Hey hey!! This is Elder Slack! Another wonderful week here at the MTC gone! The time is just flying by, this last week we just barely past our 1 month mark out on our missions. It's loco! Before I even know it these 2 years will be gone! The time is just incredible. The days feel like weeks, but the weeks feel like hours!
We've had a really great week here, I've only got a few days left, I got my flight plans here! I leave this upcoming Monday morning at 8:30am. We fly from here to Atlanta and arrive there around 7 local time, and then we leave there around 9pm, red eye all night arrive the next morning in Buenos Aires at 9 am, the time difference is only one hour ahead of Eastern, so it's an 11 hour flight, it's going to be crazy, I hope I can get some sort of sleep on the flight.
All of the Elders and Hermanas in our District are flying down to Argentina with us, except for 2 who are leaving at 2:20 Monday and headed to Ecuador, but I think there is going to be easily over 30 missionaries flying with us down to Argentina, so with all those prayers coming our way we should be pretty safe on the flight. Elder Hall (my comp) is excited but really nervous at the same time. His brother is serving down in Argentina right now and he comes home the same day that we arrive, so he's slightly hoping that he can run into him at the airport, but I don't think their flight plans over lap, so he doesn't think that he'll get to see him.
Also this week, we had a very interesting lesson the other day, we taught a lesson to our teacher, and then we were working on Spanish, and we finished the topic that we were talking about. So then our teachers started talking to us, (All is Spanish of course) About what our fears and expectations of the field are. We talked for a little bit, some Elders said being away from their family, some said the flight, some said talking to people. And then our teachers started talking about faith, and the importance of having faith whilst out on the mission, and they shared with us a scripture that said if we have faith in Christ anything is possible, I can't remember where it is. Similar to Philippians 4:13, but not. And then they continued to talk to us about Spanish and how proficient we thought we were. And then they all bore their testimonies on faith. And then our main teacher said that he would like to challenge us, he would like to challenge us to speak only Spanish for the rest of the time that we are here in the MTC. Which at first we all thought was crazy, but then he said that we had just expressed how much faith we had, we had just said that we believed that through Christ all things are possible, so why don't we act? Why don't we act on our faith and show our willingness to put our trust in him. So we all kind of have to decide for ourselves, whether or not we want to take his challenge. But I have, I've been trying to speak only Español for the rest of the entire time. There have been a few moments where I've slipped up and just put started talking in English, because I forgot I was only supposed to speak Spanish. But it hasn't been to hard yet. I think the hardest part is when you're talking to someone who is from a different district and they are speaking in English to you. I speak English to the people that aren't going Spanish speaking, and I usually just talk in HSI which is Hablar Su Idioma, or Speak Your Language, where if I don't know the word, I can ask someone else if they know it, and if we don't then I'll just use the English one, but It's been great, I just love speaking Spanish so much!! I just feel so much more happy when I'm speaking in Spanish and having Spanish conversations with other people.
Here at the MTC the devotionals have been amazing this week. We have one every Sunday and Tuesday nights. BYU fans be jealous because Sunday night we had Chad Lewis come and speak to us, he used to be a BYU and then NFL football player, and he was part of the coaching staff for BYU football or still is or something like that. But he gave a really great talk on the importance of Faith, and always pushing forwards. He served his mission Chinese speaking, and for the first time that they did a live broadcast of the Super bowl to China, they asked him to be one of the announcers. So when he did it, he realized that he only knew missionary Chinese. So he told them he couldn't do it, but then they said he'd be fine. So he did, and the whole time he was saying things like "I testify that Tom Brady is throwing true passes." It was hilarious, also he talked a little about some service that he did in China. And every time that he had spoke to a large group he'd say "Whoa, God really must love the Chinese people, because he sure made a lot of them!" It was hilarious. Also super spiritual, I just love all the speakers that we've had. Also, he totally brought Taysom Hill with him, even thought he is no longer playing football. He bore his testimony on the importance of missionary work, then he shared an experience where from the football game where he was injured, and he heard from Chad Lewis that there were a few of the apostles up in the box, so he got to go up and talk to them, and he said that President Eyring said to him "If God needed you down there throwing touchdowns, he would have you down there" And he said it was really cool to hear his experience with that, and he said that he knows that God's plan is not for him to be playing football right now. But wait, don't even get Jealous yet.
The other devotional that we had, just last night. Guess what to all you other missionaries too, you get to be jealous because we had Elder Neil L. Anderson of the Quorum of the 12!! It was an amazing talk! The whole devotional was broadcast out to all of the other MTC's in the world, or recorded and rebroadcast. We sang in the choir so apparently we were on the camera, I wouldn't know, I wasn't looking at the screen. But Elder Anderson had an amazing talk. He had 4 main points that he talked about. Sacrifice, The Adversary, Opposition, and Deliverance. He said a ton of great things, and I felt the spirit a ton during it, and I could feel the spirit testifying to me that he is a prophet of God the whole time. One of my favorite things that he said was "A process of becoming" I'm not sure if he meant to say it, or if he just decided not to share that thought, because it's not a full sentence. But That made me think. I thought about what are we becoming and how am I supposed to get there. I thought a lot about the things that I want to become, and some of them I have no clue how to get there, but as I was sitting there after the devotional. I realized that it doesn't even matter where we want to go or what we want to become, it matters what God wants us to become, and God will make it possible for us to get to where we need to be if we are willing to listen to him. Also something else awesome he said was that we, as missionaries, don't really do any missionary work. We just run around all over the place and God is doing all of the missionary work and then we are the ones who get to write home and be like "look at all this work I'm doing." It's really important to remember who's in charge and how small we are compared to God, but also how much he cares for each of us individually. He also said that as missionaries we don't relieve anyone's suffering, we just turn people to Christ and he decides whether or not they need their suffering removed. It was an amazing devotional, and we had an awesome discussion about it as a district afterwards.
The other exciting thing of the week, if none of you noticed, Christmas-iversary came around once again, as it does every 25th of the Month! We had a little celebration in our residence Hall that night and sang a few Christmas Hymns, it was great to see all of the love that we have for each other. Honestly I love it here, several of you have asked if I am surviving the MTC, or you have told me that I need to wait to get out into the field and everything will be so much better. Well honestly I don't see how this could get any better. If the field is better than this then it must be pretty amazing! I love the MTC so much! Our district has grown so close together, Elder Hall and I work together as a companionship so well, even though we are both so different. It's so amazing to see so many missionaries all working so hard for the Lord here. I don't think I'll see this many missionaries any where else. There is just so much love and all of our testimonies are growing so much each and every day! I love this Gospel! I love the Lord! And I love being a missionary!!
Love,
Elder Slack
P.S. Do you know what today is?? It's a great day to be a missionary!
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| -An Elder in my district got these sweet glasses, If you want to get me a present when I get home, these would be prime! |
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| -Found my mission! |
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| Christmas-iversary |
