Week 8- Online MTC: "Fearless молодец"

 Hello Everyone!

Short Version: Week 8 is in the bag meaning I'm exactly 88.88% done with the home MTC. I have not received any flight plans to Chicago but am expecting to get those this week. A phrase my dad says all the time is, "God comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable." That has been true learning the language for me. Whenever I'm feeling down on myself or confused out of my mind with Russian, either a teacher or someone in my district has said something that boosts my confidence in the language, and it helps me realize how far I've come in just 8 weeks. On the other hand, when I feel proud and start to strut my stuff, I'm quickly reminded how little I know. I'm still searching for that nice homeostatic equilibrium of confidence and humility.

Long Version: This week was not boring by any means, but there's not too much I'll write about. Mostly some odds and ends.

     Elder Jordan decided we should have "spirit week" like some high schools will do during the week of a school dance or the last week of school. Since our clothes still had to be missionary appropriate it was harder to come up with ideas but here is what we: Favorite Vacation spot as a Zoom background, Dress up like your companion, Blue day, Nerd Day and Zoom background of where we'd serve our missions. (see pictures below)

     Each member of our district individually recorded A Child's prayer in Russian and our MTC trainer edited it into a single audio track. All of the audio including the piano and violin parts were done by people in our district. Remember back to week one of MTC when Elder Hunter started singing without his mic on? At the end of our song, he has a majestic solo. What I wouldn't give to have a voice like his. I'll attach the audio of our song below.

     A "fearless молодец" (molodyets) was the title given to Elder Watson this Friday by Sister Nelson. I'm not sure why that stuck out to me so much. молодец literally means "a good jobber." When we would say "good job" to someone in English, Russians would call the person a молодец (good jobber). If you ever wake up on the wrong side of the bed, go look in the mirror, stare yourself in the eyes, and say "you are a fearless молодец."

     Lindsey and Keenan got sealed in the temple this weekend! Hooray, marriage takes the dub once again. The immediate family and grandparents from both sides (except Sadie:/) got to be there for their sealing. It was super fun to be able to home for their sealing because I wouldn't have had that opportunity if I was doing the MTC in-person. 

     A few days ago I had an interesting experience while eating M&Ms. For Valentine’s Day, my parents gave me a big Costco-sized tub of M&Ms because they’re my favorite candy in the world. I usually eat some in between my MTC classes but just a handful or so. After eating a few handfuls of M&Ms, I felt hungrier for more than just candy so I got out some applesauce. However, when I started eating the applesauce it was like tasteless mush. I had eaten the same jar of applesauce earlier that day, so I knew it wasn’t the applesauce’s fault. For some reason, it didn’t taste sweet like it had earlier. After a few seconds of thinking, it dawned on me that eating M&Ms right before had dulled my sense of taste.
     I didn’t think much of it then, but I was thinking about it later and I reminded me about the dangers of addictions. Applesauce is a relatively healthy food and tastes sweet naturally. M&Ms are SO sweet (that’s why they’re so good), but excluding the 4g of protein when you eat peanut M&Ms, they have no nutritional value. I took an Evolutionary Biology class my last semester of college and we learned about how we likely developed our desire for sugar/sweet foods because it is an indication of food with a lot of calories and in nature, sugary foods are accompanied with healthy things like fiber, vitamins, etc. Now that we have machines they can purify sugar and remove the healthy parts of food. I will now stop boring you with science and go back to my story. When I ate the applesauce, it wasn’t that the sauce had lost its taste, it was the my taste buds had been so overloaded with sugar from the M&Ms I ate. Likewise, addictions can affect us in the same way.
     Whatever the addiction may be, small or large, it can distract us and “starve” us from the most meaningful things in our lives. The addiction could be anything: pornography, gambling, using your phone, video games, tv, drugs/alcohol, the list goes on. They distort reality by giving unreal expectations of what life is like. They taste "sweet". You get the rush, but after the rush your life/reality seems dull. You then crave the rush again but reality can no longer provide you with any satisfaction in comparison to the addiction. Just as the M&Ms desensitized my taste buds from the sweetness or applesauce, addictions will desensitize us from experiencing the truly sweet parts of life.
    After a few minutes my taste was back to normal. The applesauce tasted sweet again but it took a little time. You may read this and think, “oh I don’t have an addiction, this doesn’t apply to me”. However, you may have habits and tendencies that distract you from living in the moment. Are you present when you’re with your family? Is your mind preoccupied with thoughts about work and you miss quality time with your spouse or kids? Now is a great time to change. “Enjoy the little things in life, for one day will look back and realize they were the big things.” -Anonymous

      

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