Flu Vaccines and Glacier

This week, Elder Medel and I went to Punta Arenas, where we finished off the lesson plan presentations.  It was cool to see how the presentation has improved over the last five weeks, and it's hard to believe that we gave it for the last time.

On Thursday, we had the chance to work with Elder Hardy and Elder Salgado.  It was good to have a full day to proselyte without any presentations or traveling.

On the way down to Punta Arenas, Elder Medel and I had to bring the flu vaccines to the missionaries, and the vaccines had to be kept in a certain cold temperature range.  So we took them in a cooler with ice packs.  We had to get the vaccines checked by the airline security (because they are needles).  The airline security people wrapped the cooler in this super official-looking tape.  When we got on board the plane, the lady sitting next to us saw the cooler, and then got up and found a different seat.  I suppose it must have looked like we were transporting a heart or liver, or something like that.

Sometimes people see our name tags, and they ask if we are police.  Maybe we are too serious?  I think we need to smile more... just kidding.

On the way back from Punta Arenas, the skies were clear, and we saw a GLACIER.  It was pretty cool.

So now Elder Medel and I are preparing to rinse and repeat [coordinate all the missionary transfers and assignments to new locations], one more time.  I am really impressed with Elder Medel.  He has some great ideas to revolutionize some leadership aspects of the mission.  We are working really hard this week to prepare everything for Leadership Council next Friday, and then the next cycle of Zone Conferences.

Editor's note:  To those who have been reading this blog, Thomas is down to his last "transfer period" or final six weeks in Chile.  He will be returning home in early August.

Week 5 - Coyhaique

Today Elder Medel and I got back from Coyhaique.

Coyhaique is a pretty isolated place, and I was surprised at how united the missionaries were in the zone.  They all live about 2 hours apart from each other, but they seemed to be the best of friends and really close.  Good job, Coyhaique!  They're achieving great things.

This week Elder Medel and I helped President make the leadership and sector assignments for the coming transfer cycle.  It looks like I'll be finishing my mission as assistant.  It would have been cool to be a normal missionary for my last six weeks, but I'm content with my assignment.  It will be good to keep learning more about leadership, and there are a lot of things that I would still like to do as assistant that I haven't had the time for... yet.

Elder Medel and I will be together for 3 cambios, and it's going to be great.  We have the drill down, and we're starting to plan the zone conferences and zone leader council of the coming cambio.  It's going to be sweet!

-Elder Crotzer

How Lessons Plans Help Teaching

Elder Medel and I finished the second week of presentations on making good lesson plans.  We are just enjoying P-day and not having to speak to a group of people right now.  In the last 4 days, we spent a total of 16 hours presenting, so we are glad to not return to that routine until Tuesday.

As Elder Medel and I made the presentation, we both did some pretty profound studying on lesson plans, and their impact on the quality of teaching.  Personally, I did some profound thinking about why and what we teach as missionaries, the goal of teaching in general, and how lessons plans help us achieve that goal.

My goal as a teacher is to correct misconceptions and change perspectives.  The result is a change in attitude and behavior.

I teach the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ to help others prepare to be baptized.

Lesson plans help me organize my ideas, so that I can present them in an understandable manner to other people.

In the presentation, we talk about why lesson plans help us teach, what they consist of, and how we make them.  After the presentation, we talk one-on-one with each companionship about their current lesson plans, and we encourage them to improve based on what they learned.  Then we show them an example lesson plan, and analyze how the lesson plan enhances the quality of the teaching.

There are many ways to create a lesson plan, and all the missionaries should find a way that works for them.  My example lesson plan is a detailed analysis of two verses of scripture.  It is a series of 9 questions that guide the student through a process of

   1. Focusing on a sentence or phrase of the verse,
   2. Analyzing how that phrase or sentence teaches a doctrine or principle,
   3. Applying the doctrine or principle to life,
   4. Committing him to make the change to his everyday behavior based on the now-correct understanding of the doctrine.

Amid the questions and verses, I have sprinkled some analogies and examples, as well as a few definitions of difficult-to-understand words or phrases.  It's not a comprehensive example that includes everything a lesson plan might consist of, but the missionaries generally seem to like it, and it gets their ideas flowing on how they would like to modify their lesson plans.  One sister missionary told me that I should be a schoolteacher... or a salesperson.  We'll see, Hermana.

I'm glad for the opportunity to be able to learn so much about teaching and learning.

-Elder Crotzer