The MTC- Week #3

August 24, 2017

Ok things are finally starting to pick up here. I officially am half way done with the MTC! This week was weird. A saying here is that a week in the MTC feels like a day and a day feels like a week. It is so true. They keep us so busy. My spanish is slowly but surely coming. I do not stress about the language though. My companion is always like "I do not even want a P Day, we just have SO much to learn. And I am like WELL I AM SO READY FOR MY P-DAY." I just tell myself, I have been here for 3 weeks. It takes a LONG time to master a langauge so I just try my best. We have started playing this really fun game called "Who is the Latin." Everyone in our district is not allowed to talk in english during class in front of the teacher. The teacher goes out of the room and we pick someone to be the latin, who under no circumstance can speak english. We go through the day and if she hears anyone speak english then she can cross their name out and the list gets shorter for who the latin is. At the end of the day, she has 1 guess to pick who the latin is. If she gets it right, we have to buy her something from the store here, and we win then she has to play us at least a 10 minute church related video. Videos are gold here haha. My prayer last week went so well. I did not mess up on the spanish, but right as i was starting my prayer the video screen behind me starting playing this loud video of a girl screaming accidentally. hahaha so funny. Everyone was looking at me. I am feeling way better as my cold is gone. Monday, I weirdly woke up and threwup in my toilet and then I was totally fine. I think it was the hot salsa. We are now the older group of people here at the MTC so everyone looks at us like we are so cool haha. I got to go to the temple again last week. I love the temple here. It is about an hour away but everyone sings on the bus ride and it reminds me of choir. The grounds are so pretty and in the middle of this sketch area, so the temple REALLY stands out. My district and I are becoming closer everyday. We all play basketball together at Gym time and we are now joking with each other, which is a good sign. Elder Dyson is my best friend here. He wants to go the to U after his mission, but he want to room with me, so we joke that we will live half way between SLC and Provo. I was really worried this past week because hsi back was really hurting. he got in a car accident before his mission similar to ME. But I feel great. He went to the hospital and they took X-Rays. The doctor here said he might have to go home. My whole district gave him a priesthood blessing. He came back from the hospital and they cleared him to stay. I love my district but all of my favorite people are going to other missions and my least 3 favorite are the ones going to my mission, BUT I think we will become closer. Elder Kimber in my district turned 20 this week. Ouyr teacher brought him a cake and I guess it is a Mexican birthday tradition to shove the cake in their face. So right after we all took a picture, my teacher told him to smell it and then he pushed it up into his face HAHA. SO funny. I love my teachers.

We got to hear from 3 apostles this week via video from the Provo MTC. Sunday, we heard from Elder Bednar. He talked about the light of christ and how we always need to keep our light and flame burning. We need to be careful not let the worldly thing diminish our light and keep us from what is really valuable. Sunday night we heard from Elder Ballard. He talked all about locking your heart and not flirt with girls here haha. It is really important to be totally focused on the work at hand. He said the rewards will be much greater and the time will go by faster if we do not let our past 19 years get in the way of our next 2 years. ALSO, I saw Alyssa Coons in the MTC choir on the screen and I got so excited. Tuesday night we heard from Elder Anderson. I also saw another friend from BYU-H in the choir. Alyssa Odom. He talked about prayer and how to become personally converted. We are parts of the Lord's army. He said the MTC is very difficult. Through prayer, faith, diligence, and obedience we will love it. He shared the story of President Hinckley and how we was convinced his mission was a waste of time. I loved his dad´s simple response: forget yourself and go to work. We can be an instrument in His hands if allow ourselves to be. It really is an amazing blessing to know that His name is literally always on us. It stands out on our nametag. Elder Anderson reffered to it as a "badge of honor." One thing that hit me was when he said "prayer for miracles and expect miracles." We have miracles EVERYDAY in our lives. Tender mercies are little miracles. We need to recognize these things in our lives and not take them for granted. I love missionary work and I feel lucky to be here. Obviously there are a lot of low moments in addition to all the high moments, but that is life right? Nothing is easy that requires a lot of work and determination.

Thanks for all the letters and emails. Seriously my favorite parts of the day are when we get letters at lunch, language study, BOM study, and my very favorite is when I gte to go to bed haha. They are LONG days here. Love you all!

~ Elder Nord

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