Nametags and Native Russians

So, I'm pretty sure that it was since I last wrote that we receive our nametags in Russian. At the MTC the whole tag is in Russian except for the last name. So, that's pretty neat. We will be in Ukraine in about 4 weeks now. Time really flies here.

 

Remember how I said we were hoping for an apostle? Well, guess what? Last Tuesday Elder Russell M. Nelson came to speak to us. It was pretty awesome as ~2500 missionaries all stood as he entered the room while we were singing. It was my first time ever seeing a member of the Quorum of the Twelve in person. He spoke about our purpose and doing everything in the proper order. He also stressed that our missions continue on after we get home, that we need to be friends with the people we bring into the Church, care about them, and keep up with their lives after we get home. I think that's such a great point to remember. He said that when we meet people we need to shake their hand and look them in the eyes. He said the eyes are the window to the soul and we are entitled to receive revelation as to how we can help them. It was certainly a powerful experience.

 

Last Wednesday our new missionaries all arrived safe and sound. There are 12 sisters and 6 elders. On Wednesday evening we did a quick introduction and took them all to their residence halls so they could unpack. Then on Thursday evening they had a special meeting with the Branch Presidency which we brought them to, followed by some training conducted by Elder Takagi and I, and the co-ordinating sisters. It all went really well. It was an inspiration to see every one of the new missionaries stand and tell us all why they chose to serve a mission. There are some amazing people here. They are all full of testimony and love, I'm humbled and grateful to serve amongst people like this.

 

There is a native Russian sister here from Moscow, going to Temple Square, named Sister Anastasia Tizhanina. It's been great to get to know her a bit. This past week she asked me if I would do the temple work for her grandfather. I was so honored by this request. We don't do baptisms or confirmations here as missionaries, but it will be done today and I'll do the rest next week. It is such a special thing. She also did the work for her mother while she's been here. She has an amazing conversion story and spirit about her. Again, there are some truly great people here helping to move this work along.

 

This Sunday was jam-packed and super good. I loved every minute of it. Due to our calling Elder Takagi and I have meeting almost the entire day on Sundays. One of the coolest things was that our branch was assigned to preside at the sacrament meeting for the cafeteria staff. Our Branch President played the piano, Elder Takagi conducted the meeting and I conducted the music. I could feel the spirit so strongly in that room, even though the staff were wearing everything from Church dress to uniforms to leather jackets. The service that they do for us touches my heart. One of them gave a spiritual thought and she talked about how she didn't really want to get out of bed that morning but then she remembered what her job is and that she needed to go to help nourish these missionaries so they could serve the Lord and help bring others unto Christ. It might sound a little cheesey, but it is so real. We are treated and provided for so well here, it's incredible. Surrounded by greatness.

 

In our regular Sacrament meeting Pres. Harrison gave a great talk and related the story of the mule in the well. The people decided to just fill up the hole and the mule realize he could just shake of the dirt and step up. That's what we need to do as missionaries, shake it off and step up. He told us that our missions will be a little hard, but not a lot hard. I'm so eager to get out there and to serve the Lord with all that I have. Yesterday we were asking our teacher Bro. Keith Anderson about eating in the mission field. He served in Novosibirsk. He said that your so busy everyday that you don't have that much time to think about that kind of thing. I know he was a great missionary. I want to be like that. Sunday concluded with a Fireside where Stephen B. Allen the Managing Director of the Missionary Department spoke.

 

Late last night our native Russian missionaries came. So far I have only met the 2 Elders. They are Elders Golotsvan and Scherbina. One of them is from Odessa which is in my mission. The other is from the next mission over in Ukraine. We have another Ukrainian sister here and a Russian sister who should be here soon if not already. It's exciting to have them here. We get to take a lot of our preparation day today to give them some training.

 

I continue to love it here. It was funny, at the fireside on Sunday Bro. Allen asked everybody to stand who loves the food here. I'd say it was about 15-20%. I stood up. It's pretty good stuff usually. I switch to just drinking water this week and I've been feeling really good about it. I was drinking a lot of Powerade and chocolate milk before. I've gained a little bit, maybe 10 pounds, but you can see it much. 10 pounds isn't a lot on me. I figure, as long as I'm not growing sideways I'm alright. I expect to lose weight in Ukraine too. I have apparently gotten bigger though. My chest is up to 46.25" now and my suit jackets are 44". Not the ideal situation. It became more apparent as I wore one of my vests on Sunday that used to be too big and is now too tight. I think I'll manage though. Haha. I'm looking forward to probably buying a suit in Ukraine. My teacher said he got a tailored suit in Russia for about $80.

 

Time's running out now. I'm so grateful to be alive, to be a missionary, and to serve the Lord. I know that this is where I'm supposed to be. God lives. The Atonement is real. The Holy Ghost is real. I feel Him everyday. Thanks again to everybody. 4 more weeks in the MTC. Life is awesome.

 

Much love,

Elder Mahoney

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

Unprecedented Happenings

Alright, so much happening all the time! Where to start... Well first off, this week I met Chance Pilling, Bishop Piling's nephew this week. He's going to the Philippines.

 

Along with the new district being formed last week, my mailbox number has changed. It is now #334. Mail will still get to me eventually either way, but it makes it easier on the mail room if you send it to the new one.

 

One of the coolest, if not the coolest, aspects of being Zone Leaders is the chance to spend so much time with our Branch Presidency that other missionaries don't get. 2 of the members of our Branch Presidency have been mission presidents in Russia and all 3 are very successful. On Sunday I had an awesome "interview" w/ Pres. Michael Harrison. He basically just told me how I'm doing and then we talked for like an hour. He's the man.

 

Tomorrow we're welcoming 18 new missionaries. Guess what the gender ratio is. 12 sisters and 6 elders! It's pretty crazy, this never happens. There will now be more sisters than elders in our zone. Next week 4 native Russian will be coming too. Even in the other Russian zone there are 9 sisters coming in and 8 elders. It's so good though, sisters are so valuable. They bring a lot to missions that elders can't. We need so many more missionaries. If you're thinking about it, please come! I'm still the one one going to my mission Russian-speaking here. There may be some coming into the other Russian zone tomorrow, but I don't think so. It's pretty exciting. It's cool because it increases the chances of me going to Moldova if I'm one of the only Russian speakers going to Kiev at this time. I'm really exciting for the new missionaries to come. We get to teach them a bunch of stuff as Zone Leaders and show them around, plus be there for their meeting with the Branch Presidency.

 

I've said it before, I'll say it again, the teachers here are amazing. We're surrounded by great people. I sing in the choir every week and I love it, the directors are so good, you've seen them conducting at General Conference before. A lot of people have a lot of different attitudes about the MTC, but it is so rockin' to me. I love it! We learn so much all the time and it's all about pushing ourselves further and harder. The Gospel is amazing. This Church is awesome and the work is moving along steadily. I love how everything just keeps pressing forward and progressing. It's never just the same old thing.

 

I'm excited for the Devotional tonight, they're always super good. Last week Bishop Richard C. Edgley, councilor in the Presiding Bishopric spoke to us. It's been 6 weeks without an apostle, so we're hoping one'll come soon. This place rocks. Kiev is going to be even better in a lot of ways! I know this work is true. Joseph really did see God the Father and His Son in New York. Thomas S. Monson is a prophet. I love you all. Thanks for everything.

 

Godspeed,

Elder Mahoney 

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

New District, New Calling

Alright, wow... So much has happened this past week it's truly hard to believe. Last Tuesday night the devotional speaker was Elder Neuenschwander, emeritus 70. He was the first General Authority to speak Russian and he has done so much for the Church in Eastern Europe. He gave an awesome talk. That night my companion, Elder Takagi, and I were called to be the new Zone Leaders. Three districts in our zone just left in the last to days to the field. It's kinda complicated how everything works here. There's the ecclesiastical side and then the mission side. There is a MTC Presidency then 2 District Presidencies (like a stake), then there are a lot of branches, I'm not sure how many, but over 50 and each has a Branch Presidency. That's the ecclesiastical side of it. Then on the mission side, each branch is comprised of a zone and each zone has multiple districts. So, we work closely w/ the Branch Presidency (who are awesome, by the way. 2 of them were mission presidents in Russia.) and we're the link between the district leaders and the Branch Presidency. There are a bunch of responsibilities associated with that, but the biggest one is welcome the new missionarys who will be coming in next week and the native Russians the following week. There are 38 new Russian speaking missionaries coming in next Wednesday who will be split between 2 zones. So we will have about half of them and rumor has it that there are more sisters than Elders! That is really strange since the total number of sisters is usually around 10% of all missionaries. So, it was made official on Sunday and the past couple days I've been signing everybody's room checkout sheets, one of them at 4:00 AM. We also need to do the programs up for Sacrament Meeting and Priesthood Meeting and interview the District Leaders as well as go to Branch Council and Branch Presidency Meetings, plus Leadership Training and Zone Leader Training. It's pretty exciting stuff, lots to do. It's nice to stretch.

 

Now, that was only about half the news really. On Thursday night out of nowhere one of the people higher up in training came into our classroom and announced that there would be some big changes in the way we're learning here. What they did was split our District. A new district was formed called District 10E. Elder Takagi and I were moved to the new one along with Sister Jarman, whose family lives in Moscow and she studied 3 semesters of Russian at BYU, and her companion Sister Uibel, who speaks Arabic and is doing very well with Russian. Then 3 others were brought in from another zone, Elder Windham, who was here last year learning Russian for 8 week and Elder Ortner who is a Jewish convert, born in Israel, and studied 3 years (?) of Russian I think (Who is also our new District Leader, by the way) and Sister Alexeenko who was born in Germany to Ukrainian parents, lived a lot of her life there, then in Louisiana, California, and Utah. So, this is like an Intermediate/Advanced Russian District. As far as all the teachers and training department know it's the first time this has ever happened in the MTC. It's going great so far. We took one of our teachers with us, Bro. Keith Anderson, who is totally the man! I love him so much. He's expecting his first child in a couple weeks. Then, we got a new teacher who is a native Russian, Sister Chenina. She just got back from her mission on Temple Square about 6 months ago. She also super cool. She speaks Japanese too, she was offered free grad school at an Japanese university before her mission because she won an international competition but she chose to go on a mission instead. He parents were totally against her joining the Church, still are. She basically also lost 4 years of University by going on a mission too. She's studying at BYU now. She used to work in the circus and as an actress. She speaks almost exclusively in Russian with us. I really feel we're learning a lot faster. I'm so grateful to be a member of the Living Church where things can change like this according to revelation.

 

I'm bummed I don't have more time to write because so much is happening here. But, I am so grateful to be here. I still love it. I love being a missionary. I'll try to type faster next time.

 

Love you all,

Elder Mahoney

 

P.S. I think there was so confusion in the last message. By address I meant physical address. I can only email family in the MTC. That might change in the field but for now if you want a response please include physical address in your DearElder message.

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

General Conference in the MTC

The weeks really just disappear here. It's wild how fast things move. The 2 Russian districts ahead of us are leaving in about 7 days. I swear, just yesterday, it was 15. We'll be in their shoes in no time. This week was certainly a great one. I've met quite a few great people. The cool thing is that really everybody here is great, over 2000 of them. General Conference was this weekend and it was awesome as usual. I went in with a question in mind as I usually do and it was answered in the first session. I would say my favorite talk was probably Elder D. Todd Christofferson's talk on Saturday Morning. I want to consecrate my whole self and life to the Lord. I loved how he explained to do that. Speaking of Saturday "Morning", it was a little weird for me to go to all of the sessions in daylight because I've never been in a timezone so early, let alone the actual one it's broadcast from. It was still sunny after the priesthood session. Where I'm from it finishes at 23:00. One really cool thing was that when the prophet walked in on the screen everybody stood up just like at the Conference Center and were silent. The first time that happened I could feel the Spirit so strongly. Thomas S. Monson is truly a prophet of God.

 

Usually when I write this I just finished at the temple. Today is the same. It was great. It's a nice switch up from the busy busy life at the MTC. After the session today my companion and I went to volunteer in the laundry from for a little bit. It was really nice. It's such a bustling place. I think I remember hearing that there are 2000 people who work in that temple. I'm not sure if I ever wrote this, but the Wednesday morning before I came to the MTC on September 8th I did a session at the Salt Lake Temple at 6:00 w/ Jess Cooper. It was so awesome. I was very grateful to be there.

 

The Russian is coming along. I'm trying to be more diligent, study whenever I have time like at lunch or in the morning or night. It's awesome to see all the members of my district progressing so well.

 

I'm grateful for the letters I'm receiving, but I just want to make a note. If you are sending me a DearElder and want a response please include your address in the message itself because they aren't clear in the heading.

 

I continue to love the time I'm spending here. It's such a great place. I feel the Holy Ghost everyday. I'm so grateful to be able to spend so much time in the blessed place. I'm on the Lord's time here. These facilities have all been establish with sacred funds. It's humbling to be a part of this great great work. Big things are happening. I've learned that a lot of things are changing for missionaries in the field now too and we should see them there before they start teaching them in the MTC. Many of the speakers, including the prophet, at conference urged every young man to prepare for a mission. Pres. Monson said it is a Priesthood obligation. If anybody reads this and is thinking about a mission, please do it. It is one of the best things you can ever do. You will be so blessed for doing it.

 

Thanks for all the support.

 

Love,

Elder Mahoney

 

P.S. For any French speakers, my brother Daniel will be on Radio-Canada on the Luc et Luc show on Sunday, October 17th. Check it out.

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.