Week 9!

April 29, 2010

Haha! Wwell looks like I’m still here at the MTC. It's kind of weird cause we said goodbye to everyone last week and thought we had gone to the temple for the last time. It's been good though. This last Tuesday, Elder Parry came to the devo. He talked about how important the Book of Mormon is and told this really cool story about this boy who went and worked on a farm where Martin Harris lived during his last few years of life. He said when the boy first met Martin, Martin had him read the 3 witnesses of the Book of Mormon and then stood up and pounded his chest and said he was Martin Harris. The boy was there when he died and said that till his dying breath he testified of the BOM. Yeah, this week has flown by. There are like 50 other missionaries waiting to go to Mexico too and no one has gotten their visas this week. I guess they even harder to get than normal right now for some reason is what someone was saying. I know we'll get out of here when the Lord wants us to though. Patience is one of those trials of life though haha. It's been snowing and raining down here since yesterday. It was pretty cold standing outside for a couple hours yesterday while we were hosting. It reminded me a bit of when I first came to the MTC but that was in February haha.

This week we did our first and last calls in the RC in Spanish. Apparently, they are pretty much shutting down the call center because they don't advertise on TV anymore. It was really interesting doing it in Spanish though. Especially when the person would start talking a million miles an hour haha. It was good practice though. Thanks for answering the phone by the way on Friday, one of the elders in my district called his family like 15 times and couldn't ever get a hold of them so he ended up calling his brother that doesn't even live at home anymore. It was a bit weird to talk on the phone though. 5 minutes was definitely not enough time. I'm really hoping we will be gone by next Sunday though so I’ll get to call again on Mother's Day.

During Sacrament meeting this past week they sure kept me busy. First off I’ll give some background info. Every week we're all supposed to write a talk in Spanish and after the Sacrament, they announce who will give their talks. I've written one every week but I decided not to this week because I had to play the piano, bless the sacrament, sing a song, and give my "goodbye" testimony. Of course, they called up another elder in my district and me. Both of us didn't have anything prepared. I was lucky I went second so I was able to find a scripture. I pretty much had to give a talk about patience "off the cuff" in Spanish. It went pretty well though despite my unpreparedness. I guess I forgot the Boy Scout motto haha.

For my scripture this week I choose Alma 5:45-47. This is where Alma is talking about his conversion. He says "I have fasted and prayed many days that I might know these things of myself" he doesn't even mentioning the fact that he saw an angel of the Lord. This is because a testimony only comes through a witness of the Holy Spirit which it talks about in the same verse. You can compare this to Laman and Lemuel because they saw an angel and witnessed many signs but never sought to truly know for themselves through pray and fasting so they never had a solid testimony of it. But yeah that's all I have for today. Thanks for everything I love you all! Church is true

Well peace out-
Love, Elder Raymond Price