The first night in the MTC wasn't bad for me. It had been a long day, and I was actually sleepy from the night before where not only had we been given our spiritual middle manager, but we had attended our first class and learned how to construct a rudimentary prayer in German. We were instructed to pray in German from now on using the rudimentary prayer and then building off of that as our vocabularies would allow. Every one of us in the district had already had some German from either Jr. High, High School, or both. But that was a very different vocabulary that mostly involved telling each other that their haircuts looked good, and please tell us where the bathroom is because we have to tinkle. Here at the MTC we would get more of the basics, but also really focus on learning the spiritual lexicon. We learned the prayer shit quickly because we got a lot of practice.
We prayed when we got up both individual prayers and companionship prayers, we prayed over breakfast, we prayed before the start of each class, we prayed over lunch, we prayed over more classes in the afternoon, we prayed when we needed strength to endure the drudgery, we prayed at night as a district, as companionships, and as individuals before going to bed. And the second night, most of us prayed that we would overcome our homesickness for the next two years. That god would numb us from the pain of being away from friends, families, and girlfriends that would most likely leave us for douchebags while we were away.
Besides prayer, the other four things we did the most of was: Eat, sit on our asses, fart, and take showers. Food was something that we got plenty of in the MTC. Three square meals every day, and like Elementary School - we had a very strict menu from the cafeteria. There was some options and choices, but not many. However, no matter what was on the menu, meal time was still treasured. It was one of the few breaks that we got from classes. We had a little time after meals to check the mail, write letters, hang out, etc., but that also always depended on our companions. My companion was a slow eater, so we had less time, we also had to always compromise on what we did because we could never be alone. Companions might as well be married to each other, so if Mormon Missionaries knock on your door, you actually let them in, and one looks like he/she is ready to kill the other - that's why.
Classes took up the majority of our days. The average day had 9 hours of class time. Nine hours of gospel doctrine, Foreign language training, and classes on how to proselytize. I had never sat on my ass for that long before in my life. It wasn't a surprise that I came down with prostatitis (see: The Tale of Raptor Jesus's Bum Bum). The proselytizing classes were always interesting. In German, the word for bread was "brot" and in the MTC we learned that an effective tool to help convert people to the gospel was Building a Relationship of Trust - so we affectionately renamed it "baking BROT" with investigators. We also learned a lot about the "Commitment Pattern." This was another effective tool with investigators to get them to do things that you want them to do. After they trust you, you ask them to do specific things, and you use phrases like, "will you do (X)?" and then you follow up about whether or not they've done what you wanted them to do.
Because we were going to Germany it was important that we learn how to go door to door effectively, and also how to strike up a conversation with strangers about the Church. Once a week we went into a room with role playing investigators and were filmed as we taught the gospel (also known as the "discussions"). We were filmed during this teaching and then we would review the film with a teacher and pick apart exactly where we had gotten the "Commitment Pattern" wrong or hadn't properly "Built a Relationship of Trust."
Some would argue that this was nothing more than learning tools about how to bug the shit out of people and be door to door salesmen, and others would point out that the Gospel of Jesus Mother Raped Christ needed to be spread at all costs, and you needed all the tools you could get because you were trying to convince highly educated (in Mormon terms "prideful" or "worldly") people that Joseph Smith saw and spoke with Angels, Jesus visited America, and that the Christian Church was in Apostasy until he chose a convicted con-man to reinstate his church upon the Earth.
One night Satan entered my heart illegally (probably to try to steal jobs from honest, hard-working, natural-born citizens of my heart) and convinced me that I was viewing missionary work as nothing more than high pressure sales tactics, and I had a small panic attack. Brother Cicero took me out in the hall and listened to me rant for awhile. He didn't say much, he just listened - we had already formed a bond because we were both walking Simpsons' encyclopedias, and because his classes all dealt with an attempt to intellectualize the gospel. But the night I broke he didn't intellectualize anything, he just said that he understood how I felt. He told me that I could mail him at any time and gave me his address.
When we weren't eating, attending endless classes or "Firesides" or "Devotionals" we also took a lot of showers as missionaries. Hot, steamy, man crammed showers. We showered in the morning before we had to get ready for the day. And every day meant wearing a suit and tie. A couple of times during the week we were blessed with the opportunity to have gym time scheduled into our days, and so after playing a hot, sweaty game of volleyball or basketball we showered again before getting back into our suits. Sometimes at night we would also take showers to try to rinse the guilt off. Other than classes, we had a lot of "devotionals" where Mormon leaders would come and remind us that we weren't being obedient enough and that god demanded absolute subservience from "his army" and that if we hadn't repented fully of every transgression we had ever committed then we weren't worthy to be there - and get the fuck out and go home in disgrace. Or, if your spiritual leader to whom you were confessing felt generous, you'd be fine. Sometimes Elders who confessed in the MTC stayed, and sometimes they went home even though they had committed the same "sin."
The showers helped though. Like public school gym class all the 19 - 21 year old men on the same floor shared two giant public bathrooms. And there were about 4-6 districts per floor. So roughly 20-30 guys would shower around the same time. We would go in clothed only in our towels and sandals to prevent athlete's foot and then hang our towels upon the hooks right outside the shower area. The room was completely open, fully tiled, and contained two "tree of life" obelisks with multiple shower heads. The naked Elders would find an open head to spray him clean from whatever sweat and guilt he may be feeling that day. Open mouths to fill with rejuvenating water that would also run down in rivulets along his young nudity. Water droplets first following the canyons of cut pectorals and chiseled abs finally releasing themselves from each appendage as the Elders would lather themselves up with soap occasionally turning around to let the warmth spread across their broad shoulders down their lower backs and tight buttocks. Young men looking each other in the eyes while steam clouded their vision of the other beaded wet man in front of them. Their biceps and laterals bulging as they reached up to shampoo carefully kept short hair.
Some Elders would be toweling themselves dry while others would still be cleansing the musk from their tender thighs, occasionally sneaking a glance to rank themselves for manhood. When Elders left the showers soaking wet, others would replace them, and the wettest would take their towels from the rack and sigh as they first dabbed their faces dry to then begin to pat down the rest of their dripping, hard virile bodies with soft cotton.
It was a good thing no one was gay at the MTC.
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