MTC Update

OK, one hour a week on the computer is not that much time. (Especially with 30+ emails to read through first.) So I'll be quick. I made a list of things I want to talk about, but it'll be in no real order.  I only have 5 more minutes so it'll be a little clipped. Oh well.

First of all, I hope that Becky and Jeremy have gotten moved all right. I feel bad that I wasn't there to help them out, so I'm sorry for that.

Also, I'd be interested to know who of you all know anything about the "Narnia Hole". It seems likely that Dad would know about it, although he might know it by a different name. I'm not going to tell you all what it is, I just want to find out if any of you know it, or if it's just modern-day MTC culture.

This morning I did an endowment session at the temple. The guy was from the 1600s and his name was/is Simon Cluzel.

I came to the MTC without getting my TDap or Flu shots, so I had to get them here. I went to the clinic, got the shots, paid for them, and left. Later that day, I received an envelope from the MTC containing the money that I paid, as well as a bill that said something along the lines of "We're sorry, we charged you the wrong price. The actual price is $X more than you paid. Here's your money back, please come to the clinic and pay up or we'll send a bill home." I was laughing, I've never received money and a bill in the same letter before.

Another funny story, this happened just last night: Eldè Halling sleeptalks a lot. (Sometimes he even sleepwalks.) Halfway through the night, we wake up to hear him telling someone "If you want me to share a scripture, I will do so." A few minutes later, he continues. "Mwen vle pataje temwayaj mwen." (I want to share my testimony.) He then proceeded to start a prayer (not a testimony), in Haitain Creole, thanking God for today, and asking him to help us learn Haitian Creole. He stumbled through a few words, and so instead of finishing the prayer, he said in English: "man, I'm sorry, I'm so tired. Maybe it would help if the lights weren't off." A few minutes later, he wished whoever he was talking to "good night", and that's where it stops. He doesn't remember any of this.

I didn't get to watch General Conference from the conference center, but I watched them all here. It was a great conference, I really enjoyed all of the talks. I think it's interesting how much they're pushing member missionaries. I think that my favorite speaker is David A. Bednar - partially because his talk on Saturday, but mostly because of his talks which they play on Sunday nights here at the MTC. (None of them are published online, unfortunately. I checked.)

But the part that I enjoyed the most is that for the Sunday devotional, after General Conference, we got to listen to Vocal Point. It wasn't as good as they would have been because they were limited to doing hymns, but they still sounded great, and they each bore their testimony in between songs and you could really feel the spirit.

My new favorite word is "an kèskeseksa" which is actually two words, but "kèskeseksa" is never said without the "an" so I put it there anyway. It means "in question" or "in doubt". I have not found a legitimate place to use it yet, but when I do it will be super impressive.

Also, it's ridiculous how many two letter words there are in Haitian Creole. I've made a list of ~60 so far, not including the words that are acronyms or onomatopoeias.

Last but not least, I just wanted to say how similar learning a new language is to learning a new programming language. I didn't think they would be so similar. I've never gotten deep enough into Spanish for me to realize it. But there are a few points:

-The first language is the hardest. It takes years (for a linguistic language, only a few months if you really try for a programming language) to become really proficient in it.

-Each consecutive one after that makes it easier to learn new languages.

-Just because you know one way to say things doesn't mean that you know the language; I can piece together sentences in Haitian Creole fine, but I still can't understand all that much when other people speak.

-The ultimate goal is to become fluent - to get the point across quickly (save time) but with as little ambiguity as possible (readable code/understandable sentences). (For the record, Haitian Creole is ridiculously ambiguous. So much depends on context. I'm having trouble adapting.)

I'm out of time.

Thanks,

Eldè Slade