Ive been out for a month tomorrow! Epic? Cha. So first off... DONT SENT THE IPOD YET! Ill tell you why in a sec.. actually ill just do it now. We had Jenny Oaks Baker at our devo on sunday, and to make it short, she was absolutely insane (daughter of Elder Oaks... so yeah, he was there too). She is kind of a HUGE deal. Her introduction from President Smith (of the MTC) was like 10 minutes long and it included like 9 albums, Carnegie Hall, and some legit music school. Oh, i forgot to mention... VIOLIN. And her latest album is like #1 on some random list. But before you send the ipod, i want her music! Best violin playing i have ever seen. She just ripped everything and it was incredible. Also, for 4 kids later and at least 40 years old (so we imagined) she looks really good. And im understating it because i wasnt supposed to be noticing that anyway :)
Okay so, ima start a little, "Word of the Day" and a "Scripture of the Week." This week's word is "Fantasmigoria." I dont know if that is the right spelling because i dont exactly have the ability to look it up. But basically it means, "Life shown before your eyes in bubble, kaleidoscope fashion." How awesome is that?
Scripture of the Week. It is found in 3 Nephi 29: 8 and it makes it so that we can no longer make fun of the jews.. which i never did anyway :) It reads, : "Yea and ye need not any longer hiss, nor spurn nor make game of the Jews, nor any of the remnant of the House of Israel..." I did not know that even existed!
What else is new... Elder Hess and i are like... bros now. Its chill. We got to clean the gym this week and got to use the Ghost Busters Vacuums... oh yeah, it was legit. We got a lot of photos cause we just had to. We also have turned a thai verb into a noun/name. "Klua" means to be afraid or scared. We named an Elder that.. now i know that sounds harsh but seriously! He is terrifying! He is at least 6.5 and so unproportionally large up top. And he is going Korean speaking so i am worried about our people mom! Every time we see him, which is a lot, Elder Hess and I can see each others terror in our eyes. Scary stuff. Theres another person who we call KLUA but thats for a different reason.. ill explain that in the letter follow up.
Okay since i am short on time i dont remeber all of the questions i was trying to address so i guess ill get into this weeks awesomeness.. cause it was awesome (Yiadyiam!). So for Brother Saakha (and Duval) we are the roudiest district they have ever had. They have had to try and calm us down with plenty of talks but we never seemed to get it. So on wednesday, Brother Saakha stopped and started scolding us again (lovingly of course) and i got defensive.. not to the point where i was talking back, but to the point where i wasnt listening because i thought that it was someone else trying to tell me that i needed to change who i am for the mission. He told us that we were going to go on a "walk" where we would just walk around the MTC and think about everything. At first i was reluctant to even think about anything because i didnt want to pray to heavenly father and ask what to do because i was afraid that he would tell me that yes, i needed to change. But i swallowed my pride and asked anyway. As I offered up my feelings to him, i felt the spirit in a very unique way; the first like this. This time in my prayer my thoughts were SO clear... usually they are wandering to something else. But here, it felt like a real 2 way conversation... id hate to relate it to this but its the best i can think of in this day... it was like instant messaging.. i asked and received SO CLEARLY almost instantly. There were no distractions around me, or in my head. I asked what it was i was supposed to do.. was i to change who i am? The answer came as clear, if not more clearly, than if Heavenly Father had written it in the air. It was a distinct, "No." The spirit told me that No, i should not change... Before my mission many people told me that i had a strong testimony or a particular talk was moving... i really appreciated those comments and it humbled me.. but the spirit explained to me that it was not because of my gospel knowledge of scriptorian-like intellect.. in fact, i hardly ever used scriptures when i spoke. The only reason (well not only) i got to the MTC was BECAUSE of my personality. All i needed to do was to add the gospel knowledge that comes from being more focused at the MTC. I hope that sounded clear? If not, its cause i am rushing as i only have 3 minutes left. Basically i have never been good at recognizing the spirit, or even feeling it for that matter, but this time i absolutely knew that that was from Heavenly Father. Real quickly... we had another TRC. Remember how i said we did so bad the week before? This week was at least 10 times better.. we really felt the spirit because our thoughts and teaching methods were clear and definitely directed on a path that made sense. It was stark contrast to witness both with the spirit and without. YOU CANNOT TEACH THIS GOSPEL WITHOUT THE SPIRIT. It is impossible. You can teach people all you want about your knowledge of the gospel but if you dont teach according to the promptings of the spirit no one will feel the need to live by what you are teaching. There IS of course more to this, but thats the start.
Okay i got to wrap this up.. 1 minutes left. Love you all and thank you so much for all the support that has gotten me here, and sustained me during this mighty change. Our phiithays leave in 5 days and then we are phiithays! AHHHH!!! What up ENC!! Keep those letters coming cause they are awesome. Sorry Josh that i could get you an email but ill write a letter in just a sec. Love you! PEace
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