¡Hola mis amigos!
*WARNING!!! EXTREMELY LONG EMAIL BELOW!!! If you are looking for something to do in quarantine, here you can read my email...sorry I just have so much to say about what has happened and life updates to share from this past week :)
I am literally so excited to be writing my first ever mission email! Every Wednesday for the next 5 weeks is my P-Day (preparation day) so this is when I’ll be sending out my weekly emails and can respond to any emails I get too. I want to start this email explaining what has happened this past week. I was set apart as a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on Monday night March 30 by my Stake President (the church leader for the area of Escondido) which meant that I was officially a missionary and have to abide by the missionary standards; this includes wearing nice church clothes everyday like skirts and dresses, listening only to gospel/worship music, not going on Social Media and probably the hardest thing: not watching movies, unless of course they are about Christ. For anyone that knows me, going 18 months without watching a Marvel movie seems impossible, but I know that I’ll be able to do it. I then asked my Stake President a billion questions about how the online MTC (Missionary Training Center) was going to work for my 6 week training period. He didn’t have many answers, but I assume that’s because it was only the third week of online Missionary Training Centers EVER!! I didn’t have my first online activity until Wednesday afternoon, so on Tuesday I practiced waking up at 6:30 AM, I probably shouldn’t have been sleeping in until 11am the past few weeks but oh well, then I spent most of the day with my family and got my missionary name tag in the mail!
On Wednesday I was super excited to officially begin the online Mexico MTC (Missionary Training Center). I didn’t really know what to expect of my first workshop, but I was super pumped up. They had a Zoom conference call set up so that we could talk with our teachers in Mexico City. I never would have imagined that during the workshop online we would be TEACHING SOMEONE! We were about 15 minutes into the workshop when the teacher, Brother Clemente, said “Now, we have a volunteer and your job is to get to know her and share the gospel”. At first I thought he meant one of the missionaries would pretend to be the volunteer, but that is NOT what happened. A girl, not in missionary clothes, joined the Zoom call...she was a 20 year old girl named Chelsea who lives in Utah, but was not a member of the church. We ended up getting to know her, shared a bit about our belief in God, who we call our Heavenly Father, and even got her the phone number of a member of the church in her area. That was not at all what I expected to happen within the first 45 minutes of my online MTC experience, but it was absolutely amazing. We barely got to know Chelsea, but I felt so much love for her and wanted so badly for her to know about the joy that comes from the gospel. I know that the love I felt for Chelsea comes from God because she is one of His children and He loves every single one of us SO MUCH. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to start the online MTC.
Now you may be wondering “Megan, how in the world do you spend your time being stuck at home all day?” (or maybe you’re not wondering this, but I’m going to share anyways...haha). My typical day consists of waking up at 6:30am to exercise, shower, get ready and eat breakfast. Then I have class from 8-11am with Brother Valdez in Mexico City. After class, I have companion study for about an hour with my amazing companion. Her name is Hermana (Sister in Spanish) Dunn and she is literally the best. [Sidenote: my companion in my mission preparation class at BYU last semester told me about her friend going to my same mission, Resistencia Argentina, and showed me a picture of her. Now when I found out who my online companion was going to be, naturally I found her on Instagram and stalked her (don’t worry this was before I was set apart as a missionary) I recognized one of her photos, my mission preparation companion had shown me this picture already! So I was already connected to my companion through one of my BYU friends! If you think that’s crazy, wait till I tell you even more connections we have! Out of everyone in our district (made of 12 missionaries all learning Spanish on the online MTC, 4 sisters and 8 Elders) we are the only set of companions going to the same mission AND we are both from Southern California, she literally lives about an hour and a half away from me! Then after talking we realized that we both started college at age 17, both attend BYU Provo and are both Math majors! It is crazy how much we have in common! Sorry for this rather long side note...whoops :) ] Ok so after companion study, I have study time until workshop from 12:30-1:30pm with Brother Clemente (the first week we had workshops everyday, but this week we started having workshops only once a week). Then I eat lunch and have language study where I attempt to learn Spanish until evening class from 4:30-7:30pm with Brother Chavez, who is always very excited about literally everything. After that I have dinner with my family, more personal study time and then I get ready for bed and am asleep by 10:30pm. As you can see, the online MTC keeps me really busy all day and any spare time I have, I’m practicing Spanish or studying the gospel.
Last week I was just seeming to get the hang of things and was feeling pretty good. Then we had General Conference over the weekend (a huge broadcast where church leaders like our Prophet speak to us, usually there is a big live audience, but obviously that can’t really happen so they did it in an empty auditorium) which was so fantastic! Then on Monday, Brother Valdez told us that Mexico went through something like Daylight Savings so they lost an hour...this meant that for all the sister missionaries in my district living in Pacific Standard Time, class would start at 7am, leaving us only 30 minutes to get ready! It seemed impossible to exercise, shower, get ready and eat breakfast in the morning before class! The rest of the day I really struggled speaking Spanish as we gave a 10 minute lesson to Brother Valdez, completely in Spanish! My companion did most of the talking, since she seems to already be fluent in Spanish, and I tried to insert a sentence about the gospel in Spanish here and there. The entire day on Monday I was really struggling to put together sentences in Spanish and I felt like it was impossible to learn Spanish. The next day, Tuesday, I tried really hard to study my Spanish and talk in Spanish. I felt better than I had on Monday, but still not where I want to be. That night we had our first MTC Devotional where we watched one of Elder Bednar’s (a church leader and one of the 12 apostles) past devotionals. I know that the devotional was broadcast several years ago, but I felt like he was speaking to ME. Something that he said really stuck out to me about his conversations with converts to the church. They told him that they continued to accept new appointments with young missionaries that didn’t speak their language very well, “not because of what they said, but because of what they felt”. I realized that it is not about speaking perfect Spanish RIGHT NOW, it is about bringing feelings of the Spirit into discussions with people and letting the Spirit teach, not me.
I now know that the most important thing for me to learn in the MTC is how to teach by the Spirit. Yes I need to work on my Spanish A LOT, but more importantly I need to be in tune with the Spirit and with God’s will. I know that as I strive to be a better missionary and to become more like Christ, the Spanish will eventually come. I cannot wait to see how the next 5 weeks of my online training go and am so excited to learn more every single day!
I love you all so much! I promise that my emails will be shorter next week :) Also feel free to send me an email (Megan.elizabeth.johnson@
Love Hermana Johnson
Pictures!!!
Me opening the door to the Johnson MTC!!
Me with my missionary tag because I am now known as Hermana Johnson!
My awesome district with Brother Valdez!
The package of all my Spanish books I use to study
I have literally covered the entire house in sticky notes with Spanish words on them to help me learn. This is the family room.
The guest room that we converted into my own mini MTC at home! I even have a nice desk to use for Zoom calls and studying!7.
Ok this is literally my favorite thing, my whiteboard! I use it to help plan out my week, my schedule for the day and write down a scripture or quote I like every day
