Semana 2: 7/26/16

Hola everyone!

Everything is going good here at the MTC!  It feels like I have been here forever and it's a little hard to swallow sometimes that I'm still here for 4 more weeks.  I've really enjoyed it here though and I'm sure I'll be sad to leave when the time comes.  I'm just ready to get to Costa Rica already and be outside in the real world haha.  We take every chance we get to leave the MTC (Spirtual prison) even though we can only go across the street for exercise and when we go to the temple.  

I feel more adjusted to MTC life even though it's still weird sometimes.  It turns out our investigator "Sophia" wasn't real and she's our teacher now haha! Alex had told me that would be the case but it's still weird that we were just teaching her and now she's teaching us.  Me and Elder Millward taught her 4 times and she accepted to be baptized in our last lesson!  Even though it was fake, it felt real and it was a really cool experience for me.  We just started teaching a guy named Brian this week and he's supposed to be real but Alex told me he's fake haha.  In fact, Alex and his companion actually just finished teaching him and he's apparently a really cool guy so I'm excited. I'm a little bummed that he's not a real investigator but it doesn't change anything really. You still have to try really hard and teach with the Spirit to have a good lesson and convert the person they are pretending to be.  During our lesson we had with him, I got a little frustrated to say the least (for my college friends, "Smitty" came out a little bit haha). He was half asleep for most of the lesson and it's hard enough to teach the things we're teaching when the person is awake.  Plus we're trying to teach him in Spanish and it's really frustrating to not be able to say exactly what I want to say.  The lesson lasted an hour somehow though and we didn't really teach him a whole lot cuz he'd fall asleep every time we tried, but it ended really well! I said the closing prayer in Spanish and I felt the spirit so strongly.  After I finished, Brian told us that he felt it and that he's not used to feeling like that.  Even though the lesson was kind of a failure overall, that was a super great experience for me and hopefully when we teach him tomorrow we'll be a little more prepared and it will go better.

Sorry if I'm saying too much spiritual stuff.  It's what I do for the majority of the day now so it's kind of hard not to haha.  Our district always plays sand volleyball for exercise time and it's always super fun.  There's nothing like relieving your stress by spiking a volleyball really hard haha. It was also really fun getting new elders last Wednesday.  It's funny cuz we're really new but it was funny messing with the newer elders.  They somehow set off the fire alarm last night at 10:30pm and everyone had to get out of the building.  Also some kids ate some ghost peppers one night as sort of an initiation and everybody was going crazy haha.  Me and Alex ate some normal peppers that they found somewhere around the MTC and we both felt like we were going to throw up they were so hot haha. 

Other than that everything is going good and I'll try to write more interesting letters from now on.  

And one of the elders in our dsitrict put all our pics on one link but didn't share it with me so I'll get that from him and send a lot of pics next week.

-Elder Smith

Week 1: 7/19/16

Hola everyone!!

Everything is going good here at the MTC! This week has been kind of crazy adjusting to everything, but I think I'm doing okay.  We're only given an hour to read all of our emails and respond to them so if I didn't end up replying to your email I'm really sorry! I wish we had more time. One hour is not nearly enough time.  I'll try to type even faster next week though.  

Alright... I don't even know where to begin.  I have like 10 minutes left so I'll do my best.  I guess the coolest thing that happened this week was the devotional on Sunday.  Why? DAVID A. BEDNAR spoke!! That was the first time I had heard from an apostle in person and it did not disappoint.  The spirit was so strong and it's easy to tell why he's an apostle.  At devotionals, you usually have a guest speaker for an hour, and then you have an hour after that to watch a movie (but when i say movie, it's just watching someone else speak on a screen).  Anyways, we started off with a movie with all the missionaries in the MTC (which there are 2400 in the provo MTC right now!).  They showed a talk by David A. Bednar which they recommend all missionaries watch there first sunday in the MTC.  Everyone was confused as to why we were doing this, but it was clear once Elder Bednar walked out after the movie was over.  He didn't give a talk, rather he invited anyone to ask him questions and he would answer them.  It was so cool to see him respond to each question, and not only answer the question, but answer 5 other questions that no one had even asked in the same response.  

Other than that, nothing too crazy exciting has happened.  My spanish is coming along but still not where I want it to be (which is fluent, but that's not realistic).  It's cool to see how everyone else's spanish in my district is coming along too cuz a lot of them don't have much experience but they can already understand and say quite a bit which is amazing.  The gift of tongues is real!! I feel it each time I teach our investigator Sophia (which we're pretty positive is just an MTC teacher pretending to be an investigator, but we still act like she's an investigator none the less).  

The MTC can be really hard sometimes but I know it's super important that i stay focused and learn as much as I can while I am here because I'll be that much more prepared for when I get to Costa Rica (which is in 5 weeks!) You're so busy that you don't even have hardly any time to think about anything but what you're doing.  Luckily what we're doing is so great and worthwhile!

I love and miss you all and again I'm sorry I don't have time to respond to all of your emails. I'll make sure to type faster next week.  Thank you so much to everyone that sent me letters and packages! It really helps me get through the day!

-Elder Smith

Pictures: Me and my companion, Elder Millward, Me pointing to my mission, and My district in front of the Provo temple.

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Welcome to the MTC: 7/15/16

Hola everyone!

I have officially survived my first few days at the MTC!  It has been quite an adjustment and I am still adjusting but I am truly loving it here.  You really do feel like a "deer in the headlights" almost all of the time so I can't wait for when that goes away haha.  In my district there are 8 elders (including myself) and 4 hermanas.  There are 5 of us going to the Costa Rica San Jose West mission (4 elders and 1 hermana), 2 elders and 1 hermana going to Los Angeles, 2 hermanas going to Posadas Argentina, and 2 elders going to Rosario Argentina.  I have such a great district and I actually got assigned to be the District Leader last night!! I was already feeling like I don't have enough time to do all the things we have to do in a day, so it will be an interesting experience to say the least to be a District Leader.  I'm so grateful to serve as a leader though and I'm sure it will be a really great thing for me.  I think I know quite a bit more spanish than the rest of my district so I'm able to help them a lot.  My companion's name is Elder Millward and he's from St. George, Utah.  He's just out of high school but he's awesome.  Also... Me and Elder Kimberling (Alex) are in the same zone!! I think there are about 2400 missionaries in the MTC right now so it's amazing that we're in the same zone, live in the same building, and live on the same floor.  It has been and will be so great to see him every day, especially since I'm still adjusting to the missionary lifestyle haha.  

Today, our 3rd day, we taught an entire 30 minute lesson in spanish to our investigator Sophia.  I could not believe it when I heard we were going to do that but we were able to do it.  It didn't go amazing but me and my companion were at least able to hold a conversation with her for the entire time which was a miracle in itself.  I did a lot of the talking from our companionship so I think my companion was a little scared because he doesn't know spanish as well.  He knows more than he thinks though so I need to try to help him speak up more.  I'm sure I made a ton of grammatical mistakes but I think for my first lesson, it was pretty good. 

I don't have a ton of time to say much else but my P day is on Tuesdays so I will email more then. I love and miss you all!

Pura Vida!

Elder Smith