I loved the treats that I got in the package. I'm kind of surprised at how well all of the kids knew me. Thanks for all the letters you guys sent with the package. I will try to write you guys back and have those mailed out sometime this week. The MTC is crazy busy. From 6:30 in the morning til10:00 at night I have somewhere to be and something to be doing. My companion's name is Elder Tingey, He's the one that is wearing the white glasses. There are six elders in my district including my companion and me and of them four of us are going to Comodoro Rivadavia and the other two are going to Cordoba. I have learned quite a bit about Spanish in the week that I have been here. I'm really surprised at how much I was able to learn and how fast I was able to learn it. One of the most spiritual experiences I have had while at the MTC was last night at the Sunday night movie. I was watching a talk that Elder Holland gave last Thanksgiving at the MTC the entirety of his message was about how grateful he was to be born in the last dispensation. He said that if you look at all of history the gospel has been put on the earth several times but it has never stayed around very long or been accessible to very many people. He said that all of the prophets in those days probably knew that they were going to fail. They all knew that what they were doing wouldn't be enough. But, they all probably saw a vision of our days and they all knew that eventually the gospel was going to spread over all the Earth and that there would be 48,000 missionaries out in the world proclaiming the message of the gospel. That is probably why none of them ever gave up when things got really bad. When Peter was crucified upside down and when Paul was being beheaded they all saw our days and knew that what they had been doing wasn't in vain. And we seem to take all of that for granted. We have been given probably the greatest blessing we could have ever received and we don't stop to think about how awesome it is. And when we do think about it we say, sometimes glibly, "We must have been really special in the preexistence to have been chosen to come down in the last days before the gospel is restored. But are we any more deserving than the pioneers? Or all of the people that came before us and tried to preach the gospel? What did we do to be better than them and to be chosen to come down now in this time as opposed to any other time we could have come down. What did we do? Why do we deserve this? I think that when the veil is removed from our eyes we will then truly appreciate what we have and why we got it and we will probably cry and mourn that we didn't get it sooner or that we didn't understand it better than we did.
On a different note the cafeteria food has been really good. And the MTC choir is one of the best things here in the MTC. The choir director knows so much about the stories behind the songs that he makes them come alive and have new meaning for me. He taught me that the song Nearer My God to Thee is about Jacob the brother of Esau. When he got the birthright Esau was going to kill him so Jacob had to flee into the wilderness. He left so fast that he wasn't able to bring any supplies with him. When night fell he laid down and used a rock as his pillow. That night he had a dream that he saw a ladder coming down from heaven and angels told him what he needed to do to climb that ladder. That's what the song is about. His dream. I didn't know that and now that I do I have a new appreciation for the song. It's way cool.
I'm glad that Zander is helping out without complaining and that Max is doing well with football. I think it's awesome that Callista is a little social butterfly but it's crazy to think that she's already able to text and call on a cellphone. Also thanks for sharing that talk. I really like it and it helped me to feel a little bit better. I've been feeling really homesick the last couple of days and it's been hard for me to focus entirely on the work. I feel tired all the time and kind of down. But that email and the talk from Elder Holland have definitely been good pick me ups. I have also used my journal to help out as a pick me up. I've enjoyed being able to write everything down that I'm feeling and then leaving the rest up to the Lord. He has definitely been answering my prayers recently and I love it.
I love all of you guys and miss you a ton. I'll email next week.
Michael
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