First and only PDay at the MTC

HEY FRIENDS!!

Ok so today is my first and only Preparation Day at the MTC since I got thrown into the advanced classes for Spanish. SO I will be leaving for Argentina next Monday. How crazy is that??  So in my advanced Spanish class, I am with nearly 100% native speakers and so it’s been so hard! But fun at the same time because I can literally FEEL myself getting better. It's crazy. The power of the Spirit is HERE! Craziness.

But this "week" (really only 5 days), has been crazy awesome. I have been learning so much about how to teach people and how to teach with the Spanish language. I am improving so much! It’s great! 

The first two days were pretty much just classes on how things work and how to adjust to missionary life and stuff like that, but these past 3 days have been full on study! It’s so great! Our daily schedule has three different class periods that are 3-5 hours long (but they go by really fast so it isn't bad). We have teachers for two of the periods but one of them is just straight personal study and preparation time! It’s so fun! 

So our teachers are Hna. Casades and Hno. Barfuss. They are so great! They have so much insight on not only how we can be better teachers, but how we can be better missionaries. It’s so much fun to listen to what they have to say, that is, when I can understand it because they only speak Spanish to us! But it’s great! As I've been praying for help with the language, I have been able to improve so much and understand everything I need to! I say need to because I still can't understand when they make jokes and stuff, but when they are teaching, I understand. It's a real blessing.  

So we have been teaching "investigators" who are really just actors this week. It’s been REALLY hard!! Especially since I can only say such limited things and understand such limited things. Yesterday Elder Reyes and I had, what I though, were our best and worst lessons. The first was our worst. We were teaching this Catholic lady and she was totally struggling with the Apostasy, because Catholics believe that the authority of God was continued on through Peter and such, and Elder Reyes and I just froze. We couldn't think of any sort of answer to that (at the time) and just rambled for another 15 mins and then told her to pray about it and we left. It was so bad.

BUT THEN! Wow. So we had a lesson with Hno. Barfuss. He was playing the role of Israel (a real investigator at one point, but he was just playing the role). Anyway, Israel has a slight drinking problem. He isn't an alcoholic, but just has a few drinks here and there. We told him that drinking is holding him back from feeling the Spirit. He asked us, why is only a few drinks on holidays and family get-together's so bad? Well guess what! Before we went in, I felt prompted he was going to ask us, so we were prepared! So we told him that in order to really feel the Spirit, we need to be always obedient. We read to him DyC 130: 20-21, which talks about how in order to receive blessings, we much be perfectly obedient. (Go read it, it’s good!) So after we shared that, I was like "YESSS! Nailed it!!" But wait, there's more!!

After that explanation, he totally understood and was saying 'Well yeah, that makes sense!' and so that was amazing. Then he asked, but "what am I supposed to tell my family, won’t they think I'm weird?" And I kid you not the Spirit took over. I testified to him that when we are following the commandments of our Heavenly Father, everything will work out. When we put Him first, it'll all work out in the end. I also told him his family is going to love him no matter his decisions. He totally understood and I think it really helped him. I was able to get across everything that I wanted and I did it all in Spanish. It was a blessing.

 This place is amazing. These people are amazing. This work is AMAZING! I love my Heavenly Father and I can feel the blessings pouring in already and it’s been like, what, 6 days?!? Insane. This Church is true. This work is called of God. I love you all so much and am so grateful for all of your support!! Till next week!

 

P.S. We have a MTC devotional tonight and it is GUARANTEED that a General Authority will be there!!  I CAN'T WAIT! So look forward to hearing about that next week!! ;) 

P.S.S. I would love to hear from all of you!! Don't be afraid to shoot me an email! Don't send me a package unless it can get here in the next couple of days because I'm leaving and won’t be able to get it!