I had learned a few key things in the Provo MTC to aid my for what was to come next in the DR's MTC. I had been reconverted to the gospel (possibly for the first time in all reality). I didn't mention this struggle in the last post because it's resolution didn't take place until I was down in the DR learning from my new Mission President, President Barret.
President Barret was a multimillionaire if I remember correctly. His profession was buying companies, improving their production, and then selling them for even more money. He was since retired and gave inspirational business speeches now. He taught us some really amazing principles and guided us into a new realm of focus I had never encountered. At this time we were still focusing heavily on memorization. There was a giant chart on the wall with every missionary on it and their progress on passing off the discussions memorized. My new companion and I decided we wanted to be first on that list and worked extremely hard to do so. We ran back from every P-Day, we took shorter breaks, we memorized while we ate, we memorized while we did EVERYTHING. I have never been so dedicated to something in a singular moment than then. And almost everyone was. People arrived to the new MTC as they could with visas being the deciding factor. These new people didn't get all of Barrets speeches, or his addicting personality of focus. My skills with computers came into play and I was very thankful I had something of use, thus far all my skills were rendered useless.
All of our teachers were Dominicans. There would be no breaking of "character" and speaking english to us (as rarely as it happened in the MTC, it did happen). I was really scared. I also felt terrible because my spanish was terrible and I wasn't getting any better. Sure I was passing off discussions on the charts... but I couldn't repeat them after I had said them (90% of the time I didn't even know what I was saying, you can't just memorize sounds). This realization made me feel awful, so awful I didn't know if I was going to make it. There were some times I thought I was just going to go home, it was extremely difficult to endure. In the bottom of my despair I found the hymn Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. I had never heard it before in my life. To say that I felt the spirit or I felt peace would be a great understatement. Moments such as those do not come around often I know. That song saved my mission.
I was still a prickly douche in this MTC like I was in the last one I think. But I wasn't as bad and I had more fun with the other Elders. We also had Jamacan missionaries with us for a few weeks and that was fun, even though I couldn't understand them. Then the native DR missionaries came. Some seemed cool (one came really early and became my second companion for a few days) some didn't. It was difficult because no one could really communicate and that caused problems heh. Here is where the first of the cultures clashed. The lighthearted, fun-seeking Dominicans were taken as disobedient and rule breaking missionaries by the Americans. The DR's MTC was much more laxed in a lot of the area's the Provo one wasn't. The only real stress was the memorization, which was a personal decision. The Dominican missionaries were just a taste of things to come.
My weeks in the DR's MTC went as quickly as my 2 weeks in the Provo MTC. But it was soon over. It was time to leave the cocoon. We had gone outside and seen some of the city we were in, but no one understood what we were seeing. It was time to go...
And by the way, CCM is the acronym in Spanish for the MTC, pronounced "Say Say Emmay".
