November 12, 2010

Hey Everyone!

  This last week was absolutely AMAZING. We had Elder Bednar come and give a devotional and his talk was soooo powerful. He talked about how the 'Answer is Always in the Doctrine' and he said that too often in the Church we seek to resolve things by using applications but he says that we first need to understand the relationship between the Doctine, Principles, and Applications. He talked about how we come to understand things and that we can only understand something when the Holy Ghost testifies to us through our hearts that it's true. He also gave 2 Apostolic Blessings, one of which talked about how thru the Atonement our capacity will enlarge so we will be able to help others, such a great thing to hear!! He then closed his talk by bearing his testimony about how he is a witness of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ!! Such a cool experience for me and everyone else here, the guy is just incredible!! Also we had really really good news this weeks because we FINALLY had some Brazil visas come and I got called up to the Travel Office where they told me that mine should be here in a month or sooner!! It was so relieving to here this and hearing this news has definitely pumped up all of the Brazillian missionaries. The language is reaaally starting to come, it is so cool to see how that works!! I'm now able to read from the Portuguese Book of Mormon and actually understand what is being said and mark scriptures based on cool things that I find! I'm way stoked to get out in the field but this last week has definitely made me realize how grateful I am for the MTC. I can see the blessings of being here such as the fact that I've put on 8 POUNDS in the last couple of weeks!! I'm getting fat! Or more like, getting closer to be normal!! haha also I've seen how much easier it is for me to recognize the promptings of the Spirit and seen how greatly that has benefitted me since being here. Also I'm so grateful for the life I had before I came to the MTC and would not have changed a thing, a lot of people say how they wished they would have prepared better, but personally, this work is hard and it keeps you busy so I'm kind of glad I had 19 years to relax and be pretty lazy at times haha but the weather here is starting to get real real cold and there is no snow on the ground so it's not even fun for it to be cold. I've realized from the one day that we did have snow that it is way rad and way fun but to have to live in it with no ocean?? no way, not me! Anyways, I love you all and hope everything is going well back home. Give the kids some loves for me!!!

 

Love,

Michael