Elder Jacob Fisher : Love Is the Key to Being One

June 19, 2019

Love is the Key to Being One

გამარჯობა! --> Triumph/Victory/Hello

As of 12:15 today, my district and I will have been at the MTC a full week. Let me tell you how awesome it has been. My district is the greatest of all time!! It is comprised of eight elders and three sisters. Elder Butterfield is my companion and he grew up in Saudi Arabia, so he has interesting childhood stories. The others are Elders Kamber, Christensen, Frazer, Crook, Shamshoian and Lott. We also have Sisters Wall, Salle, and Goldrich. They are all speaking Armenian with me learning Georgian. You might think that this would be a challenge since we spend six hours a day in class, primarily learning our language with at least an hour more of language study. You are certainly correct if you thought that. The languages are not similar at all except for the word "true" which is different by one vowel tagged on at the end in Georgian.

Georgian is going fantastically! Out of about 2000 missionaries here at the MTC, I am the only one learning Georgian. My two teachers personal tutors, Brother Muir and Sister Parsons are really fun and have been very encouraging and helpful in the language. Towards the beginning of the week Brother Muir mentioned that the Armenian missionaries always want to know which language is harder. He said BY FAR Georgian. Of course, the next day, the Armenians ask which is harder, and their teacher said, BY FAR Georgian. It may have to do with the fact that verbs can be conjugated about 114 different ways, but maybe it's something else. I say this not to demean any Elders or Sisters that are learning other languages like Russian or Finnish, but to be fair, there are recognizable characters in your alphabet.

The Armenians are so great to me. They ask to learn some knew Georgians words, so they can say "hello" / "victory" and "thank you" and "Elder" and "Sister" in Georgian. The sisters are even writing a song about me to the tune of "Prince Ali" and including some Georgian in there. (This is primarily because Elder Fisher in Georgian sounds like "ookhootsesi peesheri" and to them is pretty close to Prince Ali). Apparently I am "smart as ten regular men, definitely". That's pretty nifty, I would say. Despite the fact that I am alone with nobody to practice with, I am keeping up with them. In certain areas I am ahead of them and in others they are. The Gift of Tongues is 100% real and there is no doubt in my mind that we have been recipients of it.

Food is fine. Not great. Not my own cooking by any means, but it's fine. Schedules, are packed. Exercise time is a true blessing. The zone is very inviting. Everything is great. And most of the time I love everyone.

The first couple days at the MTC went sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo slow. It was not too enjoyable to be honest. I wasn't sure what to think about Brother Muir and I didn't meet with Sister Parsons until Friday, but after that and a few experiences with the district, I started loving the MTC. Which is good because we'll be here for eight more weeks. We had a whole bunch of workshops and beginning language studies. Sunday, we had sacrament meeting with our zone. This includes Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Russians, Armenians, a Ukrainian, and a Georgian. We are supposed to speak our language as much as possible, so we sing and give talks in languages that not everyone understands. It is amazing how strong the Spirit can be even when we do not know what all is being said. Elder Crook is our district leader and he is doing a great job.

Sunday evening, we went to choir before our devotional. The choir director is very entertaining and has amazing church history stories. Neither of these were the highlight of the night. The greatest was the "film" we watched. It was a devotional given about seven years ago by Elder David A. Bednar. He spoke a great amount on overcoming the natural man and developing the character of Christ. He gave a powerful example of a sister that when she had all reason to look in and not look out to others, thought only of others.

Tuesday's devotional was Elder S. Gifford Nielsen of the seventy. He made some very good remarks, but afterwards in our district council meeting, we focused on his few remarks on being one. Being one with God, Christ, our companions, our district, our zone, etc. It is crazy the tangible love that was present in the room. Over the past week alone, we have grown so close as a district. We spend as much time as possible together. We eat together, we go to choir together, we walk to class and everywhere else together. There is definitely a deep feeling of love between us all. We made goals to pray for each other by name and to have district prayers and several other goals. I literally CANNOT describe the love that is found for each other. This may be because we are a split district in language or our different personalities or just our change since entering the MTC. I really don't know, but it is noticeable. The other missionaries in our zone barely know us because we are constantly together. Our zone leader, Elder Woolf, said they can't call us by just our names because we are just the Armenians.

I can read emails all throughout the week, so give me something to read. I can however only respond on Wednesday, so don't expect a response until then. 103 weeks left.

ნახვამდის! --> Goodbye --უხუცესი ფიშერი

First Zone Leader - Elder Hunt with Elder Fisher and Butterfield