[note: because of how honest and cynical this letter sounds, I considered not publishing it. I shouldn't have to say that this is my opinion and reflects my feelings at the time that these events occurred, with some additional lessons I've learned since then.]
Dear Little Brother,
You asked me in your last email about in-field orientation day and what to expect...I remember that day very clearly because it was one of the longest in my life. I know you've heard rumors and ideas about what this day is like, so I'll try to break it down for you a little more based on my experience.
This letter is gonna be long. Buckle up.
It all started the day before our orientation, during gym time. I was running that track upstairs in the big gym building (I mean idk if you can really call it running, but I was making an attempt) and I saw some of the sisters from my district doing a lunge walk. I decided to join them, and we did a lunge walk/race around the track to see how many lunges we could do and how fast we could go.
If you don't have thighs of steel already, this is a stupid thing to do. I didn't realize that until that night when I noticed that I was already feeling sore. But I assumed that the pain was a side effect of an amazing workout, and I brushed it off and went to bed.
I felt fine the next morning, until I moved my legs to slide out of bed. I was always the one to turn the alarm off because I was closest to it, and when I got up I think my legs actually buckled under me. My thigh muscles were so sore that I felt like I was crippled. The other sisters in my district were also feeling it (though to this day I'm pretty sure it affected me the worst haha). Seriously. I could barely move without gasping in pain. I remember limping to breakfast and then to our orientation. I seriously could not walk without help, either from a wall, a railing or my companion. And she was feeling it, too. We looked like a couple of old ladies (I'm not bashing on old ladies, of course -- we just looked horribly out of shape for our age).
In-field orientation is a round-robin style of hands on, participation activities designed to help missionaries prepare for real-world missionary experiences. You'll be separated from your companion probably as you are assigned to walk around the room talking to "strangers" or the other missionaries. You'll practice street contacting, talk about how important unity with your companion is, etc...
There's only one fatal flaw in it. It's designed for AMERICAN MISSIONARIES IN ENGLISH SPEAKING MISSIONS. AND IT'S COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT ANYWAYS BECAUSE EVERY SINGLE MISSION DOES THINGS DIFFERENTLY.
I get now that we were probably just supposed to care about the principles of what we were going over. Maybe it was just because we'd been in the MTC for eight weeks by that point, or maybe because I'm just a really cynical person, but I did not appreciate anything about in-field orientation day. And the whole sore killer thighs thing really didn't help. All the sitting around definitely made the soreness worse, and by the end of the day I was popping pain meds and leaning on absolutely anyone for support to keep from bending my legs and extending my thigh muscles haha.
So if I remember correctly, we had several hours of the round-robin workshops talking about different elements of missionary work (again, all for English-speaking missions in America), and then a lunch (but not in the cafeteria, so we were stuck with whatever they gave us -- I think it was pulled pork sandwiches and a bag of chips and a cookie? I remember it wasn't nearly enough to get me through till dinner, haha). After that, I think we all came back together in the big room and they did a play.
Yes, you heard me right. They put on a play for us to illustrate how to work effectively with ward leaders. Which is really great...unless you're going to a country where the majority of the active church membership are still recent converts themselves, and the words "church" and "organization" never occur in the same sentence. It was the corniest, cheesiest production I've ever seen, maybe in my life. It's worse than the Testaments, if you've seen that movie ("Jacob...Jacob"). And my entire district of 14 missionaries were laughing our heads off the entire time. I think we were just really jaded with MTC life at that point and we were a little irked at how scripted and fake the whole play was.
But NOBODY ELSE THOUGHT IT WAS FUNNY. It's like when you make a joke at the pulpit and only your family laughs in the back row. Our whole district was IN TEARS we were laughing so hard, almost peeing ourselves...and everyone else was being reverent and spiritual and taking it seriously. We got so many stern looks and passive-aggressive "can you be quiet? I'm trying to feel the SPIRIT LIKE YOU SHOULD BE" hushes.
People take the MTC waaay too seriously. There's a time and place for everything, and I fondly recall the special spirit within those walls and the audible, personal answers to sincere prayers whispered as I knelt outside my bedroom after 1030pm. But it just isn't reasonable to expect a bunch of 18-21-year-olds to stay on a spiritual high 24/7 when they're all in close, confined quarters. We all have our breaking points. Some people stress-eat, some stress starve, some freak out and start working 200% more than they did before, some make themselves physically sick from the stress, some get overly competitive...we had all types in our district. But one thing we were all really good at was laughing it off together. I did so much laughing in the MTC; frankly, I wish I'd done that more. After all...the immortality and eternal life of man is a pretty joyous work, wouldn't you agree?
On a semi-related note, MTC district sisters finally came home this Friday. It's caused me to wax philosophical and reflective (even more so than usual, haha). I had an incredible experience going to TRC this weekend. I met with two Elders who, rather than teaching the lesson they had prepared, asked me question after question about my mission, and about Thailand. It's a tender subject for me, still. They asked me about the people I taught, how I saw their lives change. And then they asked me about the changes I saw in MY life in Thailand. And I don't think I really started to understand the gospel of Jesus Christ until I went to Thailand. It was only after days, weeks and months of disappointment and failure that I really began to understand that because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, I always had someone who understood perfectly how I was feeling.
Christ is always reaching out to us; we only have to pray to reach out to Him. There have been so many days in the last month when I didn't think I could even get out of bed -- I managed only to kneel and just beg Heavenly Father to help me make it through the day, to give me enough strength to be okay just until I was done with class. And on those days I have seen miracles and felt strength and support. When you feel like no one else understands how you feel...well, you're probably right. But Jesus Christ does.
Please don't ever forget that "doing your best" on some days just means you don't deck your companion/investigator/people cursing at you on the street. Some days, your best is holding back the tears just until you turn off the lights and then you cry yourself to sleep. God cares infinitely more that you keep trying, that you keep getting out of bed every morning, than whether you are perfect at the language or always know exactly what to do or say.
Like I said, this was a long one. I have a lot of thoughts and emotions about the mission, haha. I hope that you are little bit more positive than I was about in-field orientation -- I did enjoy it, but mostly because I knew I was leaving in less than a week after that. ;) I hope you're not getting bored of the MTC food yet and you haven't gone crazy!
I love you! Live it up!
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