We started student/short-term missions training this past week. It has been awesome meeting the other student/short-term missionaries. We have been learning about discipleship and what this really means by fully defining it through the scriptures. Another thing we have been learning about is how cultures are formed, how worldviews are established, and how to expect culture shock. One thing that has been a theme through the entire thing is perseverance and that “in order to be great at something we must first be willing to start off bad at it” this, in particular, has been repeated multiple times. The first time this theme was introduced was Sunday night during orientation. They showed us a bicycle that has had one thing changed, this is a very simple change, the handlebars are reversed, when you turn right the bike goes left, when you turn left the bike goes right. Our teacher explained this to us and told us that this is similar to a lot of things in missions. One of these things is culture, the culture of the place that we are going might be mostly the same but one fundamental thing could be different and completely make us wreck. Another thing that this is comparable to is learning a language, the only way to master it is to try hard and work at it. We were told that in order to pass training that we must be able to ride the “backwards” bicycle. Another thing I was not expecting was an assigned workout regiment. We are to do as many pushups, squats, burpees, and running that we can along with working towards a five-minute plank, thus pushing ourselves to be physically prepared for the mission field, and doing all this every day this week is a change that has resulted in being sore, but I have come to understand that soreness is a sign of growth.

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