Questions & Answers Week 4

How is your Spanish coming along?
My Spanish is coming along really well, I can speak a lot of Spanish (for being in the MTC) we try to just talk in Spanish almost the whole day!

What are your assignments in the MTC?
My companion and I are online coordinators, we just teach the new districts how to email and use the computers. 

When do you do service?
We have service every Friday for an hour and half in the gym.

Semana Quarto

I can't believe I have been in the MTC for nearly a month now! Time has flown by. We took a trip to Narnia this week. Actually just today, we were playing volleyball outside. Someone hit the ball past the court and it went into a little hole in the gate and down a really big hill. One of the guys in our district went through the hole and down the hill to get it and BAM. 3 deer pop out of the trees and start running along the hill right next to him. He was pretty scared actually and our district got a really good laugh out of that. We didn't really have time to listen if the deer could talk because we needed to get back to our game of volleyball but it was really cool. (except for the fact that the sand volleyball courts were full of deer poop today).

In 12 days I will be heading to Paraguay. I can't wait to get there! I love the MTC and all the friends I have made here but I want to get down there and share the gospel with the people!

I want to share with you 2 Nephi 25:26.

https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/2-ne/25?lang=eng

I love this scripture because it explains what I am doing right now, and what the Book of Mormon teaches about. This book testifies purely of Christ and I am trying to help others come unto Christ. I love this gospel so much and I am so grateful for the opportunity to serve my Savior. I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is of Christ. We teach of Christ, we talk of Christ, and we help others come closer to Him. I love you all, thank you so much for the letters and packages--they make my day!

Elder Brody Zaugg

Pic:This is our district playing Volleyball this morning!

Left to right: Elder Tebbs, Sister Dean, Sister Knudson, ME, Elder Hill, Elder Semu, Elder Bacon, Elder Karren, Elder Walker, & Elder Hawkins

Sister Knudson, Sister Dean, Elder Tebbs 

P.S.-my mom set up a blog for me (yes, she can do everything) if you want to check it out and maybe see a couple more pictures here is the link! 

Www.elderbrodyzaugg.blogspot.com

​
​

WEEK 3 Half Way There (MTC Life)

Well, I have been here 3 weeks now. I've heard this from a lot of people and it is so true: "THe days go by as weeks and the weeks go by as days". The days in the MTC can be very long because we sit in the same classroom for almost all of the time learning the language and the gospel. But after looking back, I cannot believe how fast these weeks flew by!

Inheritance

The oldest district in our zone left this week. They helped us so much when we got into the MTC it was a little sad to see them leave but awesome to see how excited they were! I can't wait to get to Paraguay! ANyways, everyone in the MTC has random things that get passed down from one room to another. So the Elders that left gave us our inheritance. And I inherited one of the most valuable items in our dorm rooms: a fan. A simple fan. It is so hot at night but I finally got a fan. Other things that were passed down include nerf guns and bullets, a couple styrofoam swords, some bubbles, and a Doritos ninja suit. Literally, a suit made out of Doritos bags. 

Personal Story

We taught a member on Monday, like a Family Home Evening. Just before we got into the lesson, we had a feeling to switch from teaching about service, to the Atonement. We shared with her how Christ suffered for our sins, not only our sins, but our pains and afflictions too. Through him, we can be healed and find joy. And shared that we need to repent of our sins in order for us to live with him again. In Helaman 5:10 (If I remember correctly), it says that Christ atoned for us to be saved of our sins, not in our sins. We can only be forgiven of our sins if we recognize them, confess to Heavenly Father, and promise to stay away from that sin. After we taught the member, she wrote an evaluation for us. On the sheet she said, "You answered my prayers". It was the coolest experience for us so far. We felt the Holy Ghost during that lesson so much and to have her tell us that was amazing. 

Que es su proposito

What is our purpose? The New York Times Website has Audio Stories Entitled "One in 8 Million". They are about 3 min long but some of them can be really inspirational. Some videos I really enjoyed were called: 'Freda Degannes: The Walking Miracle', 'Naisi Zhao: The Mormon Missionary'. One of my favorite ones though was 'Mark Mocha: The ex Bank Robber'. Mark robbed 9 banks in Long Island. He was eventually caught and served time in prison. He is now a certified addictions counselor. He loves helping others change their loves and move away from their addictions. His purpose now, is to help teach others the way of truth and teach them how to abandon addictions. In Mosiah 4:15, it says, "Buy ye, (and I like to add my name there) will teach them to walk in the ways of truth and soberness; ye, (Brody) will teach them to love one another, and to serve one another". Everyone is a teacher in their life. Mark teaches others how to get over their addictions, others teach children at school, but the best teachers in my life were my parents. Parents do a lot of teaching. I want to follow the example of my parents and teach my kids to walk in the ways of truth, to be kind and love everyone, to always tell the truth, and to show respect to everyone, to serve someone in need, and to listen and obey the commandments/rules of adults, teachers, and most importantly our Heavenly Father. I know that Heavenly Father loves each and everyone of us. I know we are his children and he wants what is best for us. By obeying the commandments, I know we can return to live with him. 

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/1-in-8-million/index.html#mark_mocha

Elder Zaugg

The Branch President, President Williams and his wife Sylvia Zaugg Williams

(YES...Zaugg is right.  She is cousins with Brody's Grandfather!)

What a sweet Tender Mercy that was to find out he was in the MTC with family!

Elder Mark Brown (the juggling record holder at the MTC & a Best Friend!

The "things" that they inherited! 

Elder Noah Miller (an eternal best friend)  & Brody

Elder Daniel Tebbs (Brody's companion) & Sister Corriveau (long time family friend)

More fun with their "inheritance"

Jeff Kerr (works at MTC)  found Brody during exercise time and got a picture!

(Thanks Brooke for getting this for us!)

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

THESE ARE A FEW QUESTIONS WE HAVE HAD FOR ELDER ZAUGG:

1.  WHAT IS CHURCH LIKE ON SUNDAY?
Spanish sacrament with our whole zone, about 35 missionaries total....

2.  WHAT CLASS IS YOUR FAVORITE?
I like when our two hermana teachers come, they challenge me more in the language than our maestro does.  he speaks really slow to help others.


3.  HOW IS YOUR SPANISH COMING?  Great
      DID HIGH SCHOOL SPANISH HELP?
Spanish in high school helped so much!


4.  WHAT ISYOUR BRANCH PRESIDENT LIKE?
My Branch President is awesome!  He loves so much and is the one that has inspired me to love and serve more


5.  DO YOU KNOW YOUR TRAVEL PLANS YET?
No, not yet


6.  WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE THING TO EAT IN THE MTC
The meals for lunch and dinner in the gluten free room are usually good.  Breakfast is harder, they don't have a lot of things but I really like breakfast when they have gluten free french toast!


7.  WHAT FRIENDS AND FAMILIAR FACES DO YOU RUN INTO?
Mark, Noah, Kiana, Elder Carr, Hermana Oldroyd and Sister Arnett


8.  WHAT DO YOU DO FOR EXERCISE TIME?
Sand volleyball and PT!  sometimes kick a succorable against a wall or juggle

WEEK 2

First, I wanted to thank everyone for the emails, letters, and packages! I love getting them so much! It's awesome to get to pick them up from the mail room:)

Last week I don't really even remember what I talked about in my email, it was probably all over the place haha This week I wanted to talk about service! I watched this super super awesome video called "Lift". It is about a group of men serving a woman with multiple sclerosis, who truly is one in a million. I love how their attitudes change throughout the time that the serve her for over 7 years, and still ongoing. Here is the link, I hope.. haha 

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2015-05-003-lift?category=mormon-messages-2015&lang=eng#d

It is one of the most inspiring videos I hope you all have the chance to watch it!

Personal Story

Last Wednesday (after I emailed), the new missionaries came to the MTC. Over 500 came in. Each missionary that reports has a "host missionary". Really just another missionary that helps them get their materials and too their room and then to class. There is a little while that the new missionary goes into a building to get his/her materials and the host walks around with ALL of their bags to meet them on the other side. Hosts are sisters and elders, and so many times, sisters host an elder just to get on the other side of the building and another elder takes him to his room. Well, the sisters, and elders too, struggle a lot to carry the 3-4 bags, sometimes, if they were anything like my bags) weighing about 70 pounds each. So my companion and I sat at the top of the slope (we did not get to be hosts) and helped as many missionaries as we could with the bags. We took so many bags for sisters that were assigned to elders for the beginning. It made our day so much better to spend an hour and a half serving others. I know that if you perform service for someone, you will feel so great about it. Just being able to see the look on their faces when they are so happy to have someone notice they need help is awesome! I challenge everyone to try and serve someone everyday, even if is just holding the elevator door open for someone who is running to catch it!

Random Story

Every single building here is built out of bricks. I am not kidding, the outside is bricks, the inside is bricks, the carpet probably has bricks under it. So, my district and I thought it would be fun to count a room of bricks and then see how many bricks are in the building. We didn't even count our whole room before we got bored but decided there has to be 300,000 bricks in each building..maybe. Some other fun things that happen are gym time. Gym time is so great. We play sand volleyball almost every time (Yes, mom I still do physical therapy, or at least try to) Without fail, every single day someone gets hit in the face. Once it was a girl in my district, then yesterday it was a guy in my district and myself. Funny story is I was actually the one to hit myself in the face with the ball. I was running away from the net trying to hit the ball behind me but just hit it straight into my nose, and if you have never got hit in the nose with a ball, here is something you should know. It instantly brings tears to your eyes, almost every time. It isn't that it hurts so bad that you cry, but that for some reason, your eyes decide to cry. 

Well, this week went by so much faster than last week! I learned so much to help me on the mission. Spanish is coming along really really well! I've learned how important it is to show love to people and serve them! I hope you all get a chance to serve someone this week!

Elder Zaugg

PICS: I figured out how to send them! 

1. Companion on 4th of July

2. District at the temple

​


​
​

WEEK 1

Subject: FIRST WEEK

Well it has been a week since I left the outside world and it feels like its been a couple months. The first 3 days were so long. It was hard to adjust to 16 hour days of basically straight Spanish. We are in the classroom a lot learning the language, but it is so helpful because I feel like I have learned so much!

The first day: I got in and was so overwhelmed I don't even remember what happened. I forgot my backpack when I entered the MTC so I had someone call my parents to turn around and drop it back off. It had my scriptures, Preach My Gospel and notebooks so it was pretty vital. I met my companion, Elder Tebbs from Linden, UT, serving in Lancing, Michigan. He is awesome! He knows almost zero Spanish so I have to help him a lot on the language but he knows so much about the gospel. After a week he is starting to speak it much better so that is definitely a plus. There are 6 other Elders and two sisters in our District. I am the only one going to a Spanish speaking country. One sister is going to Canada, the other to Mesa, AZ (I told her she is going to love it there. Especially the heat. Shes from Virginia and didn't think it got very hot but I told her it was like standing in an oven). There are 3 elders going to Boston, 2 going to Virginia, and one going to Texas. I am very lucky to be going to Paraguay because they are worried they wont be able to completely learn the language, whereas I won't have a choice.

Day 2: Spanish. All. Day. Long. We taught our first "investigator" and that was so difficult. We went into the lesson with a full preparation. We wrote down everything we were going to say in Spanish and it went so bad. The "investigator" is LDS and helps the new missionaries by being an easy investigator. She has to say she would like to have us back, but after our lesson we thought she would say "Please don't come back". The good news is that everybody's lesson went that way and the next day was much much better.

Day 4: July 4. Besides Christmas, the Fourth of July is my favorite holiday. Every year my family goes to Coronado for the fourth. I love the parade and the fireworks and the BBQ and the beach. I thought this Fourth of July was going to be a little sad but it was actually pretty cool. About halfway through the day I got a message from the MTC Presidency to come to a flag practice. It said I would be holding a flag from either my country or the country I was serving in. We found out that at the beginning of the devotional that night, there would be 100-150 (I think, there were a ton) flags from different countries around the world that were being represented in the MTC. We were celebrating freedom around the world. When we were getting instructed on what we were going to be doing, a sister missionary from Samoa (the missionaries from Samoa bring a lot of..life to the MTC) said that she was from Samoa, serving in the Philippines, but she would be holding the Samoa flag because she wanted to represent her country, and she would not have it any other way. It turns out that she was Sister Corriveau's companion. They held the Samoa flag and I held the Paraguay flag. We were the last two flags to walk in and I have never seen someone have so much pride for their home country than the sister from Samoa. She was waving that flag as high as she could, it was awesome (and funny). When we walked into the devotional with the flags while everyone was singing High on a Mountain top, it was very cool. The Spirit was so strong in that building. 

Day 5/6: We gathered together to watch a talk by Elder Bednar, Character of Christ. The main point I wanted to share about his talk was that we need to learn of the main character of Christ: to turn outward rather than inward. One of the best ways to do this is by service. Serve whenever you can. I know that I need to do more service and have been really trying to do that. Also, we need to show love. If we have something go wrong in our life, don't dwell on it but show love to others. He shared a story of a woman who called him one night and she sounded very frantic. She explained that three girls had been in a very bad accident and she needed Elder Bednar to go to the hospital that they were transferring them to so he could identify them, one whom had already passed on. While he was listening to her, he noticed that she was using another phone to talk to someone else, which happened to be a nurse that was with the girls at that moment. He heard from the other end of the phone, "I am so sorry but we have identified the girl that is dead as your daughter". I cannot even imagine hearing those words, but instead of crying and asking why, she spoke to Elder Bednar and said, "Ok, we need you to go and identify the other two girls. Those mothers really need to know how they are doing. Will you do that for us?" Elder Bednar explained that this was the true character of Christ, to turn outwards rather than inward. I know that if we all strive to turn outward, we can become more like Christ.

Elder Zaugg

Pictures: Computer Error (or human not really sure..) So I will try to figure it out and send it next week. It is kind of embarrassing not knowing how to upload pictures because I loved learning about all the new Apple stuff. I guess the problem is the MTC doesn't use Apple computers... 

This is the talk Brody was referring to:
 http://www2.byui.edu/Presentations/transcripts/religionsymposium/2003_01_25_bednar.htm

Elder Zaugg getting ready for the Flag Ceremony

(Thank you Sister Corriveau for getting this picture!  She stood next to him in the Parade of Countries)

See you in 2! July 1st 2015

I am officially a missionary! Tuesday June 30

Brody was set apart as a missionary for 

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

Surrounded by family, Josh and Jacqui Schlink, Bishop Beck and President Barker

Sunday June 28th

Aunt Karen and Uncle Roy Barraclough drove down from Utah to be with Brody on this special day!

Family