Pictures and Video...

The video is him barring his Testimony on the 3rd day in MTC. Sites around campus. And then the Tree of life picture in front of MTC with his District members..

  

Email #2 - Provo MTC

Another great email this week from Patrick. I was able to talk to him for about 10 minutes on the phone and then he also sent his email describing his week. He did send a few pictures, but I can't access them because of the link he sent them in. I am hoping to get this resolved before leaving the MTC so we can see some other pictures... Lol


[ Introduction ]

Hello! I hope everyone had a wonderful week! Once again, a lot has happened in the past week. Some things before I get into it: Thank you family for bringing my coat to the information desk, could not live without that. I'm sorry about the video problems, I'm not entirely sure why or how to fix it but I'm going to figure it out very soon. I do have to keep these email's unfortunately somewhat short but I'm gonna try and pack as much information as possible. Also thank you for all the emails throughout the week, it makes me really happy to see them so I really appreciate it. One more thing, if you want to reach me. You can buy adding me on Google Hangouts. My email is patrick.dodd@missionary.org, and you should be able to find me.

[ Friday, October 18, 2019 - Day 3 ]

First P-Day! I went into the Provo Temple for the first time and it was absolutely amazing. They are constructing a new building, there is no way to escape construction haha.

We were coming back from class, the MTC is getting ready for Christmas early. They have this really big tree that's in front of the main building and they turned it into the tree of life. It was beautiful. For the first couple of days, we were learning our purpose as a missionary.

"Invite others to come unto Christ into helping them receive the restored gospel through Faith in Jesus Christ and his atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end.".

[ Saturday, October 19, 2019 - Day 4 ]

Unfortunately not a ton happened today but It was pretty stressful. I found a sign in the hallway and it read: "When our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back, behold the Lord comforted us, and said:... Bare with patience, thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success." (Alma 26: 27).

[ Sunday, October 20, 2019 - Day 5 ]

We found out that we get a new companion this week, coming Wednesday. Kind of excited for that. We ran into a cat that lives at the MTC, it even has a little tie! We had our first MTC sacrament and honestly, it was the best one I have ever been too. It was so quiet.. We were told that we have to prepare a 2 to 5 minute talk every week for the sacrament meeting in the off chance that we might get picked to speak that Sunday morning. So got to get working on that. 

Priesthood was good, but the star of the show was Elder Bednar's missionary talk. This talk was pure gold and lucky I found a transcript for it which I will give you guys the link. But it was amazing and it is only viewable to missionaries so you can't find the talk anywhere else.

[ Monday, October 21, 2019 - Day 6 ]

Today was interesting, our class talked about comfort and how it can be bad for us sometimes. It made me think of a quote, "The comfort zone is a beautiful place but nothing grows there.". I'm not sure who said that but it's one of my favorite quotes. During our personal scripture study time, I came across 1 Corinthians 13: 11 that I thought was relating to missionary work. 11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." I feel like it describes what it feels like when you leave for your mission.

A funny thing that I think is strange is my companion, Elder Higgins, his badge is in Tagalog, yet he is going to San Diego, California. Everyone else is going to the Philippines but we have english name tags. It's pretty funny. Today for exercise time, I lifted some weights and ran 2 miles which was well needed since we sit in class all day. So I found out that the chocolate milk here is amazing, it comes from the BYU creamery. it's so good. I also learned that out in the mission field, they do these things called companionship inventory and phone adits. The concept is that with the companionship inventory, companions can talk about things that are bothering them or things about their companionship that they need to fix, and then with phone adits. Companionships swap phones and pretty much audit each other's phone to make sure everything is compliant. It's kind of interesting.

[ Tuesday, October 22, 2019 - Day 7 ]

It's been a week since I arrived at the MTC, and honestly can't believe it. Quite a bit happened today so I'm going to try and explain as much as I can. So me and my companions were having personal study time and I came across this scripture in the Book of Mormon. 3 Nephi 9: 13 through 14. "13 O all ye that are spared because ye were more righteous than they, will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you? 14 Yea, verily I say unto you, if ye will come unto me ye shall have eternal life. Behold, mine arm of mercy is extended towards you, and whosoever will come, him will I receive; and blessed are those who come unto me.". This scripture teaches a great principal, you may be more righteous, possible meaning that you may have more knowledge of the gospel than someone else and you may have a great testimony but are you fully converted? This made me think of my own situation and I've never felt more converted.

Tagalog is improving but im also struggling to understand grammar structure and memorization and for a time, I felt very overwhelmed but luckily I'm trying this new method of learning. It's where you write the tagalog phrase on something like a white board as you sound it out and then you rinse and repeat. So far, it's proving to be effective which is good. Exercise time was good, ran 2 1/2 miles and played a game of Volleyball. I also received my missionary debit card, it's only used out in the mission field so I'm unsure as to why they are giving them out so early. I honestly cannot wait for laundry day, a lot of my clothes need a wash especially my exercise clothing haha.

A bird got trapped in the Cafeteria and it was actually kind of scary haha, it kept flying all over, i'm not even sure how it got there.

We also had a Devotional tonight, which was really good. Elder Gonzalas of the 70 and Sister Gonzalas spoke and I felt like they were speaking to me personally. They were talking about conversion, and how missionary work can be a very difficult task. How earlier, I read a scripture that related to what they were talking about. It's amazing. Afterwards, our district went to our room and talked about what we got from the devotional. On our way there, there was, what I'm going to call a Hymn Circle. I'm assuming that a couple of missionaries got a lot of other missionaries into a huge group and started singing Hymns in the middle of the campus. It was neat to hear. We also ran into an alarm system that was going off, it was like a system box and it had the message of "system error: ground fault". So we told the information desk about, they were more confused than us. It was weird.

[ Wednesday, October 23, 2019 - Day 8 ]

Me and my district had our first service assignment today, we vacuumed and cleaned out a residence building. Unfortunately the floor we were tasked at cleaning was really filthy, all the Elder's that used to live on that floor left tons of books in closets and drawers full of snacks and candy (which was pretty funny), and trash out in the hallways, it boggles my mind that there are Elder's that treat property like that. The head custodian had a great sense of humor. In his office, he has this photo taped next to his desk and I couldn't help but take a picture. After completing our service assignment, we ran into a few missionaries that were going to Japan. I was so excited for them and even got to have a small conversation in Japanese. 

During our exercise time, we alternate from going to the gym and the weight room. They have this machine in the weight room that you have to row, I'm not sure what it's actually called but me and my companions call it the rowing machine and when you use it, you can generate watts. So our district is competing on how much watts we can put out and surprisingly, I'm in first place. I was able to generate 630 watts. We also played a really good game of Basketball haha. Elder Higgins met his new companion today, Elder Osler, but he was experiencing a weird issue. So his mission call said that he is going to California speaking English but he was in our Tagalog class and he will be here for 6 weeks which doesn't make any sense. 

I had a bloody nose during class, luckily I didn't get it on my clothing. I think it's because it's getting super cold and dry. I received a paper saying that I need to get another immunization shot this Friday because I guess there has been a Polio outbreak in the Philippines. 

[ Thursday, October 24, 2019 - Day 9 ]

It was a very unusual schedule today, they chose to get rid of breakfast and replace it with exercise time. Our district went and got breakfast anyways. I got a Halloween care package (thank you so much mom and dad, it really made my day). But it had a bunch of snacks and I was super excited. We went to this thing called TRC Orientation and got a look at what we will be doing in the coming weeks. Starting Monday, we will be teaching people in our mission language. I'm actually kind of nervous but I believe me and my companions are going to be fine. So every Thursday, we change out our sheets and pillow case so that's pretty nice.

I met some missionaries that are going to Wisconsin speaking Hmong. I'm not even sure what language that is haha. Have you guys heard of that in Wisconsin?? Our new companion is officially speaking English and is changing districts, so we lost our new companion unfortunately. We watched this really awesome video about the first vision, I really recommend you to watch it. It's just called First Vision. During class, we were talking about how technology is affecting missionary work and one quote stood out to me. "God isn't changing missionary work, he is just changing how missionaries work.".  

[ Closing ]

I know I said that I was going to keep these emails somewhat short but I couldn't help wanting to tell you as much as I can, I even left out some things! Thank you for the love and support and for reading and I'll talk to you next week.

Contact information..

You can email Patrick at the MTC at patrick.dodd@missionary.org

Or you can mail a little care package to him at:

Elder Patrick J Dodd
NOV25  PHI-OLO
2005 N 900 E  Unit 45
Provo, UT 84602

1st Email....

Wednesday, October 16, 2019 - Day 1

Hey everyone, this is Elder Dodd. After months of preparation, I finally made it to the MTC and now sending out my first email! The campus is amazing and i'm already learning so much and I already have so much I want to talk about so bare with me. When I first got to the MTC, I was greeted by a missionary host who took my luggage and guided me through crowds of missionaries waiting to cheer my arrival. He brought me to the welcome hall where he told me that he would meet me on the other side. This is where I received my missionary badges, missionary ID (see photo 2), residence key, and first day schedule. I met the host at the exit and proceeded walking to my residence where I will be staying for the next 6 weeks.

We get the entrance of the residence building and he showed me how to use my missionary ID. So they use them to open doors and purchase items at the missionary store. We got in and dropped my luggage into the room and sent me on my way to my first class of the day. The buildings are separated into three sections of the campus: Service (S), Residence (R), and Teaching (T). So my first class was in T3. It was so exciting, walking towards the modern building. The architecture is beautiful, unfortunately, I don't have any pictures at this time except for one (See photo 1) but I'll make sure to get more before I leave. Before I got to class, me and some other new missionaries stopped and picked up a MTC smart phone (Galaxy J3) which I will get into later. I got to class and I met my companions, Elder Reynolds (on the right in photo 1) and Elder Higgins (to the left in photo 1). They are amazing people and I'm thankful that they are my companions.

I met my wonderful teachers, Sister Christensen and Brother Hulick and we went over a few things about the MTC. Unfortunately, my smart phone wasn't reset properly and I couldn't set things up. So after about an hour or so, we and my companions went to S1 (which is the main building) to meet the MTC president. Afterwards, I took my phone to the IT information desk to get it replaced, then we went to dinner. Which by the way, their food is actually really good, we had country fried beef with mashed potatoes and corn. I also checked the cereal wall (I couldn't take a photo since taking pictures in the cafeteria is not allowed) and all I could say. It was pretty disappointing. Our next class involved the introduction of teaching investigators. We met Samuel, Dwain, and Daniel. Everyone was sharing the gospel and it was so spiritual, me and my companions gave out our first Book of Mormon.

Some funny things that have happened, whenever we would walk out, every Elder and Sister would greet us with "Welcome to the MTC". It was pretty funny after a while, also people kept pronouncing my last name wrong. Either they would say something like Elder Dood or Elder Dodo. All I could do was laugh and correct them. So it's a ton of information and a great introduction to my journey. Honestly it was an amazing first day. Sorry I wasn't able to call home, my schedule didn't allow it. Thank you everyone for the love and support and I miss you all.

Thursday, October 17, 2019 - Day 2

Kumusta po kayo!

Our district wanted to get up at 6:00 AM so we could take a shower. I slept fine, the bunk beds are nothing to write home about. I'm just glad that my feet don't dangle off and I get a bunk to myself. Me and the district went and got breakfast (breakfast burrito and blueberry pancake batter sausage sticks). For only being two days, I have already improved my Tagalog ten fold (see video). Sorry, not sure why I was so nervous haha. I'm meeting a lot of great people and love speaking the language.

It is actually a lot more difficult to journalize and write out this letter than I thought. Trying to put together thoughts, experiences and emotions onto paper proves challenging but I'm trying my best. Me and my companions had some free time so we made our way to the missionary store to pick up some items which has a prepaid amount of $10, so that's awesome. Bought some Twizzlers and Cheese Ritz. Some of these items happened to be 5 books for Tagalog, it's absolutely insane but im thankful for the information they provide. At around 6:00 PM, we headed over to the T4 building where we talked to our branch president and got to know him as well as he got to know us. It went on for about 3 hours but it was fun.

I found out that I visit the temple every P-Day which happens to be Friday so i'm very excited for that. According to the missionary handbook, i'm not allowed to bring my temple clothing so I might ship it home before I leave for the Philippines. Unfortunately, as I'm writing this, I won't be able to call home this week but plan on hearing me next Friday. Thank you for reading and enjoy the photos and the video. Remember that God loves all of you and I'll see you next time.