that one convert started the church in the Ivory Coast and there is now 27,000 members there. I cannot recollect all that was said about this, but I do remember how I felt, and it was tight. I know I am in the right place at the right time.

Good, now that that is over, GET ME OUT OF HERE! I am so excited to head to Latvia I am going to day. We should get our flight plans tomorrow. We have 264 hours, 30,840 minutes, and 1,848,400 seconds left in the Provo Utah MTC. It has flown by and crawled along all at the same time.

The food continues to plague me. I have lost 3 pounds in my time here. My companion has gained 26. He is 4 pounds away from 200, which is now his goal. I continue to pound into his skull how offensive it is to us morbidly obese to make a goal to become fat. Oh well, ill get rid of him in 11 days.

Dažreiz, kad tu esi vireties, tu nesi elastigas pakšbikses, tāva istiba, pajoku.

I have an addiction to Dabbing. I dab constantly. It is a problem.

The email title is again, Elders Satterlee. I have no explanation for this one, it just happened.

We skyped a man who lives halfway between Riga and Jelgava named Arvi. It was fun.

Dear Elders are still fun to receive. 

Love, Elders Josts

Post Temple walk selfie

Ode Kirifi and Ode Woodward, The Estonians (AKA my favorites)

Week #6 MTC

Devin and his cute cousin Alli not getting too close! haha  I'm so grateful that she works
at the MTC and is able to get me pictures and relay messages to him.  

It's almost a hug! ;)

A few quick MTC observations for the week.

1) The birds are mice. They forgot that they have wings and they just run around like little rodents. It is disgusting. 

2) My Zone owns the MTC. The Portuguese and Mandarin zones may try to argue this but it is true. We are in control.

3) The Cafeteria is organized by parts of the world. It isn't a set in stone where you have to sit but we end up segregation to our areas. We sit behind the Iron Curtain. 

I cannot think of any more. I am so tired. I don't sleep. I cannot sleep.

This week was 100% better than the last two. No one went home. Everyone is fine. Except for an Estonian Sister who has a concussion from volleyball. She is just walking around all loopy and saying some weird stuff. 

My time as Zone Leader will come to an end here soon (hopefully) and all of my power will be taken from me (thank the heavens) and I am really sad.

I made a list comparing everyone in our zone to a character from the Office.

Pam- Masa Kunzelman

Jim- Elders Birch

Dwight- Me (obviously)

Angela- Sesuo Jeppsen

Kevin- Elder Spencer

Oscar- Sesuo Aidukatis (different gender, but it works)

Merideth- Sesuo Day

Creed- Elders Satterlee

Ryan- Elder Lester

Kelly- Masa Burton

Andy- Vyresnysis Herbst

Toby- Elders Cooley (he is just more quiet, we love him)

Erin- Cectra Swapp

Nellie- Ode Kirifi

There are a few more in the zone but they dont really fit with characters. Now if I say a name in a future email, imagine this character. It is so accurate it makes me sick.

Elders Satterlee again is the title of the email. He said this under his breath while we were trying to go to sleep. What a guy.

The food continues to plague me and I hurt everywhere. 

Dear Elders are still much appreciated.

The language is coming now. I understand the cases and conjugations which is a miracle.

šie baznīca ir patiesa un dievs mūs mil.

18 more days and my sentence is over and I can walk outside of these walls a free man. Oh wait...

Elders Josts

Week #5 MTC

Stay out of my Shed.

And now that its all over, the birds will nest again.

It only snows when the sun comes out, it shines, only when it starts to rain.

I'm sorry, I took your time.

I am the poem that doesn't rhyme.

So turn back the page and i'll waste away,

Ill waste away.

Goodbye- Elton John.

In the United States of America, we spend an average of $22,000.00 dollars a year per inmate in our Prisons. In the MTC, they only spend $400.00 per inmate. Think about that for a second.

I mean, this is a wonderful place of insane spiritual growth and I love it here, but it at times feels like prison.

Good prison, but prison none the less.

On the brighter side of things, the Zone is awful.

It has been a trying week for all of us. An Elder and a Sister very well may have to go home for their own personal reasons (not worthiness, but other reasons). Both happen to be from my district, going to Latvia, speaking Latvian. 

The language is coming, slowly but surely.

Mother and Sisters, the package you sent had some Latvian phrases on it. Absolutely awful grammar. You wrote "Mes jus milu" when you should have wrote "Mes jus milam" quit using google translate, it is wrong. 

The shoes are lovely. I am wearing them now.

***ALERT*** There has been a shortage of dear elders. To fix this, go to dearelder.com and send some to me.

I really do enjoy it here and I am having loads of fun.

District President Yost gave the devotional on Sunday and he put my picture up in front of all 957 missionaries in the MTC. What a guy.

We fit our entire Zone in the elevator and got banned.

These are the highlights of the week. 

The title of this email comes from a Elders Satterlee again. It is from a My Little Pony spoof. He says it in a low, scratchy voice. Quite funny. Also, he randomly quoted Tim and Eric, which made my day.

Love Elders Josts.