Life's lessons from the MTC

At 21 years old, it is more than a little unnerving to have a group of guys virtually your same age refer to you as "Brother Coppins." Of course, in my case, it’s "Hermano Coppins." But you get the point.  For the past five months, I have worked as a teacher at the Missionary Training Center in Provo. Every nine weeks, I get a new batch of brand new elders, and I get to teach them everything from Spanish verb conjugations to the Abrahamic covenant. As I look back on the past year, some of the greatest life lessons I learned in 2008 were taught to me at the MTC. Below are just a few.   

One afternoon I was sitting on a bench in the MTC, preparing the lesson I was about to teach, and I noticed a pretty girl sitting on the bench across from me. She was alone and apparently doing the same thing I was. This was it! I had been working here only three days and already I had found my eternal companion!  She caught me stealing glances and smiled. We spent the next 15 minutes checking each other out — in a totally MTC-appropriate way, mind you. I tried hard to look contemplative as I stared at the same 'Preach My Gospel' page for several minutes. I even faked a phone call on my cell so that I could show off my Spanish.  My lesson prep time was winding up and I knew I had to ask this girl on a date, lest I miss out on a blessing that heaven was so obviously placing before me. I spent a minute practicing the positive thinking techniques my mission president had taught me. "Just envision her saying 'yes',"  I told myself. Then I stood and began to approach her.  As I drew near, however, another girl in missionary garb came and sat next to her. That’s when I noticed the nametag pinned to her blouse. Her cardigan had been covering it before, but now it was plain as day.LIFE LESSON NO. 1: Never flirt with a pretty girl in a knee-length skirt unless you're SURE she doesn’t have a black nametag.