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.

Week #4 MTC

"I will destroy you and steal your fiance"

The MTC is a magical land. Similar to Hogwarts in the first 2 years of school. You are locked in and cannot leave, the teachers are like Snape, they push you until you feel awful about yourself (but you later figure out they were helping you all along), you spend all day cramming for your OWLS, and still fail. The worst part is, your parent/guardian didn't sign your permission slip to go to Hogsmede and you have to stay behind while you watch the English elders and sister come and go.

For all of you who have never seen Harry Potter or just do not care, I am saying this place is great but I am itching to leave. 2 more days and we are halfway done.

Our teacher, Masa Eyring, who happened to speak no Latvian left us this week. I have become an emotional piece of human garbage whilst in the MTC, and showed my talent of crying on command by blowing up the dam and letting the rains go down and the floods come up. She meant a lot to us. She was there through everything. We only knew her for 54 hours but she left a lasting impact on us that we will never forget. 

Our new teacher, Masa Larson, speaks only Latvian (yay). She walks in spouting of in crisp, fluent Latvain and we cannot understand her. How after 4 weeks of learning a language are we supposed to understand any word she says? Our other teacher, Bralis Bird, knows what we know, so we understand him. It is crazy. I feel like I know nothing.

Oh, before I forget, the title of this email comes from a song Elders Satterlee from my district sings.

"I will destroy you and steal your fiance,

 booty, booty, booty, booty,

 rocking everywhere."

He sings it all day and it is wonderful.

Dallon H. Oaks came and spoke to us this week, we sat on the third row. (We go 45 minutes early to every devotional because I refuse to sit in the most uncomfortable gym bleachers of all time) He read the entirety of Preach My Gospel to us. It was so boring, but it did answer all of my prayers so it wasn't actually that bad.

The food here is awful.

I got a haircut today.

Someone (Adrian) give me a detailed update of the NBA and NHL playoffs as well as the political race. Someone in my district caucused for Bernie and another caucused for Cruz. I, being the only smart person in our district, caucused for John Kasich. He has probably dropped out by now. I wish I knew...

DearElder.com is a great place to go and write me all about your life. I want to know everthing.

Es zinu ka šie baznīca ir patiesa.

Elders Josts

Week #3 MTC

Week 3 at the MTC was great.

I am a true Zone boy now. Me and Elders Birch got the assignment of being the Zone leaders, which is great because I love power.

The MTC food is the absolute worst food I have ever had. A part of my soul leaves with every choked down plate of scraps. My body is reacting in violent ways and it hurts.

One of our Latvian teachers (who speaks less Latvian then we do) Masa Eyring (granddaughter of the one and only Henry B) is getting fired due to BYU graduation and I am filled with sorrow. She means so much to us. I am unsure how we will treat our new teacher but it may not be pretty. Ill keep you all up to date because I know you care SO MUCH.

Honestly, how many of you actually read this? I know I would skim over other missionaries emails and miss the majority of the content. Whatever, I don't really care.

SEND ME DEAR ELDERS PLEASE I LOVE THEM AND I NEED THEM IN ORDER TO SURVIVE.

We received 4 new Elders and 3 new Sister yesterday. They are great. I shall attach a picture of them so that you can look at them.

STORY OF THE WEEK: We were teaching our investigator (teacher) yesterday about baptism. My companion, Elders Birch, was trying to explain that you become a member of the church through baptism and receiving the holy ghost. He was trying to use the Latvian that he knows off the top of his head to explain this and and said "Caur Kristishanos un Svetais Gars speku jus varesit klusit loceklis" which roughly translates to "Through Baptism and the Holy Ghosts strength you can become member". Funny thing is without adding "Baznicas" before "Loceklis" which means "Church Member" the word "locekli" can mean a number of things. I can mean Member, Limb, Extention, or a certain part of the male anatomy. Fill in the blanks and laugh a little.

Things are all good here. I am four square king. All others bow before my greatness.

Elders Yost

Week #2

Me on my birthday after a bombed lesson.

"What a funny little bird the frog are. Him ain't got no tail for hardly. And when him walks, him hops. And when him don't hop, him sits on his funny little tail, which him don't got. Don't it awful?"

See if you cannot figure out the meaning behind this short, yet meaningful piece of writing.

The MTC is fun. I never thought I would say that. I also never thought I would make it this long, but miracles happen. My companion, Elders Birch is a hoot and a half. We get along too well. The language is coming along well. I couldn't ask you any questions further than how are you doing, but I can recite multiple scriptures from memory, so that is great. Sister Geddes arrived yesterday and gave me the most firm handshake I have and will ever receive. We play basketball everyday, it is great. I have played four square a few times but I cannot handle these square newbs trying to give me the business. I am the business, and I show them that through elevated play.

The food here is awful. I am going to die. This is no joke, I am hurting due to lack of nutrition. I guess that is what I get for letting a mediocre university foods service feed me 3 meals a day.

I miss Sophie.

Keep the Dear Elders coming. I love them.

Dievs jus mil un es jus milu.   Elders Yost

Me and Brother Wills at the beam ceremony

The beam