Saturday, September 10, 2011

Learning about Leadership at the MTC

Dear Family,

I've decided that weekends at the MTC are the worst, because we don't get mail and you still have to work all day.  On the other hand, they are nice because on Sundays it's pretty chill.  After sacrament we go on a temple walk.  Usually, my district lays in the grass under the trees that line the grounds (it's cooler in the shade). 

I've been struggling this week with my district.  One elder has been leaving his companion when he doesn't want to do what everyone else does.  It's a weird situation.  He only really cares about being on time to gym and not anything else.  I had a short talk today about it, and said that to make his companionship work, he needs to give a little.  Whenever you are in a relationship it needs to go both ways.  Sometimes you don't get your way.  I hope I got my point across, and hopefully it will get better without me having to do more. 

It sounds like everything is going well at home!  Emma, Dan, school is great!  Enjoy it!  Silverwood sounds like heaven right now.  I want to go with you guys when I get back. 

Oh, a little bit of housekeeping.  Eliza, can your get onto my g-mail account and send me my contacts list (to my LDS mail account), and mom can you check under my bed to make sure my sleeping bag isn't being squished by the boxes? 

I have an exciting story about a confrontation my district had with zone leaders from another branch.  So, it was almost 10:30 and me and 3 other members of my district were taking short showers because we had been working out.  Most of us were about to get out (just rinsing off) when all the lights in the bathroom went off (the lights are just regular switches).  The zone leaders from the other branch had turned them off.  We yelled for them to turn them back on and two members of my district got out of the showers to turn them back on.  The zone leaders then came in and said that we needed to be in bed.  The combination of the lights and how they addressed us made my district mad.  Two elders got out and told them off (butt naked and soapy).  One of the zone leaders then threatened to call our branch president saying that we talked to him naked.  We were all incensed and told him to look after his own zone.  They left and immediately went to talk to our zone leaders.  We haven't heard anything yet, so I'll tell you more later if anything ends up happening.  Moral of the story:  be considerate of others, don't talk to naked people if seeing naked people offends you, and don't get power trips when you get a little responsibility.  Leaders are there to serve, not boss people around.  After this whole thing I talked to my district about being quieter in the showers so we wouldn't have to deal with that again. 

Well, I have more to say, but I'll save it for the e-mail later today.

Love, Elder Benjamin A. Clark

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