Week 2!

The mission is all about losing sight.  When I say that I mean your own personal sight, the way you see things. As you study the atonement and gain charity, you will no longer see people with your own experiences and bias, but you will see them the way God sees them.  We are all children of our loving Heavenly Father.  We are his children and  in Acts 17:29, the first few words say so quite bluntly. I've learned so much since entering the MTC and I feel so much closer to my savior.

The CCM (MTC in Spanish) is incredible.  The spirit is so strong and I know the spirit guides me daily. I was thinking about what to study and a thought came to my mind and it said "Moses" I grabbed my Book of Mormon, but the voice that directed me to Moses said, "Not that one" So I grabbed my Old Testament and opened up to Exodus. In Ex. 3:11 Moses says to the Lord,  “Who am I that I should bring the children of Israel out of bondage.”  In the next chapter the Lord says "Go, and I will be with thy mouth and teach thee what thou shalt say.”  After I read this, I understood my purpose as a missionary. The Lord said "teach", so this scripture, to me, means that I can only bring others unto Christ if I have studied and understand the scriptures in order for the Holy Ghost to direct me what to say.

But back to the Children of Israel. They ate nasty manna but the Lord made it sweet to the taste. God is the same yesterday today and forever, so just like in OT times, he made the nasty food sweet to the taste.  I think the purpose of MTC food is to purge your body of all the good food you remember so then the MTC food starts to taste good.

The Travel office told me that the Spain Visas are about a week late so I should have mine in about 3-4 days! (34 days?! no, 3 TO for 4 days, hehe)

I found out that my building, number 14 used to be the party spot. Other missionaries would all gather in building 14 and just be plain crazy.  The MTC presidency found out so they weren't too happy about it and so it used to be party at 14, but now, its Stalag 14.  We have a branch presidency member show up randomly at night to make sure we are following the rules.  It gets quite annoying.

My Mom sent me a package and in this package was a box of "Tangled" fruit snacks (the Disney princess movie) and as I was opening the box, another elder in the room saw it, grabbed in and took off with it yelling "It's mine now!" or something to the effect.  I chased him down and tackled him onto a bed trying to wrestle the box out of his hands.  About 4 more elders saw the Box with Princess Rapunzel on it and tried to take it as well.  Finally when there was just a huge mass of elders attempting to take the box and was able to wiggle it out. I booked it to my room where I threw it into my closet and threw my pad lock on it! HA! SHE'S MINE!  I need to be more careful when my mom sends me snacks with beautiful Disney princesses on them!

All I really do in the CCM is study.  I wish I could send pictures but the computers here are pretty wack-o.  The other day in class my companion and I (His name is Elder Geest, from Grand Junction CO.  Every time he says "Grand Junction" I say in a loud western accent "All Aboard!") taught a lesson but the objective for this lesson was to only speak for 15-20 seconds.  It was pretty fun and we did and well because we watered down the whole first lesson to the main points.  We taught the investigator the whole first lesson in about 2 minutes.  It was fun! 

My Spanish is improving every day but I am much better at understanding it then I am speaking it.  I can't say much but I understand when the teacher speaks only in Spanish.

Well I am glad I am in the service of the Lord and that I will be used by the Lord to bring salvation and his restored Gospel to all the ends of the Earth.

Thank you everyone who have been mailing me letters! I hope that this email finds you all well and in good health!

- Jason