Hello everyone. so the computer didnt work the first one i tried to i had to exit out which took away 5 of my minutes so i only have 25 min for everything today so i'll go fast.
This was another great week in the MTC and today marks the one month point. It is crazy that it has already been a month. I have gotten into the routine of everything now and even the very long and busy schuduled days seem to go by quickly and the weeks also go by quickly. IT seems like i just wrote you. I honesly dont remember very many things taht happened this week. It all kind of blurs together so thats the reason i have my journal i guess. I write in it almost every day so i looked through that and picked out the things i want to say.
Over the week a lot of really amazing things happened, all of which i am very greatful for. The first cool thing that happened was Bro. Mcpherson shared his conversion story with us. Again, i'm pretty sure he's going to be the prophet someday. He was basically a golden investigator. His girlfriend invited him to church and gave him a bom for his 18th birthday. He didnt read it for a while but then he went to church with her and he felt something different. he said one of the big things that made him know this church was different was how his gf's family acted. He was with them one night when they had family prayer. He was amazed at the relationship they had with their heavenly father and how close they were as a family. The little girl who gave the prayer prayed for him and their family and it touched him. He began reading the bom and couldnt put it down. He said he didnt have any time to read except for very late at night and he said the spirit must have helped him stay awake all that time for the 2 weeks that he read it until he finished it. He was truly converted through the spirit and the book of mormon and through an example of a family. That is a good reminder for all of us to not be afraid to share what we know to be true and to always be an example. It also shows how powerful prayer is and specifically family prayer.
Class this week went well. We had mostly subs because our teachers were on vacation. We got a lot of different teachers and it was cool to see their teaching styles. I really do have some of the greatest teachers in the mtc, and all the teachers here are really amazing. The TRC this week, we had to speak in spanish so a person about their commitments and teach the second lesson. It went really well. We practiced teaching it like a million times before the TRC too so that helped. I am finding that the spirit can help me come up with new things to say. It is hard not to just do that same thing over and over again when teaching and to always strive to improve, but i try my best to always find new scriptures and insights taht i can use. I wish i could share them with you, but i just dont have time! only 13 min now....
I was chosen to be one of the missonaary talks this week. I had a feeling all week that it was going to be me, and sure enough when it was time for the talks president stephans gets up, looks over at me and says elder so and so and elder smith will give us our talks today. This was def not the talk I would have chosen to speak abouit and before i went up i wrote down a few more last minute scriptures, and basically had some nots and had to wing it. I had like 6 scriptrue references and i found that i came up with a lot to say. The topic was knowledge. I started out from my notes, and i really felt how the spirit put things in my mouth. I started connecting things that i had learned here in the mtc to scriptures and other points that i had made, none of which i had thought about previous to standing up there. My talk went well and i was able to bare my testimony on knowledge and obtaining knowledge for the building of christs church. this experience, though not too significant, strengthended my testimony of the ability of the spirt to help me say what the lord wants. I will need much more help in this with spanish and when teaching real lessons to real investigators.
This week i may have to play the piano in church and i am also working on a piece with two guys for a devotional in front of 2000 missionaries! we'll see how it goes.
A spiritual message that i'd like to share quickly is some of my thoughts based off of something that one of our subs taught us. He talked about the difficulties of a missionary and how we will face many trials. I would like to relate it to all of our lives. OUr purpose here is to come unto christ and to keep his commandments and do the things that he has asked us to do in order to receive eternal life. We can not do this on our own and that is why the atonement is so important. Though the atonement is not all that we have, God has given us the spirit of the lord to help us do what is right. The sub made the point that we are to give all that we have and that the lord will make up the difference through whatever means. The bro of Jared was asked to build barges and to go to the promised land. The best he could do was bring a pile of rocks to the lord. This is something average, something human, but the best he could do, and god took what the bro of jared had (these rocks) and turned them into something godly, and something amazing. This is what i am striving to be. I am something average. I am flawed and i need his help and that is what i am here to do. I am here to put all taht i have into teaching this gospel and then the lord will help me to be and do the thing taht he needs me to do. And you should all try to relate this to any part of your life that is aplicable.
Elder Smith
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